Get Outside and go Hyperlocal

I recently came across outside.in, a self-described "hyperlocal news and information service" that helps you "get news for the places and neighborhoods you really care about." The site tracks 35,312 towns and neighborhoods. You can either enter a post code or the name of the neighborhood you want to get stories about. Results are sorted by date and tags.

Neighborhoods can also be searched by categories such as 'Arts and Culture', 'Bars and Clubs' and 'Education.' This will result in an alphabetically sorted list of places with news and blog posts about them.

If you want to get even more local, you can use the radar function. It's customized to exactly where you are and what’s going on right around you. Enter a location and you'll see everything happening right around you: Blog posts, news stories, discussion posts, and Twitter updates.

The site can be a bit messy. You can't search local places by tags, just by categories. Why, for example, isn't there simple search for a 'news' tag? The category search also needs be refined, e.g. the robbery of a pharmacy was listed under services...

These little issues aside I think the basic premise of the site is great: Being informed about wherever you are.

Why rely on the local press when you can utilize a multitude of information? All the more, given that some local markets are completely dominated by one media conglomerate and its products. Breaking monopolies on information is certainly a good thing.

To utilize the site's potential even better I'd suggest the implementation of a democratic catalyst – aka a voting system a la Digg – as this would bring noteworthy local stories to the attention of more readers, a function the traditional press still excels in.

The site should also be optimized for mobile devices to exploit its potential best; another possibility would be an app for the iPhone which instantly let's you know what's happening in your hotel's/ business partner's/ friend's neighborhood. Wherever, whenever. GPS detection would even make make entering a post code redundant.

You could combine the service with a program like Calibre. Calibre has built-in ‘recipes’ to download articles from news outlets' RSS feeds to present them in a much more streamlined e-book type format, and can then transfer this information to mobile readers. By this, the articles can also be consumed offline.

Imagine customized RSS-feed turned into your own personalized local newspaper complete with all the sections you'd normally expect from a press outlet. From politics to sports, complete with illustrations, except with more updates.

The potential of sites like outside.in is tremendous. No wonder the future looks tough for the traditional press.

-Jens

Emotional Fallout

One of the games that I've been playing obsessively lately is Fallout 3. Despite me having spent more than 60 hours in its post apocalyptic wasteland, I'm yet to get tired of the title's incredible narrative architecture. As Clive Thompson points out on Wired:

It's an incredibly bleak game. Critics have lauded it for its complex-but-intuitive gameplay, its intriguing story and a go-anywhere world that outdoes even the sprawling burbia of Grand Theft Auto IV. But for my money, Fallout 3's accomplishment is more subtle:

It's depressing.

Fallout 3 indeed excels in creating an environment that is filled with stories of despair, struggle, violence, crushed dreams and hopes. Exploring the environment reveals countless little stories about life in the wasteland and life how it used to be.

Two skeletons lie next two each other on a bed in a destroyed wooden house, at the end the burned leftovers of their child.

An example Thompson gives:

There's a little girl who was found under a bed, and who's now living with a guy who rescued her, trying to avoid the pedophiles in her safe zone. And there's the mission where I was rescuing children from slavers, and tried to persuade a little girl to leave her friend behind -- telling her that "friends sometimes leave you."

"Ghoulified" characters reminiscent of their former beauty or social position, now they're just social outcasts. Every time I play, I come across something that impressively demonstrates the chilling horrors of nuclear warfare. This effect is likely to be bigger if one is actually familiar with the real Washington D.C. (the last time I went was in 1995 so many of the games locales don't have a huge impact on me).

If one digs deep enough one is even able to find documents of the tensions that lead to the attacks. Computers hold records about negotiations and safety measures. Still: The final strike must have been sudden, people even felt comfortable enough to go camping (judging by the burned out trailer I found).

One of the main differences to another masterpiece of narrative architecture – Bioshock – is that the people you encounter are not to blame for the situation they're confronted with. The erection of the Rapture and its social system was a conscious decision, a deliberate turning away from the rest of the world to create a place with its own ethics. It is consequently harder to feel empathy with any of enemies one encounters, their condition is merely the last consequence of their philosophy.

In Fallout 3 a whole world is suddenly confronted with the aftermath of the apocalypse. Now everyone has to cope with radiation, dirty water, anarchy and slavery; everyone is a victim of circumstances beyond their control which certainly adds to the emotional undertone of the game.

As Thompson points out:

Fallout 3 hammers this home early, because you actually begin the game as a preverbal toddler, waddling around a gray nuclear bunker that your father -- who appears to love you quite deeply -- has tried, and failed, to make into a happy nursery. A few little red rockets hang in a mobile over your industrial steel crib, and that's it.

Fallout 3 is an incredible achievement. If one takes the time to explore the vast, bleak world of the game – and not just pursues the action-orientated main quests – it is a very rewarding game which, as Thompson puts it, triggers reflection through pain. It is violent yet inspires more empathy than any other title I played before.

-Jens

Tagged Again!

It looks like Michelle has tagged me in one of those social media, blogging games. The rules of the game in this one are to post 7 personal things about yourself, and then tag seven other people. Since BlogCampaigning is a primarily written by both Jens and I (nobody has heard from Espen in months), I decided that him and I would write 7 things about each other.

Parker Mason's 7 Things About Jens "Schredd" Schroeder:

1.) Easy, ladies! No matter how much you love his greasy hair and thick German accent, Jens is fully committed to his girlfriend Jenna. They met in Australia, and he's going to visit her there for three months this spring.

2.) Jens once told me the funniest story that I've ever heard. It was so funny that I laughed about it for two hours before I fell asleep laughing. When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I thought of was the story and I laughed for another two hours. I couldn't even eat breakfast, and when I ran into Jens at school later that day I started laughing again. The only reason I'm not retelling it here is because you need to hear it from Jens. If you ever meet him, buy him a beer and ask him to tell you "the story."

3.) Jens isn't very good at any of the Guitar Hero games.

4.) He is, however, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject of video games of the 80s from communist Germany.

5.) He is a member of the Turbojugend, which is the fan club for a Norwegian punk band called Turbonegro. In an age where most people don't even know anyone that owns a jean jacket anymore, Jens wears his Turbojugend jean jacket regularly and proudly.

6.) The posts Jens writes for BlogCampaigning need to be edited prior to going live so that I can make sure there isn't any offensive content. You'd be surprised at how necessary this step is.

7.) Once Jens hit a guy with his car and broke the guy's leg. However, even the injured party agreed that it wasn't Jens' fault.

Jens Schroeder's 7 Things About Parker Mason:

1.) When a girl in Sydney took a picture of her friends with Parker accidentally in the background she told everyone not to worry because she had Photoshop and could easily remove him from the photo. Parker was slightly offended.

2.) While working at the same company as my girlfriend, Parker tricked her into calling the Australia Zoo and asking to speak to "Steve Orwin." This was shortly after Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, founder of the Australia Zoo,  passed away as a result of stingray-related injuries. (Parker's note: it isn't like that was the ONLY joke I played on Jenna while we worked together - she should have seen it coming.)

3.)  The only German words that Parker knows are swear words and dirty phrases that I taught him.

4.) Parker once lost his patience when trying to explain the concept of "poetic terrorism" to a very nationalistic Chinese classmate. To bridge the cultural divide, Parker delivered an impromptu lecture on the topic to his classmate then made him watch Fight Club.

5.) He lived in Japan for a year.

6.) He never got me into surfing and the amount of sport he does never fails to amaze me. Then again when it comes to sports I'm incredibly lazy.  (Parker's note: when it comes to everything but video games and his studies Jens is incredibly lazy)

7.) His reaction to the news that I was awarded a research scholarship for a trip to Australia was full of colorful language, and driven by jealousy. He also likes to call me schlampe,  which is German for "b*tch." (Parker's note: really? I always thought it was a term of affection. But considering number 5 on your list, that makes sense)

In short, the two of us are glad that we met while attending school in Australia a few years ago and like being in touch on a regular basis as we draft the occasional post for BlogCampaigning. We hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the BlogCampaigning editorial board.

Who are we tagging? How about:

Chris Clarke, Rick Weiss,  Amanda Laird,  The Berling Image,  Malte and Anthony, Claudio, and Tzero.

-Jens and Parker

The New Music 'Industry': A German Example

As an addition to the Parker's post about the future of the music industry (or lack thereof), here is an example from Germany of how the will to innovate can benefit everyone involved: in order to gain independence from the industry, hard rocking guitar pop band Angelika Express financed its last album by selling 'shares' to fans. To give fans an impression of the new album the Cologne based group first released rough versions of new songs on Myspace on a weekly basis. They then decided to issue 500 'shares' at 50 Euros (which sold out in record time and came with a detailed plan of how the money would be spent). With those 25.000 Euros Angelika Express financed the recording of their album, the album artwork, the manufacture of the actual CDs, and the accompanying promotion. They also plan to fund upcoming singles from this pool.

The thing is: Not only do the people who signed up for the shares get the new album but in return they also receive 80% of the earnings made with CDs sales and downloads (including upcoming singles and EPs) for the next seven years!

I have to say that this is really one of the most innovative and sympathetic concepts I came across so far. The band gained its independence and its fans get paid to support them. Everybody wins!

-Jens

The Cultural Background of (German) Digital Games

Over the course of the last two weeks I conducted a couple of interviews for my Ph.D. dealing with the was the perception of digital games differs in Germany and Australia. By talking to just a couple of people you can tell how the cultural history of a country also influences the way modern media is dealt with. The first person I spoke to was Malte Behrmann, attorney, secretary general of the European Games Developer Federation as well chairperson of the German developers association, GAME. Malte is also responsible for digital games getting officially accepted as Kulturby the German Kulturrat, the umbrella organization of the German cultural associations. This push always reminded me of the strategy of the early German Autorenfilm.

In an attempt to conform to bourgeois cultural norms and thus demonstrate cinemas' cultural and social relevance, the Autorenfilm (films based on the works of famous contemporary authors or written by them directly for the screen) mobilized national literary and cultural traditions against the Schundfilm ('trash film') by serving as an incentive to 'respectable' artists from the 'legitimate' stage and literature to lend their prestige to the new medium. It was basically an elevation of the medium to adhere to bourgeois tastes and therefore broaden its social basis.

Asked if he saw any parallels between these two instances, Malte Behrman answered that he wouldn't sit in his office like a spin doctor and think about how a game could be made more socially acceptable by means of "nobilitation". A statement I thought was quite remarkable as it shows how on a subconscious level Germany's long high-culture traditions and its specific socio-cultural influences still assert themselves – in a way that is decidedly different to Australia where, due to the country's different history, I never encountered a similar attitude. Here digital games – and non-hierarchical entertainment in general – never needed any form of cultural legitimation.

Moreover, Germany's cultural background allegedly influenced the way games were designed: They were regarded as overly complicated, complex and not very accessible (think complicated simulations, strategy games and management games [Parker's note: only Germans would be into "management games"]). When I was talking about this with Philipp from Yager he made the point that this might have something to do with the fact that for a very long time German developers mainly created games for the PC.

In contrast to consoles the PC was an open platform everyone could develop for without having to obtain licenses and development kids – and Germany has a very strong history of home computing. I suppose this is because the purchase of a home computer was easier to justify as it allowed its user to go beyond the mere pleasures of play. As the classical ad above puts it: "How do you land safely on Jupiter and in the next class?" With the most successful computer of the world of course! The VC20, not only does it allow you to land on Jupiter as part of a game, it also plays chess and connects people in play. Well, that but it also teaches math, physics and biology… So much for the theory, but then again this probably had more appeal to Germany's cultural history of a country defining itself in terms of Kultur and education.

This eventually also might have had an influence on the design of German games: most of them went beyond mere play but offered an 'added value' by, e.g. teaching about complex economic correlations and challenging the player accordingly. I remember people at school telling me how they refused to play Doom because they thought it was too primitive. As Jens from Ascaron put it in the interview I conducted with him: "Germans liked to play with animated Excel charts".

Obviously this was a competitive disadvantage: These games, on account of their design, hardly sold outside of Germany, probably another sign of their cultural specificity. Just like the (mainstream) American market did not appreciate the Autorenfilm with its intellectualized themes of broken identities, alienation and magic, history repeated itself 80 years later when it refused to play overly complex German games.

Of course this changed in the last couple of years, last not least because of a transition to console gaming. The Wii and especially the DS were godsend gifts - cheap and easy to develop for and… well cynics might point out that Nintendo isn't very strict when it comes to shovelware. Also German developers are amongst the leading ones in the field of mobile and browser games. But eventually it is quite difficult to rid oneself off one's cultural background. I suppose that's what Philipp meant when he said that even though you can have lived in the US for three years you're not quite 'there' yet in terms of an American (uncomplicated, commercially orientated) mindset.

My next interviews will be about support mechanisms. I wonder if the influences I just described also have an impact on how local game developers are supported by the state run institutions. What are the rules and regulations? And do they get applied eventually? Which games will be funded which won't? Would something violent yet potentially successful receive support? I already got a taste of what to expect when I informally talked to someone about these things on a party and was told that 'serious games' apparently play an important role when it comes to funding in Berlin. Not only because they demonstrate potential 'transfer-effects' (locally developed engines used for something… well, beyond play) but also because they function as a mental guide for the people giving out the finds: As a cultural/ technology-beyond-play token that helps to set everything in motion, the 'ox that draws the cart' so to speak.

-Jens

A Liberal Democracy on Par With China and Saudi Arabia: Australia's 'Net Filter Plan

The internet: decentralised, largely unregulated, not belonging to anyone, knowledge flowing freely. Australia: Traditionally having one of the strictest censorships of a liberal democracy, banning R18+ video games and behind pretty much everyone else in terms of broadband speeds. How do these two mix? Exactly… The Australian Government under Kevin Rudd plans to impose a mandatory filter for all internet users that will block sites found on the secret Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist and blacklists held by other countries. The cost: AUS$189 million. The result:

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

Where to begin… First of all there's the technical aspect: All the experts might want to read this piece on Arstechnica, which in very technical terms explains why this scheme is doomed to fail; for the rest of us there's this Register article pointing out some of the issues encountered with censorship software in other parts of the world:

Problems with "socialism" were highlighted in a piece this week in the Australian Daily Telegraph, which gleefully pointed up the link between Labour and male impotence. Apparently, filters in other countries have hit problems with their ideology for the simple reason that it also contains the word "cialis" – an anti-impotence drug frequently promoted via spam email.

They also cite a story told by former Communications Minister Helen Coonan about the time when she attempted to order some strawberry muffins online. Her department’s filter system took exception to her use of "muff" – and the order did not go through.

Similar issues have occurred over the years in the UK with home-grown filter software that is not fully thought through. In one case, an Insurance company was rather surprised to find that after implementation of its in-house filtering system, direct mail campaigns to Essex, Sussex and Middlesex ceased entirely – as did communication with the inhabitants of Scunthorpe.

A couple of years back, respondents to a Home Office Consultation in the UK were surprised to find some submissions automatically rejected by a filtering system set up in one part of that Department. The consultation was on the subject of extreme pornography – and the filter took exception to receiving emails with the word "pornography" in the title.

Secondly there's the issue of free speech. As explained here the Government has been pursuing a two-tiered scheme. The first tier would be a "clean feed" that filters porn and "illegal content," and it would be optional. The second tier would filter only "illegal content" and would be mandatory for all Australians. In short: Australians won't be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative.

This of course raises the question: What defines "illegal"? Apparently only half of the - secret and unaccountable - ACMA blacklist consists of child porn while the rest is mainly X-rated porn and sexual fetish material. And of course the calls for more are coming in: A statement by Family First member Steve Fielding indicates that any material rated above R 18+ (including X 18+ and "refused classification") should fall under the mandatory blacklist and could not be accessed through any Australian ISP. Such material is currently legal for Australian adults.

And it doesn't stop at porn:

"Any group with an axe to grind and political clout will be lobbying the Government to blacklist websites which they object to," EFA spokesman Dale Clapperton said.

(…)

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam expressed similar concerns when grilling Senator Conroy in Senate Estimates last week.

He said all sorts of politically sensitive material could be added to the blacklist and otherwise legitimate sites - for example, YouTube - could be rendered inaccessible based on content published by users.

"The blacklist ... can become very grey depending on how expansive the list becomes - euthanasia material, politically related material, material about anorexia. There is a lot of distasteful stuff on the internet," Senator Ludlam said.

Will disagreeable Wikipedia articles be banned? Reports by the opposition which highlight the failures of the Government in charge? Articles denying climate change? Where do extremist views start and stop?

Then there's potential of Big Content throwing another hissy fit about piracy: Will it be ringing up the Aussie government soon to have tracker sites added to the blacklist?

As Michael Malone, managing director iiNet, puts it:

"[This] is happening in two other countries - China and Saudi Arabia, that's who he's [Communications Minister Stephen Conroy] lined himself up with."

Colin Jacobs, chair of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia has another evil example at hand:

"I'm not exaggerating when I say that this model involves more technical interference in the internet infrastructure than what is attempted in Iran, one of the most repressive and regressive censorship regimes in the world."

In short: The scheme is expensive, won't work technically, abuses of civil liberties, impairs free speech and makes an abysmally slow internet even more slower.

No wonder that, except for some fringe groups who would like to push their moral agenda onto the rest of the Australian people, no one likes the idea.

The head of one of Australia's largest ISPs has labelled the Communications Minister the worst we've had in the past 15 years while political activists GetUp have raised over $30,000 in less than a day to support their fight against the filter.

Ed Coper, campaigns director at GetUp, said the response to the anti-censorship campaign had been "astronomical" and "quite unprecedented".

Almost 80,000 people have signed GetUp's petition and the organisation has created a widget that website owners can embed on their sites, which allows their visitors to sign the petition and obtain more information about the filtering plans.

Even children's welfare groups and NSW Young Labor has criticised the Government's filtering plans. Young Labor passed a motion rejecting the mandatory scheme and calling on Senator Conroy to adopt a voluntary opt-in system whereas Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.

She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently block legitimate resources.

So what does the Government do? Right, it tries to bully critics into silence, accuses them of supporting child pornography, and its pressing ahead with trials but doesn't give any information about the conditions surrounding them…

-Jens

Did You Say Crisis? While Economy Takes its Toll on Hollywood Videogame Sales Soar

As two world wars with record breaking cinema attendances can testify to: In tough times escapism fares best. But in contrast to earlier economic slumps it seems this time Hollywood's grip on our imagination is waning, signifying a remarkable cultural shift. As the Hollywood Reporter reveals:

Everywhere one looks, the entertainment business is in a world of hurt. The downturn is slamming the balance sheets and stocks of major media companies. Banks and hedge funds are cutting or eliminating movie financing, putting projects at studios and independents in peril. TV networks, reeling from an advertising decline, are slashing costs and trimming staffs (…) For movies, the days of easy money are officially over.

The same goes for the studio's TV shows:

ABC Studios was the most aggressive during the strike. It terminated nearly 30 overall deals, the most of any studio. Now it is the only studio so far to impose budget cuts on its shows, a 2% production cost trim on all series. That is on top of the much-gossiped-about spending cuts on wardrobe on the studio-produced hit "Desperate Housewives." (…)

In a memo from Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Michael Lynton and co-chairman Amy Pascal, the company outlines its cost-cutting measures, which include less plane travel and hotel downgrades, the restriction of corporate jet travel to top talent only, fewer print subscriptions, no internal meetings outside the company offices and cutting airport parking costs.

While the lesser talent will have to abstain from private jets, luxury resorts and glossy magazines one entertainment industry continues to deliver record numbers:

Videogame sales soared in October, with Americans spending $1.31 billion on games, hardware, and add-ons. Unsurprisingly the Wii topped the charts (803,000 untis sold), followed by the Xbox 360 (371,000 units) and the PS3 (190,000). Then there's the spectacular success of the most escapist games of them all, breaking record sales and enslaving more people than ever. Overall the video games industry is set to top $22 billion in 2008, according to NPD.

In short:

"Obviously, the economic slowdown isn't impacting this market," an industry observer told Radar. "Unlike just about every other industry on the planet, we're anticipating a great holiday season."

-Jens

Men are from Planet Xbox Women are from Planet Wii: How the Genders Play Differently

Parker directed my attention towards this short yet insightful post by Jenni Mac about how videogames appeal more and more to a female demographic:

[W]atching the report it was clear that this involvement is actually because of two very different reasons. Men enjoy the activity, the skill, and the challenge. Although some women do enjoy these aspects as well, by listening to the interviews and examining the information it is evident women are interested in video games for the same reason they are interested in many other activities, the social aspect. Women quoted enjoying talking about it, getting together with friends for parties to do it and talking to people through the video games. Therefore although women are getting involved it seems to reinforce the true nature of the differences between the genders instead of providing evidence to how they are becoming more "similar" as the report seemed to detail.

Jenni makes a very good point here – one that's also proven by sales records: The Sims, a game whose development team consists of an equal mix of male and female staffers and whose parent company Maxis has a female general manager, sold more than 100 million copies in all its different instalments with almost 60% of its players being females. What is the game all about? Basically: Being social.

This could also explain why the non-casual genre that has the biggest percentage of female players is the MMO with self reported numbers of between 20-25% female audience. As a study by the Nottingham Trent University states:

MMORPGs were found to be highly socially interactive environments providing the opportunity to create strong friendships and emotional relationships. The study demonstrated that the social interactions in online gaming form a considerable element in the enjoyment of playing. The study showed MMORPGs can be extremely social games, with high percentages of gamers making life-long friends and partners. It was concluded that virtual gaming may allow players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age.

And then of course there's the Wii which more than any other console encouraged social play: There're no entry barriers, enough content to appeal to a female demographic and sheer fun of getting together with a couple of friends in front of the TV (probably also one of the reasons why Nintendo neglects its online business). The result: Even after two years after the Wii's release Nintendo still has trouble meeting demand.

Of course men also like to be connected, but this mostly happens within a very competitive framework; Halo or Call of Duty being a case in point (probably also one of the reasons why Microsoft looks so much after its online business).

Then there's the uncanny hate/ disinterest for Nintendo's "albino waggle box“ on the part of the traditional male hardcore crowd ("I haven't touched my Wii in ages!“) not to mention the shame when buying casual games – apparently all these things offend male sensitivities and the traditional (male) technicity of the industry. But hey, what can we do? It's all in our brains.

Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can't put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play. (…) The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss, for one, isn't surprised. "I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial," he said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they're the males."

What about you? If you're a female gamer, what games do you play and why?

-Jens

Gotta Catch 'em all! The Peculiar Relationship of OCDs and Videogames

Did you spend the best part of your childhood in arcades playing Pac Man? If so chances are you have a chronic anxiety disorder... Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Research Center of Mental Illness Study found “an alarming rate of OCD” in kids who played 80s video games like Q-Bert or Pac Man.

As the author, Chris Ward, writes::

As someone who jumps out of his skin when friends blitz through levels of Super Mario Bros. and ignore the goddamned coins, I don’t disagree with this study one bit. My OCD impulses, like most people’s, are all about controlling my environment—and the virtual landscapes in games are a perfect outlet for this. On the downside, Pac-Man’s all-consuming urge to eat every last dot gets channeled right through the person controlling him.

The good news though is that games themselves are not the root of OCDs – “I don’t think games cause OCD—it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain you’re born with,” says Counselor Hillary Brady – but then again the current generation of games with their increasingly open worlds with all their disorder that somehow has to be brought under control offers the perfect playground these people.

Again Chris Ward:

Unfortunately, I was unable to complete a single level without trying to collect the hundreds of thousands of LEGO coins that appear when you break something. Note: everything is breakable. It’s the jingling noise the coins make. . .the way they zip through the air into Batman’s utility wallet. . .this simple, visceral thrill led to several uncontrollable hours of collecting shiny things. Current in-game progress as a result: 9.6%

I can relate to Ward. The last game I bought was Far Cry 2, a title with a massive environment where one of the goals is to collect more than 200 hidden diamond cases. When you're close to a case a little green light on your GPS starts flashing and it flashes quicker the closer you get. Countless times I stopped my car just to spend… well, uncontrollable hours collecting shiny things. No matter if I was in the middle of a mission or chased by an angry mob of gun yielding rebels I just couldn't resist the urge to waste a large chunk of my precious play time running around in the African Wild, climbing hills and tress and getting really agitated for not being able to complete my collection.

The same with GTA: when I got the chance to roam San Andreas I had to look up the location of all the places I was supposed to tag. I didn't immerse myself in the story and the only way I interacted with the environment was by spray painting it – also motivated by the fact that the more I vandalised my surroundings the more weapons would wait for me in the kitchen. Because you never know when you might need those babies! Which relates to another disorder of mine: The fear of running out of items.

At least I'm not the only one:

I’m convinced that there must have been some kind of traumatic experience that occurred when I was just starting playing videogames that I subconsciously blocked out, but whose moral still remains firmly imprinted in my psyche: “Save every item till the last possible moment.” It’s the only way to explain this near maniacal packratism I can’t help but display. I’ve reached the end of many a game with an over abundance of ammo and supplies, and yet I continue to hoard and refuse to use.

The next game I was going to get is Fallout 3, but truth be told: The thought of all the loot to collect, all the side missions to be done, all the endings to be seen – it makes me freak out a little.

By speaking of freaking out: The solution to these problems might actually be more terrifying than the symptoms.

"We often find that our OCD patients benefit from playing not-so-organized games like many of the '90s Super Nintendo games based on movies, athletes, and TV shows," the Philadelphia study concludes. "[Compulsion for organization] is less likely because a video game based on Shaq has never had a clear objective."

I think I prefer my disorders to Shaq Fu. What about you?

-Jens

Jens' Blog Roll

As I'm still working on my Ph.D. dealing with videogame perception in Germany and Australia my blogroll naturally differs from Parker's: It's pretty game heavy probably not as surprising or original. Anyway, here're some of my regularly frequented blogs: Gamepolitics: "Where politics and video games collide". The essential source for legal matters, censorship debates, game legislation issues, politicians' stand on digital games, all things Jack Thomspon and games trying to bring across a message. Well written and easily accessible despite the sometimes demanding subject matter.

Destructoid: Founded by hardcore gaming fans for hardcore gaming fans. Taking itself and the industry not too seriously yet surprisingly insightful, they are not afraid to advance unpopular opinions – out of conviction and not for the attention. Also features a community that is actually able to exchange interesting thoughts without adding too many insults. (One of the few sites whose users didn't threaten to kill my old lecturer and friend Jason Nelson after his project "Game, game, game and again game" got covered)

Screenplay: The Australian authority on digital games and my main resource for Australia related gaming news. Offers good interviews with those involved in the (Australian) industry and keeps a close eye on policy developments. Best enjoyed in combination with Tsumea, one of the main resources for Australian and New Zealand game developers.

Popurls: Technically not a blog but a feed aggregator collecting the latest stories from digg, delicious, reddit, metafiler, stumbleupon, slashdot, wired… Incredibly addictive yet also a great social graph of the web.

Twitter: a whole bunch of microblogs by a whole bunch of smart people.

Since I spend the longest part of my day either reading or writing I try and relate some of the stuff I come across in old-fashioned books to issues that are relevant to blogcampaigning, especially since whatever occurs in the tech/PR/game world are not isolated incidents but imbedded into a social frame, e.g. a post I still would like to work on is how social shopping is an expression of the aesthetization of everyday life caused by a shift of the fundamental semantic of society away from an economic paradigm towards a psycho-physical one… (Parker's note: I'm only letting you write that post if you use regular words)

-Jens

Beyond the Copycats: Getting in Touch with the German Start-Up Scene

I had my friends Malte and Anthony over for the week: not only did the Web 2.0 Expo take place here in Berlin but their company, iliketotallyloveit, also had been selected as one of the top ten finalists in the Zanox Web Services Contest 2008 for 1 Million Euros. During the course of their stay I had the pleasure to attend several events with them which offered me a better grasp of the vibrant local start-up scene. Vibrant for the most part as the impressions I gathered seem to support Matt Marshall's view that a lack of capital keeps German entrepreneurs more conservative than they could be: Rarely are German start-ups working on a visionary, cutting-edge idea but more often than not fall into the copycat run. Many the conversations I had included the words "They already offer this/ a similar service in the US but we...".

It's not all bland and blatant though as the winners of the Zanox contest proved. Unfortunately iliketotallyloveit wasn't one of them but it would be unfair to say that the three victorious companies didn't deserve the attention:

Webtrakk – webcontrolling, helps to measure the performance, control and improve websites' commercial success and online-marketing campaigns Triboo – e-commerce and high definition marketing of some sorts... unfortunately I don't speak Italian Servtag – near field communication based mobile solutions which offers easy and quick access to independent product information; it also allows to share your shopping habits by feeding your shopping habits to social networks

In this Servtag is similar to another interesting start-up I came across after the announcement of the contest winners: Barcoo.com

It turns your mobile into a barcode scanner and shows the information you demand e.g. by comparing prices, user ratings, giving information about ingredients of foods and their effects on your health (from the amount of fat to allergies), the carbon footprint of a company etc.

I liked these services for several reasons: – First of all it is an original idea which doesn't blatantly rip off existing sites but on the opposite has the potential to be successful outside of Germany. – I could immediately relate to it: Earlier this year I needed to buy a printer/scanner and was simply overwhelmed by the variety of options; here some orientation through easy to access on the spot information certainly would have been helpful. Another example: You're an eco-conscious shopper doing grocery shopping; with Barcoo you can base your purchases on how sustainable the suppliers' business is. – The idealism in case of Barcoo: Of course financial success is a motivation behind this project but from what I gathered the founders are also personally invested in that they supply a platform which supports consumers in making conscious choices they can identify with.

Servtag and Barcoo also go to show how potential future collaborations between the scientific community and start-ups might work: While Technical University of Munich is involved in Servtag, the Berlin based Humboldt University is associated with Barcoo which received funding under a European Union R&D grant – the tragedy which Matt Marshall laments, namely that Germany has a tremendous basic science research and some of the best engineering in the world but lacks the ability to connect engineers with company builders might still be a real one but as this example shows is none that's unresolvable.

One question remains though: Who would be willing to pay for such a service? While Servtag can monetize on affiliate programs and share valuable information about shopping habits with marketeers in case of Barcoo the industry might not be enthusiastic about too much transparency, consumers not about possible extra costs of a subscription model and an ad-based solution would cost a tremendous amount of credibility.

Whatever the answer may be, Berlin's scene will stay exciting.

-Jens

The Last Dinosaurs Decided: Google is Violating German Copyright Law by Displaying Thumbnail Previews of Copyrighted Images

As ReadWriteWeb reports a regional court in Germany ruled that Google is violating German copyright law by displaying thumbnail previews of copyrighted images. From the piece:

German photographer Michael Bernhard and cartoonist Thomas Horn had sued the Google and demanded that their images be removed from Google's index. According to the judge at Hamburg's regional court, "no new work is created" by displaying thumbnails.

Google, of course, has no way of discerning whether an image in its index is copyrighted or not. Based on this decision, we would not be surprised if Google decided to block image search for German users. However, we also assume that Google will try to appeal this decision.

Ah ze Germans… Ten years after Google they still haven't figured out the Internet: A conscious decision to prevent people from accesing valuable information about one's visual work, hampering any form of self-promotion that would somehow resemble 21st century practices; all this backed by an unwordly, anti-business court whose ruling could potentially throw the Fatherland back into ze digital stoneage. And you thought having to pay for newspaper articles on the web was a bad idea…

-Jens (Thanks for the link Malte!)

Getting in Touch with Michael Arrington by Violating Everything Social Media Stands For

If I had to describe Web 2.0/ social media with two words it would have to be "good manners": Communicate, connect, collaborate, share, exchange, listen, learn, criticise to improve not to hurt, don't mean ill but keep it nice, value people's time, appreciate their efforts, say please and thank you. Apparently a definition not shared by everyone. As the Blog Herald reports the Earthcomber CEO tried to connect with Michael Arrington – by suing TechCrunch. From Arrington's blog:

I called Earthcomber President Jim Brady this morning to verify the lawsuit. At first he wouldn’t answer - all he did was try to explain how he’s been wronged by Loopt. When pressed he did confirm that the lawsuit was filed, but quickly added that he didn’t really mean to press it with us. He wants to go to court with Loopt, but is willing to quickly work something out with us to make this go away, he told me, hinting that he’d like to partner with us. He also said he’s been desperately trying to get me on the phone but hasn’t been able to, so he decided to sue us instead.

Trying to connect with someone by violating everything the Web stands for certainly isn't a very clever idea, even more so when your aim is a partnership – which obviously isn't going to happen.

Writes Arrington:

The problem with using a lawsuit as a negotiating tactic is that you can’t put the cat back in the bag. The door is open, and it has to play out. In other words, suing someone to get them to return your calls is not exactly a sign of brilliance. (…)

I’ve asked our attorneys to spend whatever it takes to kill this lawsuit, and to find a way to counter sue this guy into the stone age. (…)

We will not be bullied, and people who file frivolous lawsuits need to be put down. I would rather run TechCrunch into the ground and go out of business than let this guy win.

Keep your good manners – keep your company.

-Jens

Preserving Our History Of Videogames

(Editors note: yeah, it seems like we're really on a videogame kick here at BlogCampaigning. If you're not feeling the vibe, we'll be back with more social media PR/posts later this week. But stick aroudn around for the videogames, because they're important.) You can tell the growing importance of a medium and its social acceptance if people deem it necessary to conserve it for the generations to come. It took a while for film – in the case of Australia even until the 1950s – with the consequence of the majority of the early works being irrevocably lost. The only idea we have of early television is because of contemporary witnesses or documents; the actual shows though are lost forever as most of them were live broadcasts and there were no means to record them – history forever carried away by the airwaves.

In order for videogames not to meet the same fate, academics at Nottingham Trent University have moved to form the United Kingdom's First National Videogame Archive.

From the press release (via Kotaku):

In addition to a treasure trove of consoles and cartridges, the archive will collect and gather a broad range of items from across the industry. It will encompass the wider cultural phenomenon of videogames by documenting advertising campaigns, magazine reviews, artwork and the communities that sustain them - the overall aim being to collect, celebrate and preserve this vital cultural form for future generations.

Dr James Newman, from Nottingham Trent University's Centre for Contemporary Play, said: "The National Videogame Archive is an important resource for preserving elements of our national cultural heritage. We don't just want to create a virtual museum full of code or screenshots that you could see online. The archive will really get to grips with what is a very creative, social and productive culture."

Sweet! The Library of Congress has actually been working on something similar for a while now. Together with a consortium made up of Stanford, the University of Maryland and the University it even proposed the idea of videogame canon, the results of which were revealed last year.

Game preserving is a really fascinating topic, especially considering the rapid hardware development. Remember 5¼ disks? Would you know where to get functioning drives? Even if one was able to locate the hardware the problem remains that one day it will break, no matter what. A fact that certainly makes a case for – unfortunately illegal – emulation. But then again isn't part of the authentic experience also to play games on the hardware they were intended for? A keyboard certainly can't emulate the awkwardness of an Intellivision controller…

And what about MMORPGs? Here preserving the code isn't the problem, but preserving the actual interactions of the players – the really interesting stuff – is pretty much impossible. How did people use certain games? How did they collaborate? What does this tell us about the society/ country/ class they came from? All these elements that transcend the actual gameplay and therefore are most interesting to analyse might also be lost forever. Any ideas what to do?

-Jens

The $7 I-forgot-my-business-cards insurance policy

Now that Parker gave some tipps on how to get started with twitter, speak in public and live happily with your job here's some clever advice that might make your life even easier: Matthew Buchanan's $7 I-forgot-my-business-cards insurance policy. While being at a baseball game with his family he met an incredibly interesting person that has quickly turned into a key contact for him and the firm. Unfortunately he didn't have his business cards with him.

Explains Matthew:

She was talking with someone else in line, so I had a few minutes to think on my feet. I came up with a solution that, honestly, I thought was goofy at the time, but that I’ve grown to appreciate. I thought “I need a memorable, personal (i.e., not the firm) domain precisely for this situation…one that functions solely to convey my contact info to folks I meet.”

I checked a few domains and settled on IMetMatt.com. I told my new friend about my gaff on the business cards, and then mentioned the domain (not mentioning the fact that I wouldn’t purchase it until later that evening). “Remember - I Met Matt - Go there tonight and jot down my info.”

End of story: She called, several times in fact. Calming your conscience for $7 and keeping in touch with people, not a bad investment!

-Jens

Using the Web to Discover Talent

A friend of mine who's a prospective movie producer asked me to act as music supervisor for his (yet to be finished) diploma project. He needed some authentic country and 50s old school rock'n'roll for the soundtrack. Unfortunately there wouldn't be a budget – and he would need the worldwide rights for an indefinite amount of time for all kinds of media (DVD, television, cinema…). Confronted with this task I of course turned to the web – to Last.fm and Myspace to be precise.

As I'm neither to familiar with country nor with 50s rock'n'roll Last FM's function to look for similar artists came in handy (beginning with Johnny Cash seemed like a good idea...) as did Myspace's search functions, the possibility to listen to several tracks and to contact the band. The seedy bottom of the internet seems to be good for something after all. In regards to  presenting and discovering music it still has quite an edge on Facebook.

In short: There's a vast talent pool out there, pretty much all our needs were covered by (mostly) unsigned or young and upcoming bands.

All this – again – made me realize just how important these platforms became for music and which great chances they offer for both parties involved. Even though we didn't have a budget for the soundtrack what we could offer was a worldwide DVD-release which surely comes in handy in terms of exposing music to new markets – we got great tunes and the bands a chance to introduce themselves to a new audience, all without a middle-man or complicated license agreements.

Another example, even though in a completely different league, are my Australian friends from Operator Please, whose career certainly owes a lot to Myspace. Just recently, they were nominated again for two Aria awards (in one category they're up against Kylie!).

So keep on posting your stuff onto the web, you never know when some random German movie person wants you for the soundtrack of his flick.

-Jens

PS Check out the trailer for my friend's old movie "Die Schwarze Kolonne" (The Black Platoon), a spoof on comic adaptations with German soap actor Tim Sander.

Fostering a Better Understanding of History? The Berlin Wall Mod for Half Life 2

Gamepolitics just directed my attention towards this interesting mod for Half Life 2: Thanks to some talented modders gamers can now experience a virtual recreation of the walled East-Berlin. Explains Garry's Mod:

The anticipated BerlinWall map has been released. The map offers singleplayer experience from the view of an East German citizen, dreaming of living in the West Germany. The gameplay in the map is non-linear, you can take many paths to west. Also, avoid making mistakes, they can be deadly, and remember to check everywhere for some sort of weapons.

The map works the best in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but like common Source-based maps, it also works in Garry's Mod. Not offering the best gameplay experience in it, but works great for posing and comics.

This is the kind of stuff I love: Using the simulational nature of digital games to foster a better understanding of historical events as they offer a grade of immersion other media don't, fostering much needed respect for the often chastised games in the process.

If the rules work accordingly. Unfortunately I haven't yet had a chance yet to play this mod (as I'm using a Mac) but from what I've gathered this might not always be the case.

According users of this forum, parts of the game involve direct armed confrontations with guards. Violence of this sort certainly wasn't part of the process of trying to flee from the socialist reign of terror as this would have been even more suicidal. Apparently it is also possible to run through barbed wire without getting injured, an aspect I find highly objectionable as one of the most gruesome deaths at the wall (or what was to become the wall) was caused but just that: Getting stuck in barbed wire, getting shot, bleeding to death.

These problems are increased by an age old problem: Trying to escape from East Germany certainly involved a lot of arbitrary factors – games rules don't, otherwise that game wouldn't be playable. Or to put it differently: Life's not fair, games (mostly) are.

By speaking speaking of belittlement: Saving the "game" or a God mode weren't options for these people who decided to take the ordeal of escaping upon themselves.

From what I could gather from the screenshots the problematic nature of this games also extends to its representation. Using Combine soldiers as an ersatz for East German border guards again is highly troublesome – just like using the iconic crowbar as a weapon – due to the connotations that spring up in our heads: The first thing I thought of was headcrabs.

As much as the creators of this mod should be applauded for trying there still are massive problems up ahead, but as a glimpse into games' potential as a tool to teach it can be regarded as a thought-provoking – yet problematic – project.

-Jens

Meet the Murder Simulator of the 1920s: The Spanish Inquisition

The 1920s, not only the "Roaring Twenties" but also the decade that saw the peak of the KKK, the rise of communism, the publishing of Mein Kampf and the prohibition – all events pointing to the social tensions of the time. Finally one of the main, yet so far neglected causes of these misdemeanors could be identified: The Spanish Inquisition arcade game, still playable at Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. It is an absolutely terrifying torture simulator, allowing the mutilation of people whose only crime it is to hold different beliefs. Rumour has it that this game was the main reason behind the Bath School disaster.

Comments Jack Thompson: "If some wacked-out adult wants to spend his time playing The Spanish Inquisition, one has to wonder why he doesn't get a life, but when it comes to kids, it has a demonstrable impact on their behavior and the development of the frontal lobes of their brain."

-Jens

"A game that's impossible to win, meant to inspire thought? Didn't Missile Command do this decades ago?" Playing Douglas Edric Stanley's Installation at the Games Convention

Not only did I get a chance to play Guitar Hero World Tour at the Games Convention (awesome drums, way superior to Rock Band's) and beat my English speaking friend John and two 12 year old girls in a round of a German version of Buzz I also came across Douglas Edric Stanley's controversial Space Invaders Installation that has players trying to fight off the destruction of the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers. Upon me asking what it was all about I was informed by a staff member of the Computergame Museum (the organiser of the exhibition), that it was a statement regarding America's foreign policy respectively that the invaders represented the terrorists who were responsible for the destruction of the WTC. I could kind of see where he was coming from: The attackers as the alien "others", hostile to our culture, blindly leaping forward without any regard for our Western values, fanatical in their compulsion to destroy, the inability to communicate and the fact that we won't be able to win this war despite our wildest gestures (as conveyed by the game's motion controls).

Trying to hit the red UFO (Bin Laden?!) by using arm movements in front of a symbol for one of the biggest tragedies of the 21st century did feel ambiguous to say the least. Eventually it left a shallow impression, I couldn't see beyond a simple juxtaposition nor was I taken by surprise by an interpretation I didn't think about before, a view which possibly could have shed a different, more compelling light on the installation.

Do I agree with the pulling of the piece? Not necessarily, after all freedom of expression is what differentiates us from the invaders. Also the fact that apparently it is OK to commercially – and cynically – exploit 9/11 (+ Pearl Harbour + several wars) by means of movies, books and merchandise while a non-commercial installation draws worldwide negative attention makes for an interesting imbalance – admittedly, in Stanley's abstract work compassion for the victims is largely absent, something which differentiates it from other media deemed more acceptable.

Nevertheless, I still believe that digital games have the potential to make strong, insightful and relevant statements. As Leigh Alexander puts it on Kotaku:

Invaders! actually accomplishes everything we've constantly asked games to achieve - it draws mainstream attention. It provokes thought and discussion. It deals with a real-world issue. It's open to interpretation. It's independently-created art.

And it stings, doesn't it, to see our hopes for the medium twisted into such an uncomfortable, painful shape. But let's not let the pain force us to dismiss it. This is an achievement.

If a shallow, transparently controversial juxtaposition such as Stanley's installation is capable of eliciting such a response then the future for digital expression surely looks bright.

-Jens

Games Finally Have a Right to Exist: German Cultural Council Accepts them as "Kultur"

After long discussions the German Kulturrat, the umbrella organisation of the German cultural associations, today welcomed the federal association of game developers GAME, as their latest member. The rationale behind this move: Games are sponsoring all kinds of arts and artists, from designer to script writer to composer; they all benefit from the burgeoning industry. Despite this somehow strange reasoning (games being "Kultur" because they help to sustain other arts instead of being accepted as cultural artefacts in their own right) Malte Behrmann, chairman of GAME, describes the decision as a milestone of German media policy. "For the first time an association of the game industry was incorporated in an institution of cultural politics. The game industry finally arrived in the cultural sphere. This is a great day for the German game industry!"

This whole procedure again goes to show show that in Germany new forms of media always need to be legitimised through the concept of Kultur – which on one hand can do miracles in terms of acceptance. After all culture epitomises an anti-barbaric distinction which perfectly serves for bourgeois self-legitimation – but then again this anti-barbaric distinction also prevents Gears of War 2 from being released in Germany and helps to perpetuate the patronising behaviour of the German state in terms of censorship.

Soon to come: Discussions about culturally valuable games whose market share is marginal at best (at least we Germans are trying our best to save the world again, even if it's just the saving the virtual world from unnecessary brutalisation).

-Jens