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

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

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

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

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!)

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

(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

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

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.

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