I recently got the album of The Lonely Island. Actually that in itself was yet another of those examples where I paid for something AFTER I was enjoying it for free on the web. I was pretty fond of some of the material of The Lonely Island on YouTube. I noticed that I visited their channel quite often that at some point I decided to just get their stuff. And of course, I got the PHYSICAL version because I already kinda had it digital.

The album is cool. A few songs are missing (“Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions”) but some others I haven’t heard yet. But that’s not the point of this post. Here is what I found on the cover:

Mommy, what is a “Motherfucker”?

So the album cover has a “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” logo on the right. I guess that makes sense if you consider the excessive foul language in some of the lyrics. After all, a lot of the songs are a parody of aggressive ganger hip-hop. But what’s that sticker on the left you ask? Well, it’s from the German FSK, the German motion picture rating system organization . They gave it the equivalent for “G-General Audiences”.

There are two explanations for the extreme discrepancy. You could always say that it is a difference in cultural values. America seem to be much more restrictive to foul language and sex while in Europe, violence is considered much more offensive. The other explanation would be that the lyrics are in English and therefore not considered offensive in Germany. That would be just one of those ridiculous grey areas associated with foul language. This actually reminds me of a recent episode of the Experience Points Podcast.

No matter what the explanation is, the discrepancy is a great example of how superficial and fragile some of our ideas of morality and political currentness are. The globalisation of culture and exposes the paradoxes of those values and puts then to the test. Even if they do not break and there is a good explanation, simply the existence of alternatives undermines the validity of those values.

That’s a good thing. What I would like to see is loosening up restrictions on media so they are compatible with perspectives of multiple cultures. But we must be cautious. The same argument could be used to establish a single, globally valid rating system by overriding diversity in favor of the values of a single culture.

And that’s the weirdest thing that came out if all this: I never thought I would find myself arguing against the inclusion of Germany in PEGI.

I still enjoy a round of StarCraft 2 every now and then. The max. 30 minute matches are great for small breaks… which then often turn into excessive breaks. Especially since it seems like I’m finally getting better at the game. I was just recently promoted to Silver League. That’s one notch about Bronze League, the rock bottom I initially qualified in. About Time!

GG

But there is one thing that bothers me. The way the league and matchmaking system works seems very obscure. From what I understand there are at least 6 different stats that express your rank.

1. The league you are in (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond).
2. The position you are in the division of your league. You are always compared to players from your division, which are random 100 players from the same league.
3. The number of points you have, which also determines your position the division.
4. The win / loss ratio, which the system apparently always tries to keep at 50%.
5. Seemingly, a mythical, invisible ELO system very much like in the old StarCraft.
6. The “favored” / “slightly favored” / “even” – indicator at the beginning of each match. God only knows how that works.

The frustrating part is that the different indicators show conflicting results and many relationships aren’t properly explained. So for example, as a bronze league player I’m constantly being paired by players from platinum or even diamond leagues. Actually, there were very few games I ever played against bronze league players. Doesn’t really feel like a “league”. Just yesterday I was paired with a player, who played 1000 games online. It said “Players Even” even though the other guy was clearly way above me in skill, points and in the league he was in.

Finally, the promotion to silver league was a complete surprise to me. The game doesn’t really explain when and why promotions happen. The official statement is that the player’s skill is monitored in regular intervals. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the rank in your division. This is a bit confusing since it makes the division rank a bit meaningless. Also, there seems to be no clear way to work towards being promoted. You just play one game after another and hope for the best.

The multi-player part of StarCraft 2 looks wonderfully polished and structured. So blind spots like these stick out even more.

You might remember a recent post I made called “Games and the Digital Age”. It turns out that it was picked up by Brian Creeden on Google Buzz. A fascinating discussion ensued!

One of the interesting tangents was the topic of the rather moderate improvements Blizzard did to the interface of StarCraft 2. Here is an interesting point made by Charles Pratt.

To me it’s like suggesting that Baseball would be better if we allowed aluminum bats in the major leagues because there would be more homeruns. While I think that it would be interesting to see in what way a different UI would change the way the game is played, games are not engineering problems and I think that it’s perfectly appropriate for the game as its played now.

Of course I disagree. Check out the discussion here. Feel free to participate!

And now to something completely different. Recreational drugs. Recreational drugs are weird. Specifically, the way we as a society deal with drugs is inconsistent. Also, there might be an interesting change going on in the kinds of drugs which are generally preferred.

A huge amount of substances is not only forbidden by law, it’s also socially stigmatized. Concepts like addiction, crime and different illnesses are a well established part of how people think about drugs. The irony is that other drugs like caffeine, nicotine and especially alcohol have technically the same effects, yet they are socially completely acceptable. I even got into situation where grown people mocked me for refusing to drink alcohol. One of them was a teacher, the other one was a priest. Go figure.

Alcohol has such deep roots in all cultures, we have become almost blind it’s effects. On the recent BBC documentary about the top 20 list of the most dangerous drugs, alcohol scored place 5 – above LSD, Ecstasy, Canabis, Steroids and Speed.

But this might be changing. I have noticed that the generation of my parents consumes alcohol casually and on a regular basis. Especially shows like Mad Men make it blatantly obvious that just 50 years ago, even hard alcoholic beverages were consumed much more casually.

It’s different today. The most widely used legal drug of the geek generation is caffeine. And caffeine in it’s original form – black coffee – is not cutting it anymore. We now have a much richer coffee culture with hundreds of variations – espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, frappuccinos and whatnot. Going beyond that, we have a wide selection on energy drinks – cocktails of caffeine and other stimulants mixed with a high dose of sugar for those long nights. And if that isn’t enough, you can still just go balls out and order pure caffeine and create your own recipes. Caffeine Jello Shots anyone?

Wait! Does that mean that people will be binge drinking frappuchinos and red bulls in the future?

Why is there a shift from alcohol to caffeine? Well, there are different ways to categorize the effect of drugs. One interesting dichotomy is between Depressants and Stimulants. Most people may be familiar with the slang synonyms – “Downers” and “Uppers”. Generally, depressants inhibit brain activity and have a calming, relaxing effect. Stimulants increase brain activity, increasing awareness and the ability to concentrate. And here is the thing. Alcohol is a Depressant. Caffeine and Nicotine are Stimulants. That’s why Coffee and Cigarettes work so well together.

Depressants were a good choice in the industrial and pre-industrual ages. These were the times of hard manual labor. The people needed a way to relax in the evenings after a day of hard work. The go-to place was the pub – a place specifically designed to consume alcohol in the evenings. But now, we are moving into the information age where work is usually of mental nature. The modern worker doesn’t need depressants, they need stimulants to overcome the fatigue caused by their work. The Stimulant counterpart of the pub is the coffee house. Coffee houses are already said to be associated with the increase of literacy and spread of literature in the 18th century. It only makes sense that they are nowadays places where you can slip in bits of work. You can check your E-Mails, write that blog post while enjoying your double latte.

That doesn’t mean that alcohol will disappear immediately. It’s a gradual shift and the changes are subtle. I have noticed that while my father preferred a beer in the evenings. I enjoy a nice cool energy drink to squeeze that few extra hours out of my day.

I have mentioned some time ago that TRAUMA has been nominated for this year’s European Innovative Games Award. As expected, it didn’t win. The prize in my category was taken by Gabarello – a game made for helping traumatized children to heal and learn to walk. Talking about impossible competition.

And that’s the thing. Generally, I don’t mind losing too much. I didn’t win at IGF or IndieCade either. Sure, the 10.000€ would have helped A LOT but on the other hand, I made it that far without external funding anyway. But in this case I’m a bit confused. TRAUMA was put into a category called “Innovative Application Methods and Environments”. Malte Behrmann presented the category at the show and explained that it was about Applied Games or Serious Games. TRAUMA doesn’t seem like a fit for this category.

Speaking of which, the entire show was a bit confusing. They put up a huge spectacle with opulent catering, a TV moderator as host and a live band as break filler. Although enjoyable, it didn’t really evoke an innovative spirit. Somehow they nominated products like Xbox Kinnect and Demon’s Souls. How are those European products? Also, there seemed to be two winners in one category. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the winners were also sponsors. But hey, I’m not a big business person anyway. Who am I to judge?

On a positive note, Tale of Tales got an award for The Path. If fact I had an very enjoyable and pleasant evening with them, Yacine Salmi from Piece of Pie Stuidos, Yu-Chung Chen (of course) and a few others. In the mids of this rather cold, industry-focused show, they were an island of heartwarming Indie mentality for me. I was surprised hearing that this was only the second award for The Path. I’m glad they were finally able to profit from this. They certainly deserved the recognition in my book. And I’m sure that Piece of Pie will also get their chance in the future.

Tale of Tales at EIGA

It may seem like I’m poo pooing yet another award show. Maybe I am. Maybe I wouldn’t write such things if I had won. To be fair, this is just nit-picking. They made a lot of things right. They booked for each finalist a hotel room, the prize money is a descent amount and the organization was really solid. All in all it’s simply a cool opportunity that should be used by more European Indies. I don’t regret participating at all. Yet again, I found the fact that I was able to meet up with some fellow indie game designers the most important part. Maybe we should start thinking about a European Indie Meetup?