Didn’t publish it just yet.

I’m thinking if I should press enter.

I have this dilemma about “where do I draw the line”. Humor is a tricky beast and one might wanna consider different cultures.

So far I’ve made it a habit not to publish stuff that has politics or religion. Those topics just lead to endless debate and annoys the dragon. If you make jokes about religion, people might take these two popular stances on the subject. One opinion is that “thou shall not make jokes about religion” (that’s side #1) which is viewed as “you old farts don’t understand humor & there’s freedom of speech” (that’s side #2). Both of these might lead to some sort of conflicts.

I sort of think jokes are okay (#2) but one should consider not mocking others (#1). Which can be difficult to balance.

Maybe I just delete the tweet.

I almost didn’t purchase the game since earlier I told that I wouldn’t purchase NHL ’11. Come to think of it, it would be silly to not to change my mind just because something that I said in the past.

Strange how we human beings are constructed so that we want to be consistent with our speech and actions.

Since I said in the past that “I’m not buying this game” (in this public blog), this somehow made me think that I shouldn’t buy the game. Not even when I can see that it’s terribly fun after winning the Stanley Cup in the demo over and over (and even though it costs 43.44 euros, and not 20 euros). In reality, +24 euros doesn’t make any difference. The bottom line is that the game is terribly fun, and all people who played NHL ’10 online have moved to play NHL ’11 online (yes, that’s a sad thing for some players – but quite cool fact from EA’s money department perspective), and that these new features are cool enuf to justify the purchase.

Also, it’s something that’s quite family friendly and something that I can play even if my baby girl is in the same room (learning hip tackles is perfectly natural thing to learn at the age of 6 months, but I don’t want to teach her how to steal cars (GTA) or shoot cops (Kane & Lynch) or smash object with your head (Mario Bros) – those are too bad things for her age).

GOG made a stunt where they made announcement that made people think that “they are closing”. Which they were not. And people felt sorry for this and showed sympathy. Later… they pretty much communicated that “oh, but we are not closing (never planned!”).

There’s tweets raving around the net judging this PR stunt where they fool people.

It’s easy to judge them. They point out that they are a small company and need to generate buzz in any possible ways. That sounds like a lame excuse in comparison if they would have simply said “we ****** this big time, sorry folks.”

Yeh, it’s easy to judge.

Luckily, they are somewhat knowledgeable on how to apologize.

Here’s what PC gamer reported them to say:

First of all we’d like to apologize to everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by the closedown of GOG.com

Apology accepted from my part.

I think GOG has made terrific effort in digging good old games from their graves, shined the plates and got us to play these wonderful classics.

Sure… they might have missed the target for this “we might close down” PR stuff, but hey – it’s people who work there. People make mistakes you know.

I don’t see much point in judging them.

That’s strike 1.

In baseball you are out after 4.

How about giving these guys a break?

Often, a better approach instead is accepting the (attacking) force and then gently leading this force to somewhere. Anyone who has trained any martial arts knows that this is the basis for many moves.

A pretty recent news is that GOG.com is offline now. They are coming back “but not in their current form” as they say. I hope they keep all the classics there, but we’ll see.

I recently saw one of their tweets, stating:

Sometimes it’s really hard being DRM-free… hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy :(

GOG.com is a place where I bought games that I had bought or pirated in my childhood. Looking around in the internetz makes me feel that people aren’t pirating GOG games. Maybe they are but I feel that there’s tons of good vibes towards GOG and people want to buy these old classics.

And I can almost bet my left hand that it must be tough to try stay DRM-free. Traditional management and publishers are so pro-DRM that it’ll be easier to travel back in time than it is to convince them that DRM is a (somewhat) bad thing.

Which gets me to my next point. Maker of Minecraft blogged about piracy and said that he is voting the Pirate party of Sweden in the next elections. He had written a blog post that you gotta check out. One quite interesting quote from it:

To people who want to get paid for their digital works, myself included, that [sharing free copies] is a bit of a problem. All of society and economics is based on an old outdated model where giving something to someone would rid the original owner of their copy, so everyone who wanted a copy had to buy one from someone else who would lose theirs, and the only source of new copies was you.

I’d like to summarize my own pirate days:

• Before I made my own games, I pirated everything
• After I started making my own games, I pirated nothing

That’s quite accurate statement and almost true as well.

Anyway. I feel that piracy is somewhat a problem. I don’t know how big problem it is, but it can be a problem.

And here’s the second problem that piracy causes. The words we use to describe piracy is “problem”. Anyone who has read anything about business knows that “problem” can be “opportunity”.

Now, how could piracy be an opportunity?

I have trouble solving this issue:

• Pirates (not Pirate Party necessary, although I don’t know what they want) want to share copies away free without paying a dime.
• That’s indeed cool and the value of the stuff increases exponentially when everybody gets to use it for free.
• But on the downside, the developers get nothing. Perhaps leading need to shut the shoppe. And then nobody shares nothing no more. Or at least something else.

That’s how I’ve rationalized why piracy is a bad thing, but I cannot ignore the fact that piratism could be an opportunity. People want to share things, and perhaps our economical system just isn’t modern enough to handle sharing.

Sure, we could think of ads and stuff like that – but pirated versions just take away ads so that also doesn’t work.

Or perhaps we simply need systems that work. Perhaps piratism is a statement against DRM, against non-easy sharing, against all the policies that make it difficult for users to consume games (or music/movies etc.).

But we soon get to the point I made earlier: what could be the new model? I’m not so convinced that just sharing everything pro bono between everybody is the answer, without thinking the developers and publishers, and for this I’d like to get some ideas and answers.

I’d also hope to get answers from people who aren’t just big time pirates (or members of the pirate party), I’d like to get answers from developers and publishers who are big time pirates & pirate party members.

Zen-wise, it might actually make sense to me to try join the Pirate Party and try and get answers from inside. I’m not saying that I would be supporting pirating in any form – heck no. I just want to get some answers.

Couple of things to note:

• No, at the moment my stand against piracy remains: I don’t accept piratism in any form (I don’t consider buying a game and then copying it/finding pirate copy for your own use in any way you want in any platforms you use to be piratism – but that’s just me).
• I hate DRM.

I think I need to first change my own image about piracy. If I keep describing piracy as a problem, I’ve already mentally labeled it to something bad.

Some days ago I started to feel pretty annoyed about the fact that there was some dust and sand or whatever on the floor. When I walked over it – bare feet – those small nasty lil things felt annoying under my feet.

In fact, this was so annoying, that I just had to do some vacuum cleaning right away.

It’s not the first time this has happened, and probably won’t be the last time.

In fact, I can see this same phenomenon happening everywhere. People are getting pissed off about something so much that they spend tons of time improving it. Just to stop the annoyance.

Refactoring happens quite often due this. It’s not that we really always need to clean the code… it’s to stop the annoyance that we feel when facing the unclean code. At least sometimes.

Care to give me an example from your own life (gamewise or other) from this phenomena? Don’t tell me that this has never happened to you.

But the next time I just had to reset the timer to 00:00 and was like “phew”. Now things are in shape again and I can enjoy my orange juice in peace.

I’m no control freak but like to keep things organized.

Still, it’s a bit of a mystery to me why humans (or at least one of them) are designed this way? Rationally thinking, there’s no need to reset timer from 03:27. Reseting takes like half a second of my time so it’s okay to leave it there. It doesn’t hurt anybody.

But annoyed me enough that I had to do the reset after passing by it couple of times.

Pretty crazy. Kind of.

If you have a character called “a dead terrorist” who talks this and that, chances are you are insulting somebody.

If you make jokes about different countrymen… you’ll mock somebody.

In fact, unless you are mocking yourself with jokes… chances are you are offending somebody else. Possibly.

One indie developer is doing game about private parts. That will most likely offend somebody. There’s all sort of humor going on in games (and inside game dev teams).

Some people think that “hey, if you are offended by this – go to other room”. It’s like everything should be tolerated… since “it’s just humor”. But is it so? Is it so that everybody should tolerate the guy who makes the worst jokes in a game dev team?

Is it okay to present offensive stuff and make jokes about it? How offensive is fine?

Where and how do you draw the line?

Here’s what I have to deal with:

The orangehead story
Me: “Here’s a list of games we can play then.”

Orangehead: “But I won’t participate unless there’s good games.”

Me: Well, what games you want? Why cannot you show some support? This is a team effort, no time to go solo. Everybody needs to show some team spirit here!”

Me thinking secrectly: (What a goddamn orangehead. This type of situation doesn’t very often and this dude is already ruining the plans even before we get started)

And so on
No matter how much we force our own opinion, they just don’t get it.

Orangeheads.

Here’s one lil thing that has helped me to see to the other side of the fence. It requires a big drill, but after there’s a hole – I can take a peek and have little more understanding why these orangeheads act like they do.

The drill philosophy states that: “People do the best decisions from their point-of-view”.

If I start thinking this… I can think that perhaps the Orangehead in the story isn’t that orangehead after all. Maybe he really wants to participate, but is concerned that there aren’t good games to play. Maybe he would be fully supporting the plan, but just wants to ensure that there are really good games to play.

If I label him (in my mind – or in a blog post for that matter) as an “orangehead” I’ve sort of like “already made up my mind what I think about this chap”. This calls for confrontation. I defend my view, he defends his view… and it’s a battle. Instead, if I think that this orangehead, I mean fellow chap, is doing the best decisions from his point-of-view I can gain more understanding and perhaps help find some middleground.

3 game producers enter a restaurant. They order food and drinks. After a bit of waiting, the meal arrives to the table. Producers start eating and one of them makes a remark about how bad the food is. The other comments nods his head and says “same here, I’ll never visit this place ever again”. Third producer says that he thinks the food is okay.

Time goes on, and food disappears from the plates… and it’s time to call waitress to bring the bill.

When the waitress asks “Was all good? Food fine?” every producer nods their heads and says “yeh, sure” or “definitely” and so on.

Whih brings me to my question.

Is this the way things happen?

Is it typical for producers (or for anybody for that matter) to act this way? Is it okay to say “well, I didn’t like the food to be honest”? Is it okay (or mandatory) to do similar at work (like for example when somebody messes things up, we don’t directly say anything to him, but speak bad words behind his back)? Are we trying to protect their feelings or what’s going on?

Why we are like this? (Are you?)

Is this be the correct way to behave?

Writing the post again, gimme a moment…

I’m sort of the Master of the Universe when it comes to concentration. It’s like sinking into a vampire daytime sleep type of trance.

Here’s some examples:

• I can sleep on sofa while radio or tv or other apparatuses are on.
• I can read Donald Duck comic books while eating and totally sink into trance where nobody can wake me up. After series of questions I just say “Huh? Did you ask something?”
• I can stare computer screen – and code 110% well – without realizing that somebody just cleaned the room*.

Only a cold, wet dog rhinarium touching my calf can wake me up.

This might be annoying to others (who might have something to ask from me)… but at least there’s some benefits on the “getting stuff done” side.

How’s your concentration?

* I can concentrate pretty well as long as they keep the vacuum cleaner far, far away.

This is the same when I get interested about some computer (or board) game. I read tons of reviews online, print some to read them offline. Check videos… all in a very short time period.

I’m like that: when I want to learn new things, I want to get tons of information and absorb everything possible as soon as possible.

The good side of course is that, when I’m really motivated to learn something new I can get the basics pretty quick. The bad side on the other hand…

Well, hmm. I think there’s no bad sides. Not when hoarding stays in a sensible level.

It’s good to be a hoarder.

Are you like this?

• Washed my hands all the time. Well, you know – often.
• Use hand wash anti-bacteria stuff. You know, the thing what you take with you when you go to foreign countries.
• Stopped drinking alcohol (has been this for a year now – don’t ask me why since I don’t know)
• Ate less meat (in fact, I cut eating a lot, and nowadays only eat chicken. Delicious chicken.)
• Exercise regularly (outdoor activities every day), but less than 2 years ago.
• Minimize taking drugs (you can make funny comments out of this)
• Don’t smoke (never really have)
• Keep my stress level low. Or away. I don’t really have stress, sort of.
• Perhaps concentrated more on “not getting ill” rather than “staying healthy”.
• Complain more. Well, occasionally. In this blog for example.

I’ve never been so ill than I have been during the last year. (Well, maybe I have but makes a better story this way). During the last year, every couple of months I had got flu or fever or sore throat or something that makes me ponder “I’m not feeling well.”

Well, there’s one thing I’m pondering. I wonder if “trying not to get ill” is the issue here. Or, perhaps I have the issue with the loop “I know I will get ill every 2 months”, and then I get ill. I’m not superstitious but if anybody has a spare rabbit pawn, you can mail them to my house.

10 years ago I cared about healthy/illness as much as rat cares about its buttocks. That would be little. Well known fact. I was never ill. (Another fact that I made up from thin air). Maybe I’ve concentrated too much on this illness stuff that I help make myself ill.

If anyone has a good tip on (1) either staying healthy or (2) how to forget all the fuzz about staying healthy, I’d be glad to hear that out.

Sorry, now I have to go to bathroom to cough some goo balls.

Here’s a pretty good lesson that I’ve pondered today: “I gotta think more about doing the stuff I wanna do.”

With increasing number of responsibilities and stuff I’ve been pondering that I also want to ensure that I use my time the way I want to spend it. I could say “spend your time wisely”, but I don’t. Since I can also spend time “unwisely”. I can go to sofa and stair the wall paint for an hour if that’s what makes me tick.

Perhaps you get the point.

Besides publicity I’ve been also earning some donut money from this whole gaming stuff. Okay, bit more than donut money, but it’s not like I could buy a house with the money that my games have brought me.

At least not a very big one.

I guess that’s the next thing that I’m interested in taking. Taking a bigger step. Earning tons of donuts. House-buy much donuts.

So… how do I get more donuts? That’s one thing I’m pondering.

Maybe that’s what I have been pondering too much. Maybe I’ve cared about the financial side and put some mental donuts blocks to myself. Maybe I’ve cared too much about the budgets and shit.

I have master’s degree from some computer biz thing. And studies in marketing. And tons of practical production experience (both from gaming & outside gaming). I’m good at serving people and have done all sorts of cool deals with cool companies (which have brought me quite a bit of donuts – figuratively speaking). I’m pretty good at coming up stuff that people want or could be interested in. I have a very practical approach on things. I’ve been grown up to certain type of approach in “business world”. This is one perspective.

I’m also looking this whole donuts business from another perspective.

I read this book Ignore Everybody and the perspective of that book is quite radical to everything I’ve read & practiced so far. In this book, the author recommends forgetting everything about what the others say – forget about money totally (when doing your own thing). And just do your thing as long as it’s fun. (Read the first chapter online for free and you get the point).

That sort of sums up what indie game production should be.

Has it been like that for me?

I suppose it’s not so black and white. To some extent, yes, it has been like that. To some extent, no, it hasn’t been like that.

Maybe I should just stop thinking donuts.

Forget donuts completely. And start making something totally cool. Something fun without giving a thought on “how many donuts will this thing get to me”.

Perhaps that is the solution.

At least when there’s good discussion going on. Nothing to see here in this blog post. Move back to this earlier one please.

Which sort of made me wonder what is she talking about? (The article was fine, but this point about thoughts that suggest most games aren’t violent - like WoW - makes me wonder how our brains are wired)

Let’s take an example. In World of Warcraft you can use big swords. And get experience for killing anything that moves. To me… the missing link sort of calls for “violence” (or am I missing something?).

Are we gamers so accustomed to violence that “cartoony violence” or “hitting others with blunt objects to help us improve ourselves and get more money and stuff and whatnot” is “not really violence”?

Maybe in comparison to Hitman it’s not so violent but compared to Tetris WoW is pretty violent.

I rest my heavy case.

I started to ponder the most important lesson/experience/thing I’ve got from gaming.

I don’t know what the answer for me is… but somehow I feel that the possibility to share things (and rant about them) together with people and friends must rank pretty high in my list.

Or just rants.

Can’t decide.

Maybe it boils down to experience sharing.

What you’ve got from this thing we call “game dev”?

Was it all worth it?

What about you? How many hours of fun has your gaming hobby brought you (or at least how many hours you’ve spent in your whole life playing games). We are grown ups. Well, I’m am. Sort of.

Adult men playing video, board and other games. Is this bit silly?

You betcha.

I’ll do the same in the next life. You?