Pädi 2009 winners announced

The winners of the 2009 „Pädi“ – the pedagogic interactive award – were announced. The Website www.kindernetz.de/minitz won the award in gold in the kids category, „Line Rider – Freestyle“ for teenagers.
Other winners include „Rhythm Paradise„, „Maus DS – Der mausgeflippte Denkspaß“ and „Professor Layton and the Curious Village„.

I was happy to be part of the „Pädi Expert Team“ which took part in the decision making process of the award. There will be an award ceremony on November 12th 14-16 in the Munich Gasteig/Carl-Orff-Saal with approx. 600 guests.

More info on the award (in German)

Der pädagogische Interaktiv-Preis – bundesweit einzigartig in seiner Konzeption – basiert im Unterschied zu vielen anderen Preisen, die entweder auf die künstlerische Komponente, die technischen Details oder die curricularen Lerninhalte Bezug nehmen, zu einem wesentlichen Teil auf praktischen Erfahrungen im Einsatz der multimedialen Produkte.

Mit dem Pädi werden Lern– und Spielprogramme pädagogisch bewertet, die Kinder und Jugendliche in ihrer Freizeit nutzen.

Der Pädi ist einerseits eine Orientierungshilfe im schier undurchdringlichen Dschungel der online- und offline-Angebote für die Heranwachsenden und andererseits eine Auszeichnung für die Hersteller von pädagogisch wertvollen Multimedia-Produkten. Er ist ein Ansporn für ihre Bemühungen, sinnvolle Produkte für Kinder und Jugendliche anzubieten und damit einen Beitrag zur Förderung der Medienkompetenz zu leisten.

You can find more infos on the Pädi and a full list of the winners of this 12th here:
www.sin-net.de/paedi.htm

Gamescom

At the gamescom in Cologne especially the PSP game „Invizimals“ caught my eye.
The game allows players to interact with their environment, using the PSP Camera to look for and interact with „invisible“ creatures. It is the most convincing augmented reality game I have seen so far, while they still have problems with the prototype camera they were using at the gamescom.

Remote Control here we go!

Since beginning of May I am working for remote control productions running their research department.

remote control productions is an independent, internationally active production house, with an emphasis on mediation, development and production of entertainment software and research services. With its extensive experience and far-reaching contacts, remote control productions acts as an important interface between developers, publishers, distributors and investors.

It feels great to be here. The general focus of the company is very interesting with projects which try to do something new and/or have an positive impact on society or the video games business in mind. On top of that the company is very much involved in education, the local IGDA chapter, contacts to political institutions and the Verein für Videospielekultur (club for video games culture) on which I blogged here.

One of my main projects is our weekly newsletter which goes like this:

Up-to-Date in 30 minutes
Keeping an eye on current trends and affairs is an imperative for anyone concerned with the video games industry.

With the RCP-Newsletter, remote control productions are offering a compact overview on the latest trends and news as well as concise figures. Whilst we are tracking the international market very closely, our special focus lies on Germany. This not only provides our readers with detailed information about international happenings but also with insights into the German industry and current political developments.

Our newsletter summarises news items from more than 40 different sources, relevant to the games industry, in a short and clearly arranged way, thus giving you the advantage of having all relevant news at hand in only 30 minutes a week.
The sections of the newsletter are covering the following areas:

  1. Current Market Data: Software-Charts with sales figures, global hardware sales and company reports
  2. PC and Videogames: announcements of new titles worldwide on all platforms
  3. Online: news about digital distribution, social networking platforms and online games
  4. Companies: fusions, takeovers, openings, closings and partnerships
  5. Technology and Hardware: firmware updates, new middleware versions, technical innovations, licensing of engines
  6. Politics, Culture, Events and Education: political decisions and amendments, cultural events, changes in education, conferences and events
  7. Feature Recommendations: articles and blogs concerning current topics and trends
  8. Event-Calendar: the most important conferences and events of the next three months

The RCP newsletter is released once per week (48 times per year) in English and German language.

What do you think about it? And if you are interested, please request a free sample copy at my new email address: utausend [) r-control.com 😉

Homework

I occasionally play games with the two nieces of my girlfriend. This got me thinking about how they are affected by playing them. In the case of the two little girls these were Wii Fitt, some horse game and Nintendogs.
I studied Sociology which helps me to self reflect on my gaming habits. But it is interesting how little we (who we design games) actually think what effect these games have on others. My diploma thesis showed that people have very different reasons why they play games and choose the games to play also depending on these reasons.
When I was a kid, I did not play games to learn. I also never played any specific learning game. But I think I still learned a lot from these games. In this post I don’t want to get into the question how the violence in these games might have affected me focus on two positive effects they might have had.
One of them was that I learned quite some English playing RPGs and Adventures. Playing them might also have been a great incentive for me to pay more attention to my English teacher.
Another type of game which aided my (basic) understanding about how the economy or society works were simulations like Railroad Tycoon or Civilization.

Today (as homework) I gave myself two topics I want to learn about in the future:

  • The two little girls are probably not old enough for all of the above games, but I will check out some games which they might like to play while additionally having a rather positive effect on them.
  • I want to learn more about how learning actually works.

In school the Math teacher told us that we would need this boring formulas our whole live and therefor should listen to him. He was right. While probably not everybody needs the formulas we all need the logical thinking we also learned on the way. Question is: Does a game like Crazy Machines help your logical ability in the same way as School Mathematic does. Neuropsychology should have something to say about it. What I know is that getting someone to play Crazy Machines is way easier than motivating him to attend a math class.

The million dollar question on learning programs and games is how much „learning“ these should be to actually being played.

Searching new opportunities

2008 was a very busy but also very successful year for me.

  • In January I sold my online gaming company Neodelight.com to 7Seas Technologies (press release).
  • I also did some consulting e.g. for www.fettspielen.de (more).
  • In August I completed my master’s thesis titled: „Explanatory Models of Computer Gaming Consumption“ an empirical survey focusing on the differentiation of casual and hardcore games (more).
  • In December I wrote my final exams for my Master in Sociology, Political Science and Psychology and now am officially a „Diplom–Soziologe Univ“, hooray!

With my company successfully sold and my diploma certificate in the pocket I now have my head cleared for new challenges.

So if you

  • know of any interesting jobs (preferably near Munich)
  • or are in need of a consultant with 8 years of experience in the social, online and casual games market (and an additional year shooting documentaries 🙂
  • or you need a researcher who does not only know the business side of computer games but has also researched them from a scientific angle,

then I am at your disposal.

If you want more information on what I did, can do and want to do in the future then check out my LinkedIn or Xing profiles or go back to the main page of my website at www.ulrichtausend.com.

As I am travelling North America until 14th of march reaching me though email might be easier than calling my cell (you find the contact info here).

‚Organized‘ gaming in Munich – here we go!

I am really happy that I came across the „Videospielkultur e.V.“ (club for video games culture) end of last year. The club is very active organizing lectures and discussions on the cultural aspects of video games as well as their impact on society.


AND they are hosting the bi-weekly Games Lounge. There you can play the newest (and oldest) games from a massive library on good equipment. And as most people attending are from the games business it is also a perfect way to discuss games while making new connections.
For me the games lounge is what I always wanted to exist. And I am a bit sad that I will miss couple of them on my well earned post graduation travel to North America 😉 . It is just quite a sight to see the Bavarian Minister of Media playing guitar hero.

Why is the console games development in Germany relatively weak?

During the last days I was thinking about why in Germany the console games development is relatively week compared with other European countries. May it be a reflection of the Germany’s sub-strength (given its population size) retail console games market? Why are Germans relatively fond of PC games in comparison to console games.

To be honest I did not reach a conclusive answer on that. Below are couple of thoughts about it but the main idea of this post is to hopefully get some better ideas on the matter from you guys.

Generally I see two underlying factors:

1. Many Germans grew up not paying for games
The the PC scene has been pretty strong in Germany since the C64, Atari ST and Amiga days. It was very easy on these platforms to copy games. So many people from my age group (around 30) grew up without paying much for games. And I think these people mostly moved to the PC as it is also pretty easy on the PC to copy the games (again games for free), while it is more complicated on the console (especially as you basically also need a PC for that).
Therefore you have more people on PCs and less on consoles which could also explain why Germany is (from what I know) very strong in the open source or demo scene areas (both work without payment) as well as in the browser (mog) business.

2. Violence in games is seen more critical in Germany
Another factor could be, that in Germany negative effects of PC and Console Games (especially violence) are emphasised more strongly than in other countries (more on that in an WIRED article connecting this to the pacifistic ’never again‘ education style in Germany).
So on a individual level on average it is (or was) probably harder to get some money for a ‚only games‘ console games console from your parents than for a PC which can also be used for working.
On a company level the German state was pretty reluctant to sponsor PC games as well as console games development, probably again because of the relatively negative image of games being violent or addictive. Ego shooters are often called „Killerspiele (Killergames)“ in the media and some politicians not only want to ban the sale but also the production of these games. You probably heard that Crytec (Crysis) was openly stating in 2007 that they are thinking to relocate to another country (more). So some investors were probably scared away from founding AAA studios in Germany which often focus on console market. This may also explain why Germany is strong in the browser (mog) games marked as more clever coders tried to go in this direction as you don’t need much initial funding for developing these.

But times are changing
In recent times the discussion on violent computer games has died down a bit and currently the media is discussing games in a much friendlier light. And this development is not limited to casual games. For example also GTA4 was discussed repeatedly in German main stream (not video games) media as being a culturally interesting game for adults. Also December 2007 the German minister for culture announced that computer games are now considered to be a ‚Kulturgut‘ – a ‚cultural asset‘ – which can and should be sponsored by the state. The G.A.M.E. association (pretty much the same as the British TIGA) was lobbying for that since couple of years.
It is also interesting that Germany hosts the biggest European convention on console and pc games.

So it seems there is a lot of potential for catching up („Hello investors“).