Never felt more ordinary in my life

Before I even begin writing this, there was this thought that this piece would serve more like a self check on hitting my mid-thirties. A point in life where you stand still, turn back and look at what has happened so far in life.

There was also thought that how ordinary and uninteresting this piece is going to be. Though I often remind myself this needs to be written even if it read by no one else except myself. Not in a narcissistic way but more really just want to have something to reference to when I come back to this piece again in 10 years time. 10 years is quite a while and a good mile stone to again look back at things.



So. This year I am 35. I am no longer a young adult but an slightly balding asian male (growing tummy) still with several insecurities in mind I learnt some stuff along the way. Even managed to travel the one country I dreamed of traveling and that country is Japan. I even brought my folding bicycle there and cycled 77KM through the Shimanami Kaido route.

Even with that, I never felt more ordinary in my life. This year I am slightly struggling with my finances for my family. There were thoughts of getting a 2 room HDB flat cause you know I am at the age to do so. It is one of those things that can actually generate income.

I look at back at my early thirties and late twenties. I can only say that I was in severe depression then. It is probably good to say this and be honest with myself. At that time, I have serious thoughts of offing myself. I was fighting depression and I felt like I was slowly losing it.

Eventually I quit my job and went for a long time without working. I couldn't bring myself to work or find a job. It was at that time I realize how burnt out I was. The stress of working broke me down more than I realize. The whole ordeal taught me a good lesson on balance. You know. The current taboo phrase in Singapore called "Work Life Balance".

I personally wonder how many more will lose it in Singapore. It is sad to even think about it.

Now in my chair in front of my computer, sipping water from my steel mug. The thought of being ordinary keeps coming to my head. It is probably the realization of several things in life that is often beyond your control and also the realization that you don't live forever therefor one would really spend more time trying to finish up things he/she wants to do.

Also the thought that none of my problems are unique in any sense. It gives me the wisdom that there is someone out there who faces the same problems before and solved them. How about unique problems? Well we learn by mistakes. So the only way to know if it is correct is to choose the better option for now. Note I said better not best cause it is often impossible to know if it is the best option until after.

With all this said, I can say I don't feel any better or worse being ordinary. It might just be the best thing in the world for me currently.

The Lack of knowledge and understanding

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime" -  Mark Twain

Whenever I look that quote above, I see the word travel more like opening up your mind and experiencing other things outside what you normally do.

Have you ever milked a cow before? I never did. Would be an interesting experiencing doing so. How about something less exotic like organising a fighting game tournament? I mean it is just pulling some people together at a place and play some fighting games right? Right?

I mean if you could run an event you could even run a business! After all isn't business just selling a service or product? Just buy it cheap and sell it at a higher price right? Easy pzy.

 

Sigh.

 

I was at a PSO2 event on Sunday to least give the small event some live. This is what I could do at least in terms for the game, Asiasoft and well PSO2 I guess. I definitely felt out of place when I am the few guys in their 30s to be there. 

There was a few announcements made to us who were invited to the event. Like reviewing of when the next update is coming and what is install for the next few months. We had a feedback session and a Q&A session in regards. 

I highlighted some concerns I see regarding the game to the guys in Asiasoft. From what I feel, those guys are genuinely trying to get people more excited about the game and working to grow the server population. I mean think about, why would they sabotage themselves? This is their job. Their live hood. It do them no good if the game fails. 

Imagine PSO2 failing, they would need to write a whole bunch of reports to their management to explain why they think it failed. Second a whole bunch of folks might lose their jobs because there isn't a need to have so many people working on this game anymore since it is no longer there. 

Even Sega wouldn't want their partners to fail. It shines a negative light on their games and company as a whole. Remember when whole Ragnarok 2 closing down within a year. Most people are pretty burnt by the game and people no longer see Gravity as a company who can make good games or keep to their promises. 

No one who is working on this want this to fail in any way.  

The whole point I want to come to is. Running an online game or even developing a game is not anything easy. I see the ignorance of a lot of folks playing games going on forums, twitter, Facebook etc. to say things that are really narrow-minded and ignorant.  

This struck me as really the responses tell me they do not have any understanding of how a game company works or even how a business work. 

Here lets an example straight of PSO2. In PSO2 there is collaborations with third party stuff like Anime. Those could include stuff like Madoka or even the Fate series. 

For Sega JP PSO2, they would just negotiate with the respective rights holders. Topics would include range of stuff they intend to license, like usage of characters and which characters. Kind of things they are doing in game like are those costumes? How about voices? 

If you are going to use voices, here is another can of worms. First you need to tell them you are interested in this particular character's voice, second you need to get the Voice Actor to on board with this. The rates for that might be different and on different terms. You might even need to discuss which lines you are going to use.

Some rights holders do not like their characters portray in certain ways which is one of the reason why you don't see certain characters appearing. The game developers will also need to send their final costumes / products sent back to the right holders to be vetted before they are even allowed to use them. 

Lastly, which I forgot even before doing all that. Sega has to make sure they can make enough or more money from this collaboration. Since it costs additional to license this stuff. Sega will need to find somewhere to make this all worthwhile. Unless you are in the business of losing money. (If you are in the business of losing or throwing money away, please call me. I am immediately available from whatever thing I am doing now) 

That is of course on Sega's end when they first start this. How about Asiasoft? They are not doing all that work. Surely it be less complicated right? 

The answer is Yes and No. Yes if Asiasoft does the easy way of just using only what Sega produced for PSO2. From there, Asiasoft will talk to the rights holder with Sega assisting them telling them exactly what Asiasoft would be using the thing for. To note if it is done this, Asiasoft might have limited rights to do advertising. What I mean that is, during the launch of this collaboration. They will not be allowed to make actual merchandise related to the collaboration be it postcards, key chains basically small gifts to give out and stuff. They are only allowed the stuff inside PSo2 itself. 

This is of course just some aspects of licensing itself. Then comes the cost of licensing. Licensing famous / popular titles is never cheap. Asiasoft would need to find some way to make this back. I wouldn't want to go into actual costs of licensing stuff but the figure in your head should be around 6 digits.(if you have difficulty figuring what 6 digits mean it looks like this ~100,000). 

Here's the complicated part, would Asiasoft want to spend more on getting a license which allows them more freedom to do other things so it can grow the player base or do they want pay the minimum so they can maximise the money they can get out of this? 

Going the first way can lead to happier player base and growing the player base. There is also the risk of the player base not growing. 

Doing the second ensures they can survive but ultimately makes the player base disappointed and lose players over time. 

Fine line of a balancing act between making money so they can keep going or lose money and ultimately close down. There are so many pitfalls in running a business. 

Well that is for my wall of text. I really needed to get this off my head after reading some stuff online. 

I could just easily brush this off and retort in my all Singaporean way of saying:

 

"Sin ginah. Bo dau bo shue"

My trips to Japan

I got an interesting question the other day.

"learnt anything new on the trip?"

My immediate response was about my 77 click bike trip through Shimanami Kaido and how it would be better to rent a bike and with a bigger gear range. Oh and bigger wheels as I pushed my bike up some of the bridges because the slopes were kind of steep for me to ride up.

Then he retorted saying it wasn't the bike trip. He meant if I learned anything from the trip itself. You know like those soul enriching lessons or experience.

I plainly replied that my trips are more like a vacation or get away from work. So I leave my brains at home and not in Japan.

Now after some more thought into that question. I just want to say I really do not expect any big life lessons out of the trips and considering how many times I have been to Japan I shouldn't learn a lot more unless I go to a different country.

I am not that pretentious to say that I learnt major life lessons during all those trips in Japan. Being there so many times did make me realize a few things:

- Singapore's train system can be better
- holy sh*t vending machines
- holy sh*t I f**king love eating in Japan
- convenience stores are awesome
- man Japan still has a lot of work to do with gender equality for females
- Do people in Japan ever stop working???
- I still don't get why Japanese ladies love Italian / European branded goods.. The companies are mostly dying or dead and production have almost fully moved to China.
- RAMEN!
- seat warmers for toilets during winters are  a god send
- Can you show me the scratched on the 3DS which is like 3000 yen cheaper than the flawless used one? Oh that's a scratch? I can't even see it
- wooo looking at the retro games I can find here
- god d*mn bicycles everywhere
- 1 hour outside in winter? AWESOME! 6 hours of it? f**k that I am going under the kotatsu
- Look there's a Book off over there, going to head in there and check out used games
- no I am not interested in drinking with you lady. No I ain't looking for those services either, my Japanese is terrible and you wouldn't want to talk to me my broken Japanese
- free flow alcoholic drinks for an hour on top of the buffet pizza? I'm going to do this every time I get to Japan
- wooo look at the bike stores here. So many of them and so many variety
- the maids in the restaurants are too friendly to me as a customer. I am not used to this level of service
- ok this is the last gashapon. I meant it! Cr*p. Ok this next one will be the last one!
- I think I am glad I am over anime and figurines mostly. I think I will die in this shop

and so on...................................

Mentally simulating activity

After retiring from competitive fighting game play, I seem not being able to remember things as well as before. There are also signs of me slowing when it comes to learning things.At this point I am kind of worried about my brain capacity and to be more blunt, I am worried about getting Alzheimer's dementia earlier than I expect.

There have been reports about Alzheimer's dementia occuring earlier and there are also early detention for it as well.

I guess I should start going back to being competitive in Fighting Games again even if that means I am going to learn something totally new and lose all the time. I guess I cannot put my stick in storage afterall.

An exercise in Frustration

 

 

 

I did the right thing but why do I feel so both like an idiot and incredibly frustrated. I even censored the names involved. I don't even know who I am protecting at this point. I need a stiff drink