Finally the big double Podcast Feature with @jack_the_generalist

Doppel-Podcast: Einblicke in Spieleentwicklung und Fluchtgeschichte mit Jack

JoeyPrink
- 05.08.25 - 02:10:14 - 774 - Science & Technology

• Zusammenfassung
• Original

Jack the Generalist spricht über seine Erfahrungen als syrischer Flüchtling und die Entwicklung von 'Path Out', einem Spiel, das seine Flucht vor dem Bürgerkrieg thematisiert. Er teilt seine Inspirationen, Mentoren und neuen Projekte. Im Gespräch wird die Bedeutung von Diversität in der Spielebranche hervorgehoben. Abschließend Einblicke in kommende Projekte.

Science & Technology

00:00:00

00:00:00 Okay, I already pressed it. We're already live. There's no way back. We're already live live. So what we're also trying to do is now to have a shared chat. Let's see if this works. I think it's already. Are we already doing this? Are we already doing this? I'm gonna try to type something. Hey, let's see if that's gonna work.

00:00:24 Okay, I just got a notification that you're live. Oh, I got an advertisement by starting your stream. Okay. Oh, perfect. Are you making me money? Okay, I can see it's working with you. What did you do? I stopped it because it took the wrong information, the wrong event. But I'll just fix it real quick.

00:00:59 Let's see if this works. Nothing can go wrong. This is perfect. Okay, let's see if this works. I'm asking also if there's someone already in my chat, if everything works already perfectly fine. We absolutely need to know what we're doing. Secret stream.

00:01:24 Oh, I see, it took a completely different... It looks... How did you do that? You have the... I have two, I have vertical and...

00:01:35 Let me switch. Actually, it's the wrong scene here. It's actually the wrong... Yeah, I hooked it up completely wrong yesterday. Well, it is what it is, I guess. But you're co-streaming with me, but I'm not co-streaming with you yet, are we? Or does it work? I think we co-stream, because when you go to my channel, it's already... It's already working? Hey, we have already people chatting with us. Hello, everyone. We're just trying to figure out how to...

00:02:00 We absolutely know what we are doing. Bear with us a second there, guys. Yes, I think it's set up correctly. Oh, this is completely wrong here. Oh my God, YouTube is being tough to work with today. Nothing can go wrong. What a surprise.

00:02:26 We still have minutes. Minutes for the preparation. We have one minute for the preparation. Then we should go. Alright, now it's fixed actually. Yeah, the YouTube is completely fixed. Awesome. Okay. Hopefully, fingers crossed, inshallah. Let's see if that's the case. Yes, YouTube is live. I can hear you PC going at it. I heard a cat.

00:02:58 I mean, if the cats annoy you, I can keep them outside. No, we have one of our VIP pieces is even just here for the cat cam. So actually, I did send you. Yes, absolutely. Oh, this is a Bengal. Wow. Hello, hello. He doesn't like to be helped, but I'm gonna help you. Oh, look at this. Hi, everyone. Hi. Say hi.

00:03:30 Der Bruder ist jetzt nicht mehr gesehen. Wahrscheinlich schlafen. Aber ich muss ihn in einer Stunde feeden. Ja, ich weiß, du bist hungry. Aber ich kann dich nicht mehr feeden.

00:03:45 So, yes, we're live. Awesome. Okay. I'm not entirely sure if the co-streaming works on Twitch, but I think everything is, everything is as perfect as it can be. Ah, see, there we go. Just here for the cat cam is here. Master Blaster here is here. Outdoor Express is here. Awesome. So there we go. So before we start, I'll directly start with a shout out.

Ankündigung des Doppel-Podcasts und Vorstellung von Jack the Generalist

00:04:13

00:04:13 And then we jump into, we have two podcasts today. The first hour will be me interviewing Jack about his path. And you heard me talking about him, his game and him as a person already millions, millions of times.

00:04:33 So I'm super excited that we finally have him here. And the second half will be vice versa. So Jack has also the podcast called The Generalists. That's why I check The Generalist. And the podcast is The Generalists. And this will be the second part. He interviewing me, if I understand this correctly, or like talking. Yes, we're going to talk. We're going to talk. We're going to talk.

00:05:01 Okay, um, but first of all, like everyone, please, this is the shout out for Cech. Um, he's also streaming a lot on Twitch, probably more than I am. A little bit of the pitch here. Um, basically what I do is something called Let's Learn, which is similar to Let's Plays, but with online courses. Oh, oh, very nice. Very nice. Yes, we learn together on the stream. Okay.

00:05:27 So I'm going to hit the record button now and then we are in the first podcast. Let's go. All right. Perfect.

Jacks Hintergrund, Inspiration und der Weg zur Spieleentwicklung

00:05:37

00:05:37 So, welcome to another episode of the Talking Deaf Podcast. I'm more than excited that we can finally talk to Jack the Generalist on Twitch, the Generalist Podcast on YouTube, known for a game I was talking about thousands of times, which is called Path Out, but there are also very interesting other projects we're going to talk about today, known as VFX Artists, and I just learned that there are also a lot of tutorials.

00:06:07 Videos, I think, happening on YouTube. But I think I'll just jump directly to you. How would you introduce yourself? Oh, that's a tough question because it's the hardest thing that I, you know, it's a hard challenge to introduce myself because I do so much and I like to go into multidisciplinary stuff. So that's why I named myself Jack the Generalist because I just am a curious person and I'm interested in different sections of game development, game art.

00:06:33 So, yeah, I guess a short way to say it, I'm a curious person. My name is Jack and I am 29-year-old by the recording of this video. I'm originally from Syria, so I'm a Syrian refugee living in Europe, basically. And that's where the game Pathout comes in mind, as it's basically telling the story of my escape from the Civil War. And that's how me and Johanna got to know each other. Yes, this is like the one game I'm...

00:07:01 Pretty much every single talk I'm giving, every single thing I'm writing about. This is like my go-to example of how this medium is used in the very...

00:07:10 Very beautiful way, let's put it that way. Before we talk about Pathout, I would like to go an entirely different route and really talk about you, where you, like whatever you want to tell you, tell us, but basically where are you coming from, what is your first games you played, what is like tiny, tiny chick, all the young chick, tiny chick experiences you want to share with us.

00:07:37 Ja, definitiv. Also, ich war immer ein junger Kind, aber ich wusste nicht wirklich. Also, von Anfang an, ich wurde in Syrien geboren, in Syrien geboren, in einer großen Familie. Zum Beispiel, mein Vater hatte 14 Brüder und Schäuern, meine Mutter hatte 14 Brüder und Schäuern, und sie alle hatten Kinder und Grandchildren. Also, ich bin von einer großen Familie, wo wir jede Woche treffen, jede Woche, jede Woche, jede Woche, jede Woche zu einem anderen Freund, um eine große...

00:08:05 So, ja, ich komme von diesem Grund. So, wenn ich jung war, ich dachte, dass ich ein sozialer Mensch bin. Ich hatte wirklich viel confidence, weil ich viele Leute zurückkehren mich, wenn ich ein Problem hatte. Aber dann wurde der Krieg begonnen. Und dann wurde der Krieg begonnen. Und dann wurde der Krieg begonnen, alles verändert. All of a sudden, ich bin nicht bereit zu gehen, ich bin nicht bereit zu gehen, ich bin nicht bereit zu gehen, ich bin nicht bereit zu gehen, ich bin nicht bereit zu gehen, ich bin bereit zu haben, eine soziale Leben. Und das war...

00:08:34 Es war schwer, speziell in der Zeit. Ich war jung, ich war sozusagen ein Teenager in der Beginn der all diese Zeit. Und so, die Spiele wurden eine große Rolle in meinem Leben, welche sie bereits waren, aber jetzt wurden sie die Portal, sozusagen, aus der Realität, wenn Sie sagen. So, meine Verbindung mit Spiele hat immer immer, you know...

00:09:00 Special in the sense of it being, you know, me believing it's a medium that can expand beyond profit, beyond just fun, but also to tell a message, to make someone feel like they're in a whole different reality, in a whole different world. So, yeah, I guess that is my upbringing. A little bit like basically quickly briefed, briefly said, yeah.

00:09:29 So I have to make a spoiler here because I had a little interview before with you already for a different thing but you mentioned so many games if I may add this for you that were inspiring at this probably with this train of thought right which I did not really expect do you want to go there do you want to share some of those?

00:09:56 Ja, so there are a lot of games that have helped me either develop empathy, I would say develop empathy, especially towards people or people of color that otherwise not playing those games could have ended up in me becoming, you know, or looking to a certain people of color in a different way. Why? Because my upbringing, my parents, the culture.

00:10:24 I wouldn't say the general culture in Syria, but my parents had a certain view about people with a certain color, like black people, for example, which I only knew afterwards, like when I arrived to Europe, when I was on the dating scene, right? And I was telling my mom, hey, look, I'm talking to this girl, and she was black, and the first comment from my mom was like,

00:10:49 Du wirst unsere Runde oder was. So das war ein großer Schock für mich. Und ich war auf mich reflektiert, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt, wie ich mich nicht empfiehlt. Und das erste, was ich mir war, war ich GTA San Andreas. Ich war quasi ein Black Charakter. Und obwohl San Andreas spielt viele Stereotypen, ich mag die boldness von ihm.

00:11:17 Sie haben nicht die Blacken Menschen in eine Alien-Skin mit verschiedenen Flächen. Nein, sie haben sie einfach wie sie sind, wie Menschen. Und obwohl es stereotypisch ist, die Geschichte, die sie erzählen. Aber die Wahrheit, dass sie eine Black-Storie mit einem Black-Charakter haben, hat mich nicht diese Art von denken über Blacken, dass ich einfach von meiner Mutter habe, zum Beispiel.

00:11:43 Und ja, das ist das, was ich denke, die Games empfehlen, in einer Weise. Und ich gelernt das sehr early auf. Das ist interessant. Du denkst, dass es bestimmte Games gibt, die das wirklich gut machen? Oder sind es bestimmte Games, die das wirklich gut machen? Ich denke, dass die meisten der Games das poorly machen, ehrlich gesagt. Especially mit Arabs, wie growing up in Arab. A lot of Games do das, wo...

00:12:09 Arabs are the bad guys, the bearded bad guys that deserve to be killed and you should not feel any mercy or whatever. Killing them, it should be actually fun to do that. So I think more games did damage than actually portrayed like people of color or queer people or women.

00:12:34 in a better lens or in an actual human lens. But I guess for the lack of examples, I would go with GTA San Andreas, because I don't really have many examples from the top of my head. But I do feel like we did a good job with Pathout, honestly. Do you already feel like going to the direction of Pathout?

00:13:00 Maybe first of all I would be really interested how did you get from being this gaming person to then getting into game development? What was the path there? That was an interesting path because so I don't know if you're all aware of the story, especially in 2015 when there was like this news that was everywhere of the kid who died trying where his parents tried to cross to Europe from Turkey.

00:13:29 Und der Junge war in Bodrum, der türkische Stadt. Die Nacht, ich habe fast sterben. Wir hatten einen Fehler, und wir haben fast sterben, ich und mein Bruder, kommen in Europa. Und in dem Tag, nachdem wir überleben, ich erinnere mich auf den Himmel, auf die Stärken und sagte, Jack, wenn du das in Zukunft kommst, wenn du das in Zukunft machst, dann folgst du deinen Traum.

00:13:57 Und seit ich war ein Kind habe ich mich gefragt in der Schule, zum Beispiel. Es ist eine common Frage in Syrien, zu beantworten als Kind, was ich in der Zukunft will, was ich in der Zukunft will, was ich in der Zukunft will, was ich in der Zukunft will. Und es wird immer die Antwort, die Antwort ist, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, und ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will,

00:14:25 zu einem Moment, um, wenn, you know, mit PathUp, etwas passiert. Wir werden es später diskutieren. Aber, ja, das war meine, die Verbindung von Gaming, um zu machen, um, ist, dass ich, also, ich bin fast gestorben. Und ich versuche mich, wenn ich es, wenn ich es, wenn ich es, wenn ich es in Europa mache, wo es eine gleiche Chance gibt, wie alle anderen, das ist nicht wahr, aber es ist eine Chance, zumindest.

00:14:54 Ja, ich würde einfach meine Tränen, es ist ein fairer Chance. Es ist nicht gleicher Chance, sondern es ist ein fairer Chance. Du bist immer sehr aktiv, also in giving voice zu Menschen, die unterrepresenteden sind, die nicht so stark sind. Es scheint, das ist auch von deinen eigenen Erfahrungen in diesem Raum.

00:15:20 The main reason for that is I honestly believe if there is no diversity in games, there will be soon no games anymore. Like that's a deep belief I have and I could back it up with my theories. But I do believe like ideas and success in games in general comes from diversity of opinions, diversity of background and representation. That's what I honestly believe in and I think we...

00:15:49 Wir sollten, wenn wir eine Plattform haben sollten, sollten wir die Voice des Voiceless sein können. Sie können die Geschichten von Menschen, deren Geschichten sind nicht mehr. Und das kann jemanden sein. Es kann jemanden sein. Es kann jemanden sein, der Juniors, die nicht mehr über ihre Erfahrungen sprechen, wie Junior Artists, zum Beispiel. Sie sind die meisten unterrepresenteden Menschen in der ganzen Industrie, weil sie einfach nur da zu shuttern und lernen können. Das ist die General Prämisse.

00:16:18 Aber das ist schade, weil sogar wenn ich, speziell als junior-level Frauen in der Industrie, sie werden immer decline und sagen mir, dass sie nicht gut genug sind. Und ich würde immer sagen, dass das nicht meine Kriterien ist. Aber sie würden nie wieder akzeptieren. Das ist es. Sie sind nicht gut genug. Sie sind überzeugt, dass sie nicht gut genug sind. Das ist schade, weil ich denke, dass alle Perspektiven matter hier. Es geht nicht darum, wie gut Sie sind und Ihre Skills sind. Das ist das Problem, dass wir in game development haben, dass wir unsere Identität literally attach.

00:16:46 Das Problem ist mit dem, dass wenn du getrennt hast, das ich nicht für jemanden hoffe, dass du dich verlierst. Und ich denke, wir müssen das.

00:17:00 Let me go back to your path, because I find it so interesting where you seem extremely reflected and I think it makes someone think in a reflected way like this. I think there's a lot of things going on and that happened in the past.

Entstehung und Bedeutung von 'Path Out'

00:17:24

00:17:24 Tell us, let's jump into the story of Pathout. How did this start? What was your role there? How was this experience? So Pathout is a fun story because... Forgive me, but we need to quickly introduce Pathout for everyone who does not know it. The link will be certainly in the notes, but maybe you introduce us quickly.

00:17:50 Ich denke, ich kann nicht den Path-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out-Out

00:18:18 um die Krieg des Ziviles in 2014 zu retten.

00:18:26 Und es ist ein JRPG, so es ist in eine Cute-Style. Es ist ein sehr einfaches Spiel. Auf, left, right, down. Du kannst es mit deinem Mann sprechen und so weiter. Es ist sehr human-basiert, so es gibt keine politischen Regeln oder so. Es ist nur die Geschichte. Und das Kind, die du spielen, ist eigentlich mich. So jeden Tag in dem Spiel, wenn du bestimmte Milestones hast, werde ich in einem Let's Play-Style kommentieren.

00:18:54 Speaking to the player where they could actually see that they are playing an actual person, right? Do you want me to go into the story of development? Okay, so the development started basically where I met, I was lucky enough to meet the people at Calza Creations Georg Hubmaier and Brian Main and so with Georg Hubmaier especially

00:19:23 Wir hatten ein Frühstück, wie war der Fall, wo ich in Österreich war, wo ich nicht allowed zu arbeiten war. Also hatte ich viel Zeit auf meinem Kopf. Und das war eigentlich so. Ich war bei einem Spiel. Und seine Frau war spielen. Und ich habe ihn einfach angefangen, weil ich mich interessiert habe. Und sie sagte, nein, mein Freund an der Zeit macht games. Und ich sagte, cool, ich muss mit diesem Mann connecten. So habe ich ihn für ein Frühstück und...

00:19:53 Und während wir, you know, haben Siren-Breakfast, die Idee kam über als Joke. Wie, wenn wir ein Spiel über You-Story machen? Und Chaos of Creation war bereits ein Spiel, die in Message waren. Sie waren bereits das Forum von Spielern über Profit, für kulturelle Spiel, für Serien. Und das war ein guter Fitt. Es war die perfekte Fitt für die perfekte Zeit. Es war die gute Person, die richtig Person, die richtig Zeit.

00:20:21 Alles war gut. Und dann Georg Hopmayer ging und hat alle die Arbeit mit finden, was die eigentliche Spiel geworden ist. Georg Hopmayer hat mich zu Brian Mayer, der immer noch mein Mentor ist. Brian Mayer ist ein Amerikaner in Wiener.

00:20:39 So I was able to speak English to him all the time and he was able to teach me and show me things. And eventually the plan was, of course, that I get very involved in the art of the game and be hired and all of that. But my interview took time and everything went against it. So life happened. So I was more involved in the co-design phase.

00:21:04 We're brainstorming and designing how the game would be like and I'll be involved in that and also in the story. So one of the major design elements that made it into the final game that I was part of is of course me having me as like the commentary in the game. And yeah, that was basically my involvement at the beginning and then the production started. I was not part of that, but like early on with the conceptual phase I was there.

00:21:31 Und dann kam das Spiel, und es gab viel Arbeit nach dem Spiel, mit dem Spiel zu representieren, auf Events und PR und Marketing zu sprechen, zu sprechen mit Publisern, zu bekommen, die Publisern interessiert. Weil das Spiel ist eigentlich immer noch eine Demo. Es ist immer noch eine Demo. Aber die coolste Sache ist, dass viele... Da waren nicht so viele Spiels wie es an der Zeit, die über ein Refuge, wie eine reale Geschichte.

00:21:57 Es war in den News, überall. Es hat eine große Waffe von Interesse von den Medien gesagt. Ja, das ist die Geschichte. Das ist auch was ich dann. Es war immens, wie groß es war in den News. Ich denke, es ist so ein wichtiges Thema. Es war, ich denke...

00:22:25 Ich liebe es als Beispiel, weil es ein sehr smartes Spiel war. Ich glaube, es war sehr smart. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Ich liebe es. Du hast diese Pixel-Küte-Pixel-Figure, basically, representing dich. Und all of a sudden, du popst.

00:22:51 Commenting on what is actually happening and saying, yeah, I still have some quotes of you actually in the back of my head every time I think of this game. And this is really powerful, this media mix. Because this is something, and again, the game for me works in so many ways. It is something which is relatively short. I'm a huge fan of shorter games. I think we do have not enough of those which tell.

00:23:18 A personal story, which can be then played in an evening or so.

00:23:24 das Spiel macht es so accessible. Ich denke, dass es dann in den News covered war, das war ein no-brainer, weil es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist, dass es so wichtig ist.

00:23:52 So, yeah. You see, I'm very excited about that game. I've been hearing that because that was the main idea that I think me and the team wanted to reflect on or try to think about. Games can be explored beyond profit. Games can be an art form to tell stories, to invoke empathy or just show a human perspective. They can do that, in my opinion, better than any other medium. Arguably so, honestly.

00:24:21 Weil sie... Ich liebe die Worte der Schöpfung oder der Veränderung. Ich denke, es ist eher eine Expandung. Es expandiert deine Perspektive, weil du diese kleinen Realitäten machst, die jetzt alle zu erleben können. Und sie können ihre Wissen in der Art und Weise expandieren, wie sie wollen. Die coolste Sache bei den Spielern ist, dass sie die Wahl haben. Du bist nicht... Ich fühle mich manchmal mit den Filmen oder den Sachen, die wir sehen, wenn sie nicht gut gemacht haben...

00:24:50 Ich denke, die eigentliche Topik wird ein bisschen verdammt. Sie werden dich fühlen, wie sie dich fühlen wollen. Und ich denke, die Games machen das oft. Ich denke, die Games, wenn sie das machen, wo sie eine Epic-Musik oder eine Sad-Musik machen wollen, ist es, die Wahl ist, dass du dich fühlen, wie du dich fühlst. Ich habe die wunderschöne Frage, aber was ist eine Serien-Breakfast?

00:25:16 Serium Breakfast includes a lot of carbohydrates, sugar, we have a drink that is sugar with some tea and a lot of olives and a lot of eggs and a lot of beans. Oh, that's actually nice. But this was a very explicit part of the story. It's definitely an experience, but I can tell you because I have...

00:25:45 I have experienced like cereal in breakfast which could be as simple as literally as simple as olive oil with I don't know what it's called in English in German it's called Thummian times I guess literally this is something we eat so one of the things that I did early on as a refugee where we only got like 300 euros a month is to literally live I would pay two euros a week to live and I would just eat

00:26:13 The cereal and breakfast for breakfast, lunch and dinner just to save money. Wow. Imagine. Wow. I don't want to. Yeah. So the main idea of this podcast is also to learn about you.

00:26:30 um as uh like basically this this mix of because i i'm always so excited about getting to know the people behind games and there is so much because as you mentioned before games are such an art art form and

Inspiration, Mentoren und neue Projekte

00:26:44

00:26:44 I don't care if it's A games or indie games, but of course, specifically indie games. But I think like every one of us creating something is putting something of ourselves in there. And yeah, I would love to like get a little bit started. Where do you, like the easy question, Hitchhack, where do you get your inspirations from? Well, that's interesting. Where do I get my inspiration from? Most of my inspiration comes from my life. I think I've...

00:27:12 Ich habe gerade das herausgefunden, weil ich habe Fawzi Mismar's Buch über Kreativität geschrieben. Und ich glaube, er sagt etwas sehr smartes da, dass das die wichtigste Sache in der Welt ist, dass du dir selbst bist. Du und deine Erfahrungen. Das ist die wichtigste Sache in der Universität für dich. Und für andere Menschen, auch. So, ja, das ist das, was ich von der meisten meiner Inspiration getroffen habe.

00:27:40 Just my life mostly, but also I do my best to get inspiration from other games and the way they make things. And what are some games which you would have at the top of your head, which do this well or which did inspire you? Again, I think inspiration can go both ways. It can be other games which did inspire you how to not do things.

00:28:09 Ich meine... Basically, du hast es gesagt. Meine Inspiration kam von der almost desperation von dem Fakt, dass die Arabs so misrepräsentiert sind. Und nicht als Menschen, so viel. So, ich wollte nicht ein Spiel machen, wo ich einfach...

00:28:34 Das ist die Geschichte, warum man Leute auf der Bote sehen, auf der News.

00:29:02 Just see people on the boat in the news and just listen to what Fox News or whoever thinks about them or how they labelize them. So instead of that, just having the fact that, alright, so what happened to that kid? Why is it all men? That's also a question that comes a lot when it comes to refugees. Like, why is it all men? Why is there not so many women? Well, if you're 18, you have to join the military, right?

00:29:31 Und wenn du nicht, dann gehörst du die anderen Faktionen, wenn du möchtest. Both sind Blood. Wenn du nicht sterben wird, jemand anderes wird sterben. Willst du deine eigenen Leute zu töten? Ja oder nein? Und das ist einfach ein yes-or-no Frage. Wenn nein, dann was ist die Ausgabe? Du fliegst. Du riskierst dein eigenes Leben. Und ich war gut mit risking meinem eigenen Leben, statt zu riskieren jemand anderes' Leben, you know? Wow. Wow, vielen Dank für das.

00:29:59 Wie war es für dich? Wir sind zurück zu dieser mixture der Inspirationen und immer wieder zurück zu Perthart. Es ist sozusagen ein Teil von deinem Leben, wie eine Autobiografie, in Form von einem Video-Game. Wie fühlt es sich in diesem Spiel?

00:30:28 Okay, so now that I look at it, because the game got released in 2016, I believe. 10 years ago! I grew grey-haired instant. Wow. Grey-haired instant. Yeah, so it's been a while. So I was 19 back then. Now I'm 29. So, yeah.

00:30:52 A lot of things changed and the way I view life changed. So back then for me it was like okay cool I'm gonna you know prove myself. That was that was my main thing back then was I want to prove myself. I want to get into this business. I want to show that games can be used in a different ways. Now I'm more like looking back at I'm like okay that was one way to deal with the trauma basically. So but

00:31:20 Mostly to answer your question, like seeing other people playing the game live in front of me, which doesn't happen as much right now.

00:31:28 Es passiert sehr viel in 2017 und 2018, wo wir auf Gamescom getrennt waren. Und ich erinnere mich, 16 Stunden arbeiten, fast auf der Bühne zu sehen, verschiedene Leute zu arbeiten und zu spielen. Also habe ich gesehen, fast 500 Leute zu spielen. Und die Reaktion sehr varied. Ich hatte, wie ein Typischer Gamer mit der SWAT-Cosplay oder so, der würde kommen und sagen, oh, er ist Syrien.

00:31:58 Aber trotzdem spielen sie es. Sie sehen die Titel und die Bildung und die Stile und sagen, oh, das sieht wie Pokémon aus, ich würde gerne versuchen das Spiel. Und dann all of a sudden, du bist in der Minefield und da ist der Syrien-Guy mit dir. Und ich bete das Person nie dachte, dass sie eine Konversation mit einem Syrien-Guy hatte. Sie waren vielleicht isoliert sich von dieser Situation. Aber jetzt ist es in deinem Gesicht und der Mann ist neben dir.

00:32:24 Und ich würde sehen, dass der Mann, bei dem Ende von ihm zu spielen, er würde sagen, oh, danke für das gemacht, denn ich habe keine Ahnung über das. Und all das ich weiß über das ist, die Opinions auf die News und was meine Grandmother sagt und was mein Vater sagt. Aber jetzt habe ich ein Weg zu sprechen zu ihnen über das, you know? Und ich bete, dass er all diese Missinformation getötet hat.

00:32:47 Und all diese Medien-Stuff, die wir uns als die evilen Leute, die gonna... ...destroy Europa oder sowas. Aber jetzt, er spielt den Spiel, und er kann es zumindest auf ein Diener bringen. Even wenn er nicht argumentiert kann, er kann zumindest sagen, ich spiele dieses Spiel. Und das war das, und das war das. Und das ist warum diese Leute aus Syrien gehen. Es ist nicht ein Spiel.

00:33:15 You already mentioned this and there are educational aspects, educational experiences with that. And what I find quite curious, I was giving also this game as an example again, when I would give talk in front of educators and sometimes they would ask rather critical questions if this is a good experience for young people to have.

00:33:42 This is something which I got quite often. Any thoughts on that? So... That's, I think, one of the main reasons why the game looks the way it looks. Is to appeal to any age from 8 till 80. Does not really matter. And so, I would say if it's for young people, absolutely it's for young people. What you're playing is just an experience of a human being. It's one story of...

00:34:11 Billions of stories. So, uh, why would it not be something for kids? I guess that's my, my, the way to answer that question. Why would it not be? And if the answer is like, it's too brutal and it's like, then my whole life should be censored, right? I should not exist then. Or this whole thing should not have happened. But it did. So, now we're here, you know? Um, that's the thing, like, if the whole world was silent, since...

00:34:37 Wir wurden massacrede in meinem Haus, in den 80s. All the way until die Civil War stopt, basically. Dann, warum wir nicht zu hören, zumindest eine Person zu hören? Und nicht, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

00:35:05 Ich glaube nicht, dass es keine Blut gibt. Es ist einfach nicht metaphorisch. Es ist einfach nicht metaphorisch. Es gibt auch die Classroom-Version, mit dem es und die Teaching-Material zu sprechen, um die Erfahrung zu sprechen. Das ist, glaube ich, etwas, das ist super interessant. Also, wenn es ein Buch oder ein Film ist, oder ein Spiel, oder ein Spiel wie dieser, und dann sprechen wir über das.

00:35:34 The cool thing about the school version is you don't need to install anything. It's literally a browser version. We worked with UNHCR. Kausa Creations worked with UNHCR to make that happen. So that's a cool thing where the UNHCR can actually use that project to go to classrooms or to tell teachers about...

00:35:55 dass ein actuales Projekt existiert. Ich kidze mich nicht, ich war einmal in Wiener und da waren die Kinder und da waren und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren, und sie waren,

00:36:12 I'm always a little bit torn when it comes to educational games. What is your take on that? Do you have any thoughts on when it can be from a game design perspective working well? Because sometimes educational games do not have the best reputation among children, for instance. But this obviously works really well. So what do you think? Why does this work well?

00:36:41 So I think the reason why it works is because of the interactivity aspect of it. What is my opinion on educational games? Basically, here's my thought. If kids are playing games anyway. Anyway, regardless if there's educational games or no educational games. My question now to everybody in this world. Would you rather live in a world where there's educational games?

00:37:09 that your kids can use also in school, or no educational games whatsoever. So all the games they get to play are purely commercial, purely, you know, what we see Fortnite or whatever. And the answer for that, for me at least, is like I would rather have schools like invest in and get out of their like

00:37:34 aus den 1700en Jahren, wie wir uns ein paar Kinder in eine Runde legen, legen sie auf die Tafel und legen sie auf eine Karte, wo wir auf eine Karte schreiben können.

00:37:46 Is that really reflecting the actual world where those people are going to work in? Where there's devices and AI and other tools that their hiring managers or their bosses are expecting them to know fully? I don't see that utilized unless you go specialize in a certain section of the education, especially in Austria right now.

00:38:10 Du kriegst ein Computer in der Klasse, wenn du in die Richtung gearbeitet hast, wie Computer Science. Oder bevor das, als Lehrer, als Apprenticeship, wenn es mit IT ist. Aber ich sehe das nicht in anderen Schulen. Und die Frage ist, ob du willst, oder willst du einfach nur bleiben? Ich weiß nicht. Das ist wie ich es sehe.

00:38:34 As a game developer, what are your workflows? So we're going now really basic. What do you do? What are your workflows? What do you use? What tools do you use? So super basic question. Mostly if I really enjoy the game, I try to break it down to its base functions.

00:38:57 Und eine Herausforderung, die ich gerne mache, und auch, ihr wisst, natürlich, nicht jeden Tag, man arbeitet auf einen Projekt. Vielleicht in zwei Jahren, man arbeitet auf einen Projekt. Also, eine der Dinge, die ich gerne mache, ist, wenn ich ein Spiel mache, versuche ich es auf dem Papier zu machen. Wie funktioniert das Spiel? Warum mag ich das Spiel? Und dann versuche ich es so. Und dann versuche ich mich, und dann, wenn ich ein Spiel mache.

00:39:25 How would that same concept work on a tower defense game, you know? And see how I could do that. And it's just on paper, right? I don't need to really know to be perfect in code. So sometimes I make like a prototype on paper and see if it's fun or not, right? And just for me. It's just for nothing commercial, just for me, just to know. And most of the times I get the best knowledge.

00:39:52 From two resources, one is actually working with other people who are knowledgeable and experienced, two from books, basically. What books? This is already one of the questions I have. There's this book, I can give you the general premise of it, I forgot exactly what, but I think it's a popular book, The Lens of Game Development, of something like this, where

00:40:20 Es zeigt sich die Games durch verschiedene Lensens. Ist es die Art of Game Design? Der Art of Game Design, ja. Und da er spricht über die Book of Lensens. Ja. Ja. Ich denke, das Buch summed up... ...especially in den Beginn, wo sie sagen...

00:40:40 Don't say you're not a game designer. First rule of being a game designer is say that you're a game designer. I'm a game designer. I'm a game designer. I love that. I love that so much.

00:40:50 And one other thing. How do you become a game designer? Make games. This was a very good one. Very lovely. Any other books on your list? I'm always very curious about books. It can be also general books, which you really liked or inspired you. But we take every single book recommendation in this podcast like crazy. Yeah, I understand that. Mostly, I think, because I come from a whole different background.

00:41:20 So, hier ist was ich herausgekommen, wenn ich in Europa komme und ich in Syrien bin, das ist eine ganz andere Art, eine ganz andere Art, eine ganz andere Art, eine ganz andere Art, eine ganz andere Art. Wenn du hier herausgekommen bist und du denkst, okay, wow, wow, wow, wow, diese Leute sind vor mir, vielleicht 20 Schritte vor mir, in dem Sinne von properer Bildung, vielleicht haben sie in einem wirklich guten Weg gebracht, sie haben wirklich großartige Eltern, oder sie hatten finanzielle Möglichkeiten.

00:41:48 die Welt in einer Weise besser als ich. Ich sah das sofort und dachte mir, okay, ich habe mich auf ein paar Sachen gescheitert. Und bis zu diesem Tag, ich sehe das passieren, so ich werde mich auf einfachen Dinge, wie Attachments. Da ist ein Buch called Attached von Amir, das ist ein Arabisch Name, aber ich weiß nicht, wo er kommt.

00:42:16 Es ist called Attached und es erklärt die Attachment Theorie in Psychologie. So, es gibt die Anxious Attachment, es gibt die Secure Attachment und es gibt die Avoidant Attachment. Und, ehrlich gesagt, das ist das meine Therapistin gesagt. Sie ist ein Arab und sie hat viele Arabs in Österreich gesagt. Sie sagt, viele Arabs sind Avoidant.

00:42:42 They have avoidant attachment. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I'm going to read about it. So yeah, that book really enlightened me a lot about a lot of sectors in my life, especially in terms of learning, in terms of improving, in terms of relationships, a lot of sectors of my life. So I guess my answer to you is the book's recommendations that I would give are...

00:43:10 Für alle, aber auch speziell, wenn du das Gefühl hast, dass du in ein Westerner Gesellschaft leben möchtest, oder ich weiß nicht, was es. Wo du vielleicht das Gefühl hast, okay, diese Leute sind vorhanden. Sie haben viel mehr Möglichkeiten, ich habe zu starten von zero. Was muss ich lernen? Und die erste Sache ist, dass du lernen musst, wie behavior funktioniert. Behavior, generell. Weil es sind habits, die du picken ab von...

00:43:39 Just like growing up with your parents or whatever. And you could change those habits, you could change that behavior. So yeah, I hope that's helpful for anybody who's listening. Not just game development, but generally attachment or psychology. I think it's interesting. Why do we do the things that we do? Very nice.

00:44:00 I go deeper there. What other things do you find interesting, whether it's music or whether it's TV shows or films? Is there anything other which you find inspiring, interesting, motivating, relaxing, whatever? For relaxing, I really enjoy spas. I enjoy hot water.

00:44:25 Just like quality time. I guess for all of this to happen is like to be inspired, to be relaxed and all of that, you need to have good balance between your working life and your life. Generally, because if you don't have that balance, I do tend to just work all the time. And if I don't have that balance and someone check, you know, check me, tell me, hey, you know, slow down, which is my wife right now.

00:44:54 Sie sagt mir, okay, du hast du viel gearbeitet. Ich kann mich selbst, in meinem RESTING TIME, arbeiten. Und das könnte problematisch sein. Und ich denke, für mich ist es mehr interessant, die Musik ist, und mehr interessant ist, dass es einfach nur eine Qualität RESTING TIME gibt. Und ich denke, das ist mehr doable, wenn du dein Leben kannst, in einer Weise, wo du nicht so viel hast.

00:45:22 every month does that make sense i i fully fully agree like um so the topic of mental health is something which which is incredibly important especially when you work in an environment which is i would always call it like head focused i'm very like no matter what space you're working in but um i i feel always like if i had a

00:45:45 heavy day in terms of thinking and working, maybe creatively. I love going to the mountains and doing something, which is a little bit the opposite. So this is for me. And you already mentioned some sort of structure and so forth.

00:46:04 In the past conversations, we often had the topics of how to actually motivate yourself to get started, how to get into this creative space, how do you... Procrastination was a topic which was mentioned quite often. Yeah. And you already were certainly going into the direction of, can I call them routines? Do you have things that you find helpful that are helping you?

00:46:32 In terms of procrastination. For instance, or general routines, which help you. Yeah, I could talk a little bit about that. So, let's start with procrastination, for example. Being an avoidant person, like with attachment, you tend to procrastinate. Because your attachment is not only to people, but also to things. Like, I, for example, say a lot that I want to learn.

00:46:59 Aber dann habe ich nie initiiert, weil es immer so, ah, später, später, vielleicht später. Das ist avoidant. Ich habe die lernen, oder zu lernen. So eine Art, die ich gefunden habe, war, dass ich eine Kulchauer durch die Wochenende habe. Weil ich mich überzeugte, dass wenn ich etwas, wie eine Kulchauer ...

00:47:26 If I could start that, I could start and stop anything I want. So that was just a way to fool myself of thinking, okay, so how can I go to an extreme that I can barely handle, especially in winter, by the way? If I could do that, I could start and stop anything I want. And that's how I start my day. But on the weekend, I take only warm showers.

00:47:51 Das ist das. Das ist such a great, great answer. I feel this so much. If you can tackle the cold shower, you can tackle everything, all the challenges in your life. It's a mental challenge.

00:48:10 I don't know if you ever tried cold showers? So what I do, and this is for me getting used to it, like I go mountain running, right? I'm also in Ottomans and so forth. And then I always try to, if there's a possibility, to go directly after the run into a cold lake. And this is like going into a cold lake and just like...

00:48:33 Das ist so gut, das ist so, so weirdly awesome, aber ich kann nicht so cold showers. Cold showers are the worst. In a frozen lake, that's fine, but cold showers, no. Honestly, I tried cold plunging, but...

00:48:52 No, es ist so viel einfacher als Cold Showers. Cold Showers? Du hast es immer noch einmal antoigen dich mit Cold Showers. Mit der Flüssigkeit, du kannst du used zu werden. Du kannst du einfach nur auf die Sonne sagen. Ich wollte dich über die Dive, du kannst du in die Läge gehen.

00:49:09 Because I've had that feeling. Do you also feel like merging with nature? Is that a feeling you feel? Maybe. Maybe that's a good thing. So it's like I would not jump into it. I would really slowly but very like go straight in there. But like in a constant pace. But then you're really. So for me, one of the things I always tried like what is.

00:49:34 My brain is constantly working the weirdest way. So there's always noise somewhere in there and everything which is breaking this noise for a second or two. This is so nice. And this is certainly something where all of a sudden you are part of, maybe part of the nature like you described it, but in a different space. That's nice. Yeah, I mean that...

00:49:57 That exact experience has helped me in the worst time in my life where I was super lonely. Living in Salzburg, hashtag Salzburg, lonely. It's very hard to make friends there. And just going out and putting yourself in a lake was so relaxing. I felt like nature was my friend, basically. Is there something you share where you're based at the moment? Or is this...

00:50:25 Oh ja, und ich live neben Vienna. Okay. Und ja, ich kann nach Vienna gehen und rauskommen. Es ist ein wirklich tolles Ort. Ja, ja. So, um... Ah, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein.

00:50:45 Oh, right, right, right. So one of the big things which I noted, which you were talking about, I think, which seemed to play a special role in your life, which I also find super smart, are the roles of mentors. Can you tell us a little bit about mentorship, the importance of mentors in your life? And I suppose you are also a mentor now for many others. So how is that?

00:51:14 Wow, ja, Mentors are everything, honestly. Um, because I am that person, um, or people who are like me, especially coming from Syria, they're, you could easily lose it. You could easily lose your way, um, just because of, like, the lack of identity that it hits you when you, when you arrive at a young age and all of a sudden now...

00:51:38 Everything is different, even like someone offering you coffee is different. Like people don't know how much it is different. Like it is so different. Everything you've learned is void, right? Everything that you've known about yourself is void. So to have a mentor that I could talk to anytime about personal stuff, not just the art stuff, not just work, but also...

00:52:02 Aber persönliche Dinge hat mir geholfen. Und dieser Mentor für mich hat immer Brian Main, der Amerikaner der in Viener leben. Selbst wenn ich in Salzburg war, er würde mich auf meine Ticket zu kommen. Und er würde mich in seinem Ort bleiben. Wenn ich keine Eltern oder einen Bruder hatte, wie die resten meiner Familie war, er war das. Und ich bin immer sehr nahe zu ihm.

00:52:28 Und ich bin sehr dankbar für ihn, für viele Dinge, die er mir erzählt hat. Nicht nur in Art, sondern auch Personal. So, Mentor role, als Refugee, ist eine cruciale Rolle. Und ich kann nicht vorstellen, dass es ein Mentor, das würde, Gott forbid, nicht nur aufhören, in einer Weise oder Form haben würde, das wäre horrible. Weil ich war vulnerable. Back in der Zeit, ich hatte keine Hoffnung. Und ich war, was, wie, questioning...

00:52:57 Das ist warum ich mit dem Identität angefangen habe. Ich war 19, aber es gab Dinge, die andere waren in der 13 Jahre, hier in Austria, die ich nicht hatte, bis ich 24 war. Das macht das Sinn? Ich lebte meine Teenage Jahre sehr early.

00:53:16 Ich habe das Gefühl, in Syrien, wenn die Kriege begonnen wurde, ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht. Ich habe mich überrascht.

00:53:40 Es ist super Stressful, speziell wenn man andere Leute zufrieden. Und dann beginnt man sich mit ihnen zu vergleichen. Aber dann ist es dann, dass man sich nicht die gleichen Basis hat. Wir haben die gleichen Foundation. Eine der Dinge, die ich mich für für mich war, ist, dass ich immer mich für einen Akademie habe.

Software and Game Development

00:53:59

00:54:02 Ich habe das nicht so weit. Warum? Weil wenn du hierher kommst, du wirst alles. Du wirst all deine Bildung, du wirst all die Papers. Und in meinem Fall war es so, dass ich mein ACTUAL Certificate verloren habe. Ich habe es verloren. Es gab keinen Weg zurück. Es ist wie es ist. Ich hatte es zu akzeptieren. Und ich habe einen Apprenticeship in einer Slaughterhaus.

00:54:27 So I really started from, because I couldn't get a job. That's the thing. I could not get a job with my old name. I couldn't get a flat. I couldn't get a job. I couldn't get anything. No one wanted to hire me with my old name. Nothing was done with my old name, right? But eventually a slaughterhouse was like, okay, we anyway need someone to work all the time for cheap. This is perfect, right? We're going to hire this guy. And it was like an IT apprenticeship.

00:54:52 I'm sorry, I'm going into other topics. No, no, no, I'm like, you have all ears. Alright, so yeah, I worked in that slaughterhouse for three and a half years, or three years, I think. That was where PathOut was, in the beginning it got developed, and then it got out, and literally I had those three years where I didn't get any vacation. I literally, my vacations went into going on events with PathOut.

00:55:19 So I was working constantly all the time. And I hated my job. I hated my job so much. And I really didn't, that really prevented me from growing. Like growing mentally, growing my skills or socially even. All the people I was surrounded with had literally Nazi tattoos on them. So everything that I picked up from my German language, from my humor in German language, has been related to sexism.

00:55:47 So I literally don't use German as much because I hate the person that I became in that language. I kind of want to learn it from the beginning, which I'm doing right now, like by choice. Because before it was like, you must talk German, you must learn German. So I created a really bad association with the language. Especially when every time you talk and you might use the wrong article, people have no mercy with you. They literally start...

00:56:14 in einem sehr wunderschönen Weg zu Ihnen, richtig? Das hat wirklich verletzten meine Passion zu lernen German für eine lange Zeit und ich verletzte es. Ich verletzte es. Ich verletzte es. Sorry zu hören. Ja, ich war nur mit der wrongen Leute. Also haben wir Mentors, wieder zu dem Punkt, ist sehr wichtig. Aber ich denke, es ist sehr wichtig zu finden die richtigen Circle, die empfehlen Sie, nicht zu stellen.

00:56:42 Das ist mit Menschen, unfortunately. Ist es noch ein paar Mentors, in general? Du hast gesagt, eine bestimmte Person, die dir auch viel hilft. Für mich, Mentors sind manchmal Leute, die ...

00:56:59 Personally, I do have some mentors who don't even know that. So people also who inspire me and secret mentors. Is there any person you find inspiring for your work? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And lately I got to work with as well. So I've always... So when PathArt got released and we got invited to events, one of the very first event was reversed. That was an event that used to be in Vienna.

00:57:27 Every summer, I remember. Or so, I think every spring. Here, where I first met Rami Ismael, who was on your show as well. And yeah, that person, you know, I still remember we hang out for a night and I can't forget that night, right? From that moment on, you know, that person, he's an Arab, you know, he made it in the games industry. I'm like, okay, that is what I need to be, right?

00:57:55 Und ja, von dem Moment auf, Rami Ismail wurde eine große Inspiration für mich. Und von dann auf, wenn er Podcast mit Fosim Ismara und Osama Darius wurde, sie wurden auch meine Mentoren, die ich noch nie mitgebracht habe. Und heute, seit Oktober, ich habe die Möglichkeit, mit Rami zu arbeiten, zusammen mit dem Team, in Oktober letztes Jahr.

00:58:22 Und wir haben jetzt das Projekt gemacht, glaube ich, im Monat. Oder im Monat. Ich weiß nicht genau, das war die Zeit. Und ja, der Trailer wird bald sein. Und ich bin sehr froh für das. Das war eine fantastische Erfahrung. Aber wir können nicht mehr darüber reden, richtig? Ich meine, wir können darüber reden, wie es nicht related zu einem Titel ist. Aber ja, das ist es.

00:58:48 Whatever you want to share, share. I mean, just working with Rami, he's such a good leader. An actual leader. Because there are people who are called leaders in their titles, but they never lead. But that person literally was able to make it clear to everybody what their position was, and was able to hear everybody's opinions, and like...

00:59:16 Ich habe noch immer wieder angefangen, um alles zu finden, um alles zu machen, um auch zu machen, während es nicht einfach war. Aber wir haben einfach super gefühlt mit ihm als Kreative Direktor gearbeitet. Ich war als Vfix Artist mit ihm auf dem Projekt. Ich habe nie gearbeitet als Vfix Artist, also sie haben mich gemacht. Und ich war sehr dankbar für das, weil ich jetzt kann die Karriere von einem Vfix Artist auf dem Spiel gehen. Das ist etwas, was ich immer wollte.

00:59:45 Ja, einfach mit der Person zu arbeiten. Und ich wünsche mir mit Fawzi und Osama Darius und alle anderen. Und jetzt muss ich hier sein, weil ich sicher bin, dass du auch ein Mentor für Atlas bist. Wie ist das für dich? Ich glaube nicht, ich bin, ehrlich. Ich glaube nicht, ich bin auf diese Stelle noch nicht.

01:00:08 We haven't talked about this yet and we are slowly running out of time for part one and I think we need a second version of that anyway. But we didn't talk about, for instance, your new projects where you're using YouTube and Twitch to talk about game development processes, to talk about game developers and so forth. You have a lot of followers and subscribers there.

01:00:37 Take it as it is. You are inspiring people. You might be the obvious or hidden mentor of many out there. And yeah, no pressure, no pressure. I hope so. I hope so. Of course, I hope so. But I, you know, it's this curse of like, you know, I'm learning. There's always...

01:00:59 Ich kann immer verbessern. Die Idee mit meinem YouTube und meinem Podcast kam nach einem Lay-Off. Es waren tough times. Ich hatte viel Angst und Resentiment. Und ich dachte mir, Jack, du musst das mal einstellen. Ich muss das mal einstellen. Und ich muss das mal einstellen. Und ich muss das mal einstellen. Und ich muss das mal einstellen. Und ich muss das mal einstellen. Ich muss das mal einstellen. Und ich muss das mal einstellen. Ich muss das mal einstellen.

01:01:28 One of the things that I was obsessed with back then is the concept of learning and earning at the same time. So I started to start with this idea of Let's Learn. I was like, okay, let's do a Let's Learn closer to a Let's Play and try to sell those courses that I'm attending as an affiliate, but with also focusing on it being genuine. And I was able to make an income from that. And from there on...

Abschluss des ersten Teils und Ankündigung eines zweiten Podcasts

01:01:56

01:01:56 I started learning VFX, right? That was one of the main things that I started learning. And I think after three months or so, I got offered the job with Rami. And that was like, I was like, that is the best thing I've ever done in my life to just like invest in myself and just like believe in myself. Do something for me. Yeah. This is perfect. This is really perfect ending sort of for part one of the...

01:02:23 I think we would need to have a second one, a little bit of a longer one. We scheduled for one hour for this time. I think that's fine. Is there any pressing thing you still want to add though? We'll see you in part two. That's definitely one thing that I want to do. We'll see you in part two. We'll talk more. There's a lot of stuff.

01:02:46 Das passiert behind the scenes. I'm looking forward to it. You're making a book. Can you say that? Or is that a secret? It's actually like you can look at the title and so forth in the bookstores. It's going to be released in October, hopefully. Fingers crossed. Let's see how this works. You will be part of it. You are part of it.

01:03:11 Aber wir müssen das aus dem Channel cut, denn das ist ein super-secret, natürlich. Aber ich habe eine oder zwei Quickfire-Questions in der Ende. Let's do it. Favourite game of all time? Red Dead Redemption 2. Oh, yes. Gamedev tool you couldn't live without?

01:03:37 Blender. Oh, an underrated game you wish more people knew about. Underrated, underrated. Oh, it's a tough one. I don't play so many. Oh wait, Blur, Blur, Blur. The racing game. And last game that made you really cry or laugh out loud. The last thing. Or any. Okay, so I was watching a TV show and there's this actor who looked exactly like my brother. Wow.

01:04:06 That made me cry and laugh. I could. Thanks so much for part one of our episode. We have to do a second one where we go a little bit deeper into some of the topics. But this was a very, very beautiful...

01:04:22 um first first getting to know you to the talking dev community thanks so much now i'm going to interview you yes yes are you ready can we make a two minute break and then i'll get some fresh water and then we'll directly jump into part two uh into the second second we have now part two but this is the second podcast different one okay i'll see you in a bit be right back guys

01:05:39 Okay. Perfect. Quickly, quickly to my chat. So, welcome everyone. Again, and like, can we have a huge round of virtual applause after this first recording? And yes, we want to check back in a future episode. Yes, Jack will be back definitely. I'm really excited for part two. Yeah, I will start.

Vorstellung von Johanna Pirka und ihrer Arbeit im Bereich Informatik und Spieleentwicklung

01:06:07

01:06:07 Hello, everyone. It's me, Jack, the journalist. Today I have a special guest, Johanna. Introduce yourself. Hello, hello. Thanks so much for having me. So my name is Johanna Pirka and I'm a professor for computer science in Graz and also in Munich. So since July, I also took a professorship here in Munich at a technical university. And yeah, but I'm also like sort of in between.

01:06:36 Computer Science, Game Development, and try to bridge a little bit the different worlds in those spaces.

01:06:46 Alright, awesome. So take us through your childhood a little bit before all of this happened. How did that come to work? This is quite interesting. So the academic path can be sometimes a little bit challenging, especially if you go into computer science. So one of the questions I tend to get asked is like, why am I even in this space? Because this is a space where women are still really underrepresented.

01:07:15 And if I would have heard closely to the opinion of other people, I wouldn't be in this space at all. So even though I might have heard already some signs that I might be good in computer science, a lot of people told me to not study computer science. Yeah, this was quite interesting. But if I go really, really, really back, back, back, everything was there.

01:07:44 Sometimes you get possibilities because of early access. And one of the earliest experiences and memories I have was me playing Prince of Persia on the DOS machine of my father, which I was probably two or three years old. I couldn't write or read yet, but I knew what to enter on the DOS machine in the command line. And I suppose back then, like my...

01:08:13 als in diesem Raum von Spielern. In diesem ersten Spiel, der Prinz savin' die Prinzessin, Prinz of Persia, in diesem zweiten Spiel, oder all die anderen Spiels, wie Zelda, wo du sagst, die Prinzessin, Super Mario, der Plumber, die Prinzessin, und alle, die Prinzessin, die Prinzessin.

01:08:34 Aber es war immer meine Welt. Ich hatte noch ein paar Outside-Aktivitäten, aber ich war immer sehr nahe zu PC. Ich war nicht so scared, um PC zu benutzen. Weil ich denke, das ist schon etwas, wenn du auf der DOS-Machchine bist, dass du nicht so scared, um etwas zu brechen. Weil du es nicht so scared, um es zu brechen, um es zu brechen, um es zu brechen.

01:08:58 Und dann für die Spiele, es war für mich einfach so ein schönes Spiel, um zu gehen in diese Welt zu tun, um zu tun, was man nicht anders machen kann. Und ja, und an einem Moment, ich erinnere mich, als ich 12, 13, 14 war, habe ich angefangen.

01:09:16 building own homepage projects. This was back then a big deal because there was not a lot of tutorials out there yet. You didn't have YouTube show yet back then. I might be a little bit older than you are. So this might be like really, really old woman memories. But yeah, it was quite interesting to go to

01:09:41 Ja, so try out things, be a little bit creative. Also Visual Basic, which was a thing back then. But I didn't have a really computer science education at school. Not really, a little bit. And it was not a lot of people being interested, neither in games nor in computer science at all in my environment. It was really just like a handful of people. So in the end,

01:10:11 Für mich dann wirklich da, um zu studieren Computer Science zu studieren, alles war eigentlich irgendwie gegen das. Und ich habe immer noch die odds. Und dann habe ich eigentlich herausgefunden, was Computer Science eigentlich ist, wie kreativ das kann sein, und dass ich gut bin in dieser Sache bin. So, drei Fragen kommen in mind. Eine Frage ist, wie würde man sagen, hat Austria...

Entwicklung der Informatik-Ausbildung in Österreich und Bedeutung von Grundlagenwissen

01:10:40

01:10:40 Es hat sich in der Bildung des Bildungssystems entwickelt, um mehr Computer Science in Schulen zu verändern, von dann bis jetzt. So, honestly, so, since I'm really heavily in this space trying to be very pushy, dass wir mehr Computer Science in Schulen brauchen, um, in, in schools, um, I, it has evolved.

01:11:03 Ja, absolut. Denn tech wurde viel mehr accessible. Denn nachdem nicht viele Leute hatten accesses zu computers. Dann nicht alle hatte accesses zu Internet. Das war etwas, was wirklich, nachdem, was so slowly spreading. Und jetzt wird es viel mehr accessible. So da ist viel movement, um...

01:11:28 Median building, you would call it in Schirmbann, education about media usage, which is important, but it's not the base. Because it's quite interesting if you know, because since I grew up using a PC, I at least know what a folder structure would look like, how the general structure of a PC because of that would look like. And this is something because everything got so accessible, which is good.

01:11:55 It comes also with the downside that everything is hidden. And just using a tablet doesn't make you good in technology. And this is what we see now with the new generations, that they are sort of good in using technology, but are missing really background knowledge, even heavy users. How does it work? How's the infrastructure? And then...

01:12:21 Obviously, it comes with negative sides, because if you don't have the background knowledge, you cannot understand what could be benefits, but also problematic issues when using apps, systems, processes and so forth.

01:12:40 Okay, but why do you think that issue is like that where like there's no proper background anymore or they lack that proper background these days? Because everything again is super accessible. The system design has changed again, which is good. It should be accessible. But there is this link missing to the education around this. So again, I would really strongly argue.

01:13:07 dass wir in den Schulen nicht nur die Medien-Education lernen würden, sondern die Basis-Coding-Skills verstehen, wie die Systeme funktionieren. Weil es ziemlich lustig ist, wir lernen in den Schulen so viel über, ich meine so viel, aber über die Geschichte, über die Vergangenheit, über uns, unsere Böden und so weiter. Aber wir, in einem der Welt wir leben in,

01:13:35 Probably a majority of the day, which is the digital world, we don't learn so much. We only learn so little in schools. And this is, I think, something we need to change. Yeah, I agree with you. And I do think also, like, because you mentioned back in the day, there wasn't so many resources and you had to dig down, right? I bet you were reading books. What were your resources back in the day? Back then. Magazines.

01:14:03 Es war viel Spaß, wie Sie sagen. A lot of computer magazines. Und wir hatten, ich weiß nicht, ob Sie installieren, haben 20,000 Floppy Disks, die Sie haben. Und jetzt haben wir Floppy Disk 47 aus 63. Go on, Sie sind großartig.

01:14:29 I can also remember some of the games and even codes. You could find code to the games and to small programs printed in the magazine. But then at some points some of the magazines would come with discs or with CDs.

01:14:51 Und das war etwas, das war ganz schön, wo man auch verschiedene Demo-Games oder Dinge, und zu exploren ein bisschen. Und ja, ich denke, dass ich, wenn ich zu Recall, zum Beispiel Visual Basic habe, ich denke, viele Dinge habe ich ausprobiert, einfach ausprobiert, und oft ausprobiert.

01:15:15 So there was also a lot of games where I remember trying to, hey, I would love this code not be brown, but to be, I don't know, violet. So you are looking in the file system and try to sort of break the game a little bit. Wow, that's very interesting because I can do remember myself.

01:15:39 You know, Syria, for example, didn't allow any computers until the 2001s or something like that. So that is basically the first nation-like introduction to computers, if you can imagine that. So I do, I do, like, the way I grew up, when I tell stories from the, like, the...

01:16:02 The technology interactions that I had, like people in their 40s and in their 50s be like, oh, this is exactly how I grew up too. Like one of the things that I grew up with is like, we went to people and we knocked on the door to hang out with. There was no like asking for permission or calling. No, no, we went there and we knocked on the door, right? That was the way to do it. And one of the main things that I want to bring back to games and computers is like, I did not have any internet access until very late later on.

01:16:32 Und es gibt Tools wie 3ds Max, was ich wirklich lernen würde, wie du gesagt hast, ich würde einfach F around und finden. Und das ist interessant, dass du auch zu gehen hast. So, du hast vorhin gesagt, dass du ein paar Dinge stoppst, dass du das als eine Ausbildung hast.

01:16:53 Ja, das ist ganz interessant. Also in Austria, wir haben verschiedene Sorten-Schools. Wir haben eine sogenannte Gymnasium, die sich auf die, ich würde sagen, auf einer sehr generalen Ausbildung. Du hast mehr dedicateden Schulen, zum Beispiel für die Tech. Und ich war auf einer von einem sehr broaden Ausbildung. Interestingly, es war auf die Languages.

01:17:17 This is the thing I'm really terrible with. I'm like the worst person in trying to pick up languages. And it was like, I did learn English and Italian and Latin. And then at some point, also later in my life, I'm Spanish. But so it was like, I'm not sure if it was the perfect pick for my head or for my brain. But again, in the end, everything turned out perfectly.

01:17:46 Aber so, um, it was not something, I don't know, I was not particularly good in school also, also not in math, by the way. So I had to have help and tutors also for my final, for my finals during high school. And this is quite interesting because then it came really with a switch. So many people told me not to study computer science because

01:18:16 Es ist nicht etwas für dich. Du bist nicht so gut in Math. Und so und so fort. Und in retrospect, weil ich viele Gedanken, warum es so ist, dass es so ist. Even wenn ich kleine Programme gemacht habe, das könnte sein, dass das etwas für mich ist. Das Leute einfach nicht wissen, was Computer Science eigentlich ist. Das ist nicht etwas...

01:18:39 Ich bin nicht sicher, ob es wirklich viel verändert hat. Ich denke, es ist noch ein bisschen untereducated, wie broad Computer Science ist.

01:18:48 Also, things like, we do have those hype topics, right? At the moment, everyone is talking about AI. But actually, we are doing AI research since such a long time. And what we are talking about right now in the news is such a tiny part of what is possible or is happening out there. And everyone is jumping on those topics and pretending to understand what is going on. And this is really dangerous. That's why I'm always trying to be a little bit...

01:19:17 Protective, that we do need to understand a little bit better the fields. Because all the computer science itself, it's such a broad field. And just saying, oh, you're not good in math in your high school. Computer science is not something you're going to be good at. This is just really, really weird. So in retrospect, I think one of the major issues was that nobody actually understood what computer science is. That's why I'm also pushing. And still.

01:19:45 Ja, das ist so interessant. Ich habe auch über die Mathen gedacht, dass ich nicht gut in Computer Science wäre. Although, wenn ich eine Akademische Chance hätte, das wäre die Nummer 1, die ich würde. Computer Science wäre. Aber kannst du das ein bisschen unpackieren? Da sind zwei Dinge zu unpackieren. Wenn du gesagt hast, es ist gefährlich, wenn es um AI nicht zu verstehen, was Computer Science ist. Ich würde gerne unpackieren, aber ich würde auch gerne unpackieren.

01:20:13 Das ist das Punkt, das wir gerade erwähnt haben, das ich gerade vergessen habe. Ich kann noch etwas über Mathen sagen. Ja, Mathen. Das Mathen ist etwas...

01:20:26 By now I love math. It's something, again, in school, I probably was not really good in many things in school, but I do feel also in retrospect that maybe the way my brain works could have been supported better with other ways or other tools. But again, that's also a different train of thought. And then all of a sudden, the moment I did study at the university where the math level is way higher, but you actually learn

01:20:55 in a different way and you are exposed to other problems and you are exposed to problems which are directly applied to really useful examples. Yep. And it was just I think six months after I started studying computer science I was a tutor in math for high school students in their finals. Wow. This was such an interesting twist. Interesting.

01:21:23 Mostly girls, because I think it's, I don't know why, but I think it was a different level of trust. But it was this interesting twist for me being in need of having tutors for my finals versus switching to being the tutor and having no problems with math at all anymore, just because the problems were and the resolutions were maybe discussed in a different way.

01:21:52 Ja, sie wurden mehr verwendet, sie wurden mehr verwendet. Du hast die Dopamin-Rusche von, wie ich das mache, und dann haben sie es auf die Frage, die Sie versuchen, zu fixieren. Für mich, Maths ist etwas, das ich wirklich interessiert habe, speziell wenn ich Schadern und Visual Effects mache. Wenn ich mich überrascht, was Sign ist, die Sine-Wave ist ein einfaches Ding.

01:22:21 In school. And I would have those, like on paper, like, what do you call those? Things to solve equations. So, like for the test, right? They would tell you, this is what's going to come to the test and you're going to have to solve this on paper. I never understood what sine wave was. It never made sense for me. I just went through it all the way till the end. But when I see it on a, like, visually on a shader.

01:22:47 I could tell I understood it immediately, instantly. I was like, okay, this is what this thing is. And I think it's this direct application, like even, like we talked about games in education, but there's also the part of like, let's take those elements in maths and try to apply them in an Unreal Engine. It's for free. Like, let us teach the students how to use this on a job.

01:23:17 Ich finde, das ist sehr wichtig. Und das ist, zum Beispiel für meine Tutorials mit meinen Highschool-Students. Ich war mit Poker mit ihnen und begann die Probabilität. Hier in München, bei LMU, ich war mit Computer Graphics.

01:23:37 We tried to apply many of the problems, computer graphics is also heavily math-focused, and then try to explain all the things in a very simple Unity application. I don't know, again, just seeing those things really helps sometimes. And again, we don't need to make education complicated just for the sake of having it complicated. I honestly still believe that...

01:24:05 Es ist wichtig, weil sie uns beschäftigen, um uns zu denken und so weiter. Aber wenn es uns die Dinge helfen, um uns zu verstehen, um die schwierigen Probleme zu lösen, müssen wir alles, was wir haben. Und die nächste Sache, die ich sehr, sehr unterschiedlich ist, in der Bildung...

01:24:28 Schule versus University, but this is also just, I think, the sense of growing up and that you need still the space from school. But at the University, everything was way more around your own freedom, how to sometimes teach yourself the things. Sounds weird, but you get the basic introduction in lectures and then you get often even more complex problems for the homework. And you have to think. And honestly,

01:24:57 Especially in engineering, we all very often solve things together and talk this through. You mean software engineering, right? I'm talking about the math problems now. Okay, now I meant, because you mentioned engineering. Oh, software engineering, sorry. Software engineering. No, but in general engineering, one thing, the way how we learn to think and how to solve problems is in teams.

01:25:26 This is so interesting. This is very different to other studies where sometimes in humanist studies, sometimes, again, what I've learned is that many of the problems are up to you.

01:25:40 And here we have so many group works and project works. So we often have problems which are supposed to be solved together in groups of three or four. So also for the math problems, sometimes in groups or not, but the best way how you learn is if you explain it to others. Yeah, yeah, that makes so much sense. I mean, I could see the same thing in...

01:26:04 In-game development, too, right? Where your best work would be when you're working with teams. But to also include that in the educational factor, I feel like that is priceless, honestly. And so you mentioned computer science is very broad, right? Like the term. What would you say to someone who just listens to computer science and thinks math?

01:26:32 Was würdest du sagen, wie broad es ist? Oder AI?

Die Breite der Informatik und ihre Anwendung in verschiedenen Disziplinen

01:26:36

01:26:36 It can be everything. So it's like one field is, for instance, HCI, Human Computer Interaction Interfaces, where we try to bridge problems between how we as humans would interact with the machine. So this is something, especially in the realm of AI now, how can we collaborate, how we can use it for good and so forth. So those are typical problems there. We try to really focus on the human side of everything.

01:27:05 Weil das ist etwas, was ein bisschen verloren hat. In dem Anfang, alles war wirklich tech-focused. Es war nicht so viel Capitalism. Es war also, hey, wir haben diese tech, wir bauen crazy solutions, die niemand necessariamente braucht. Aber nur für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache. Für die Sache.

01:27:31 Trying out things. But then if you put the human in the loop, for instance, this field of HCI, you have, again, what I always try to underline, that computer science can be and is already used in every single discipline. So no matter what field you're working in.

01:27:52 you can have a good and positive impact for so many fields. You can create solutions for medical image recognition. Again, if we think of the realm of AI, one of the most interesting solutions, for instance, to use it for, and this is also where a lot of the algorithms are based, is image recognition to early recognize tumors and help people.

01:28:21 um or again for um um automatically recognized dangerous situations toxic behavior and video games this is what we are doing for instance okay to identify patterns um so you can use the same things for so many or similar things similar strategies for so many interesting things and so the group i'm leading in in grads again like i'm now in mutig in grads

01:28:49 But if I talk about the Game Lab in Graz, so for instance, we started with so much research in the realm of games and spaces around that, and we tried to show how this realm of game development, computer science, can be used for different SDGs. So we...

01:29:14 We mapped all the sustainability development goals, those are 17 goals given by the UN to hopefully make the world a better place or not so much worse, let's put it that way. And we tried to map all the projects basically onto those goals to actually show how broad, not...

01:29:34 Even computer science, but even game development can be. So we had games for energy education, for education in general, for consumption overviews, for educating about the microbiome, for general industry applications to make some processes more safe.

01:29:58 um to teach about different apprenticeships um because this is also something which is a little bit overseen these days how cool apprenticeships can be sorry um and and games of what credit experience can be a very good tool to make people experience things visualize things and yeah especially like the microbiome part of it like especially you know before

01:30:23 Covid, I would have seen that becoming very important. But also fake news these days. I feel like that could also be applied there too. Let's make a game about fake news. I think Polycular is doing that with Escape Fake. I think they're doing a good job in that way. They're also Austrians. I worked with them back in the day. But yeah, it's all helpful to

01:30:52 Es ist eine Mini-Version von Realität, besonders in VR. Ich glaube, VR ist eine große Sache, wenn es zu studieren und Forschung ist, oder was? Das ist, ich würde sagen, es ist. Das ist mein Haupt-Love-Projekt oder Haupt-Love-Direktions. Das ist etwas, was wir so early auf gemacht haben.

01:31:16 Also, back then, you used the cave environments, and then we had the early devices from this democratization of the VR developments with the early Oculus development. And I honestly still believe, even though I have to fight with a lot of people on that, but VR gives me so many things which no other technology before did to me.

01:31:43 And I still really, really fight for those educational experiences. This is, I think, also the main reason why I, what part of my research became known, which was this virtuality physics laboratory, because...

01:32:02 Back then in 2011, 2012, I went to MIT, which is this elite university in the US. It was ranked number one. And I was really, really grateful to be able to study there at some point. And there's one part to my history, to my childhood, which is quite interesting. Because back then, when I was probably 10 or so earlier, I wanted to become a physicist.

01:32:29 This did not turn out well, but actually, and then I, in my whole high school experience, I don't think we did a single physics experiment. So we, sometimes you have, I had this in the talk with Rami and in this podcast and it's quite interesting. He mentioned this teacher.

01:32:57 ...who really pushed him in the most positive way and motivated him. I also had very good experience. I also had not so good experiences, which always shaped me. And I would say in the end, like some of the experiences which I had, which were not so good, also shaped in a good way. Because like everything which is happening to me, which is not so good, I try to take and then try to...

01:33:23 So many of the tools I researched and developed were sort of tools to...

01:33:40 ...to support teachers, to give students also a little bit of autonomy, ... ...to do physics experiments, for instance, ... ...without the need of having access to this fancy physics laboratory. True, yeah. I mean, that's super helpful, right? Like, what if the things that you need to play with are super expensive or super dangerous, either?

01:34:03 Like, having that in VR experience? This is the MIT project. So basically, when I was at MIT and then me trying to become a physicist when I was young, but then sort of did not go that way because maybe of missing opportunities. And then seeing those fancy laboratories they would have. Like, I think one of those labs would cost 1.4 million dollars or something like this. And I was like...

01:34:31 This is the way how you can learn. This is the way how some little, tiny portion of people in the world can learn physics. Are you kidding me? And then we started again, also together with this physicist, a really cool one. He was PI of the Voyager Mission, so the supervisor at MIT. And he was a gamer also. He was back then around 70-ish, but played Skyrim.

01:35:00 Oh, wow, that's awesome. And together we started to take those experiments and digitalize all of them. So basically that you have the possibility first in VR.

01:35:13 You can actually go in VR into this physics laboratory. You can make all the things which are usually unseen. The field lines to better understand what is happening when you have this magnet in the coil and see all the field lines to understand the physics behind it. But you can make dangerous experiments, impossible experiments, expensive experiments.

01:35:39 When Covid hit, we thought, wow, we created something in VR, which is super useful for those couple of people who have VR. So we put everything into a web browser. So you can now go into this lab and try out all those experiments for free, basically, in a web browser without any need to have any other tech. Is there any guidance? Like, did you make, you know, different recipes that you could follow?

01:36:08 Or do you just need to know the knowledge as a physicist? I guess my question is, is this for everybody or just for physicists? So this is, I think it's very accessible. It has also now computer science experiments and so forth. It's called Maroon. And again, everyone can try it out in the web browser. But the interesting thing here, this was never designed to be a game or anything. This was really designed as an experiment. So you are using...

01:36:37 It is a tool. Sometimes teachers would come and help you go through some experiments. That's cool. There are some experiments which you can find online, but actually everything is really for you as like a simulation, basically. But we have a second project, which is the Contrary. We got a big mega grant for that.

01:37:03 Epic, um, gave us money to, um, to start making this physics escape the room educational experiences. Wow. Cool. This is, this is now the opposite. Um, it comes with, it does not follow so strictly because in Maroon, everything is actual physics. Everything is all the real calculations, which is super heavy in the background and many, many awesome people. Like I think by now.

01:37:32 Ich denke, es ist ein Open Source Projekt. Ich glaube, 100 Menschen oder so haben contributed to that by now. Es ist verrückt. Und die andere ist Chimera. Und das ist ein bisschen die Opposite, wo, again, alles ist nicht so strict in terms of die reale Science, aber es zeigt sich, durch die Gidee, durch ein bisschen an Escape-to-Room-Experienz, wo du lernen,

01:38:01 Small math concepts, small how to put together an engine concepts, a little bit how to start the engine with the magnets. And this is just designed to motivate you, to get you excited, to get you thrilled about how cool physics or engineering itself can be. Yeah, wow, this is such a cool project. Is it done already? Can people check it out? Yes, yes, both are on.

01:38:28 So one is on Steam and one is just on the website maroon.tv.at. We will definitely link those. It's such an interesting field. I really envy you to a degree because these are such interesting projects. I know your projects. I think both of us are working just in a very cool environment and doing really cool stuff. It would be so cool to work together one day. I mean, honestly. But anyway, back to AI.

Die Pandora-Box der KI: Chancen, Gefahren und die Notwendigkeit eines differenzierten Verständnisses

01:38:57

01:38:57 Wie ist es gefährlich zu wissen, was Computer Science wirklich ist? Und einfach über die Labels? Okay, so das ist wie eine Pandora's Box. So, was ich ein bisschen sad finde, ist, dass es, dass es viele wichtigste und komplexe Themen gibt, besonders in dem Game Dev-Realm gibt. Es gibt so viele wichtige Probleme zu diskutieren.

01:39:23 um especially like about the rights especially about um how it's being used um about um and but for instance what i find quite concerning again we are in the realm of ai since such a long time and using it for so many different application cases and i got on so many block lists because people are just randomly starting to block people who just have ai in their

01:39:51 um in in their i don't know in any description or anything um even though for instance we are trying to use ai systems to identify toxic behavior behavior and this is quite interesting that there's so little understanding of what ai is and what people are scared of is the generative ai which is a sub sub sub category of the whole ai space

01:40:17 Und einfach labeling alles mit AI, die auch die Namen der Intelligenz ist, das ist auch sehr wichtig für viele Wissenschaftler, weil Artificial Intelligence, das heißt, Intelligenz, ist etwas, was viele von uns wahrscheinlich nicht agree mit und würden starken argumentieren. Und das ist, glaube ich, so viele Menschen so scared.

01:40:41 Because there are so many things happening at the same time. And again, there are things which we need to talk about and which are, yeah. Ethical. Yeah, absolutely. But again, it should not be reduced to that space. And that's where I feel there's a little bit of a knowledge lack or missing understanding of what the whole realm is and what the actual problems are. And I'm not a...

01:41:08 always like this fan of just blocking away potential problems because i feel those are the things and the people who are in the end being left behind again so what for instance a lot of researchers are doing these days are trying to research ways because

01:41:27 Das ist die Weise wir arbeiten. Ich denke, wir alle sehen das. Es gibt schon so viele Leute, wie ChatGPT bereits verändert so viele Prozesse, aber auch so viele Prozesse. Und ich denke, die wichtigste Sache ist, wie man es in einem richtigen Weg benutzt, wie man es für gut benutzt.

01:41:53 And again, this is what also many of my colleagues are trying to understand, how this is this human machine component to help us to use the machine-based tools in the best possible way. Many studies are already showing that we can be more creative.

01:42:15 Und nicht nur produktiv, denn wir sprechen über Produktion all the time, aber auch immer mehr kreativ, wenn wir zusammenarbeiten mit AI-Astellerin arbeiten. Und ich denke, das ist wieder etwas, was wir können in den meisten positiven Weise benutzen. Aber keine Frage, wie die Rechte der Daten, die in der ersten Zeit wurden benutzt.

01:42:40 This is something which obviously are very, very big topics to be discussed. But also there, there are very tiny AI models, which are a little bit underrepresented these days, but which are super important. So tiny models, which you can train yourself with, which have way lower energy consumption, which is also one of the really, really big topics and which are only trained on...

01:43:08 Das ist die Daten, die Sie wollen, um es zu trainieren. Und ich denke, dass manchmal die Voisse, die dann auf die Probleme pressen, sind manchmal ein bisschen louder, als die Voisse, die die Potenzial gute Lösungen zeigen, um diese Probleme zu tun. Und das ist warum ich die Diskussion und die Diskussion um diese Themen ist ein bisschen... Ja.

01:43:36 Again, I think sometimes a little bit, yeah, not reflected on all sides. But again, the next thing is like what we had in the past with every hype, there's so much scam around this as well. And those are also super loud voices. And this is the weird thing. Now, voices like mine are getting blocked away.

01:44:00 because of the other voices being very loud and then being put into the same category. And this happened to me with the Metaverse, because we are doing research on virtual worlds, right? So the Metaverse, the blockchain discussions, of course, was also a big thing. Which is also computer science. And then now the AI topic. And again, also huge topics, then you're just being put into one box.

01:44:27 A.I. ist die größte Frage, doch. Ja, ja, ja, weil es sich beeinträchtigt, dass alle Leute zu arbeiten, glaube ich. Und das sind die Leute, die wir nicht in Kontakt mit Technologie haben. Wir sprechen über Artists, wir sprechen über Writers, die können auf dem Papier schreiben, oder die können auf dem Papier schreiben. Wir sprechen über Leute, die vielleicht nie hatten...

01:44:56 Computer other than writing e-mails and stuff like that. So I guess the question here is how do we make that complex thing approachable? In explanation as well. Like you explained local AI that you can train on your own. Okay, how approachable is that in comparison to ChatGPT? And the answer is not at all. It's not approachable at all. You need to dig, right?

01:45:25 You need to understand what docs are. You need to understand what llama is. You need to understand what hugging face is. You have to dig and get all those resources and make them work. And if they don't work, it's frustrating. But ChatGPT, you literally can open the website and you're there. This was such a smart booth from OpenAI. We talked about this before, that we have...

01:45:50 All of a sudden, something which is so accessible. So everyone is just mainly focusing on that. And it's just being discussed in the chat as well. And because of that, you have a couple of companies having a lot of power, which is also quite an interesting challenge to take. And something which I would also add there. So we are putting a lot of...

01:46:19 thought efforts into the realm also, how to get more of this autonomy back to Europe also. Because a lot of things in the AI realm and also where the data is coming from, where the data is stored, but also where the main players are sitting, this is either the US or China is super strong in there. And in Europe, we are losing a lot of autonomy also because of that.

01:46:48 So that's why there's a lot of efforts to strengthen research in this field, also in Europe, and to help also companies who want to build their own models, smaller models, accessible models, safer models, and so forth, also in Europe. So this is a huge topic. You opened the Pandora's box, why are you doing this? Because it's interesting for me.

01:47:15 Nein, ich denke, dass es ein Verständnis gibt. Es ist ein Verständnis, ein Verständnis rund das Thema. Und ich bin froh, dass ich es von jemanden in Computer Science gehört habe, als Lehrer, als Professor. Weil Sie, die Leute, haben sich involviert in das viel bevor diese Hype überhaupt existiert. Und zu hören, dass Sie Ihre Perspektive auf das Thema ist, glaube ich, sehr wichtig. Weil ich glaube, dass viele uns nicht mehr haben.

01:47:44 Das ist etwas, was ich finde ein bisschen...

01:48:12 Frustrating sometimes. It´s not me, but also other researchers in this realm. Again, trying to make something good out of that. And then, like you are saying, I try to...

01:48:26 die positive sides, aber natürlich auch die Herausforderungen, die wir alle zusammenfassen werden. Und es wäre wichtig, zu unterstützen, zu finden Lösungen. Und dann fühlt es so weird, zu constantly beobachten. Das ist ein sehr...

01:48:46 Wird, weird time that while trying to explain things just because you're doing this already for some long but very different place actually in this realm and that they're still being blocked away sometimes I mean I guess like we need mediators in the sense of people who are curious from both sides almost like the technical artist role basically like on my podcast I have artists on

01:49:12 They're all afraid of AI, right? So we have someone from computer science that could say, all right, we can bridge the gap here. Maybe we could say, maybe don't block everybody that has AI in their title. Or maybe just let's all work together to make that, I don't know, new creation like a car that everybody will drive soon and have a seatbelt, you know? A friend of mine did create a very cool app.

01:49:40 für Bilder, wo sie eine Safe Space wollen, um, für die Artisten, um, zu uploaden Bilder, um, without having the fear, um, dass die Dose being used for training. I think it's called Cara. Oh, wow, she's a friend of yours. Yes, she's fantastic. So, she's coming from the Photography Realm.

01:50:04 Und sie hat auch sehr interessante Opinions über die Gedanken von AI. Ich war ein großer Fan von der Website. Und besonders die Geschichte, wie es sehr schnell war. Und dann hat sie all diese builds. Ja, ja, ja. All of a sudden es war so popular, aber natürlich, wie sie auf die Server haben, mit dem zu haben, und zu haben, die Art zu haben, ist intensiv. Ja.

01:50:33 Also her work as an artist, as a photographer, she did covers for Vogue and so forth. Wow. So she's very good. And yeah, and I think there are really interesting ways also as an artist, like if you mention to mediate there, I see the fear to be replaced.

01:51:01 But if you have your creative style, your creative vision and so forth, this is something which is so unique and which, again, AI by itself, AI cannot tell jokes by itself, but you can become a better joke teller while working with AI. And this is like one of those approaches, because again, it's...

01:51:27 will not replace us, but it can accelerate a lot of processes. And I think the best solution is to learn how to work with it in the best possible way. Because also tools like Houdini and so forth, they're heavily using procedural generation, which is also a tool, like an algorithmic.

01:51:48 ein Tool, von Computer Science, zu spätigen die Prozesse zu entwickeln, Artistic Works oder Environments und so weiter. Das war also etwas, das zu spätigen, die Prozesse zu spätigen. Und da sind viele Tools, ich meine, wir sehen es mit Photoshop und so weiter bereits, und also Unreal Engine.

01:52:08 Deam Sweeney schon erwähnt, dass sie ein bisschen das Konzept der Scene Graph, das ist die Grundlage für eine 2-Dimensionale, oder insbesondere 3-Dimensionale, Image Repräsentation. Und wie sie ein bisschen die Prozesse sind.

01:52:29 um ai concept ai based concepts this is quite interesting if you follow up the processes to see how it can be useful for you but of course be um arguable and discussative because um in the topics which are ethical difficult again the the rights or the yeah what would i find for instance quite difficult is

01:52:52 This is because it's the same with coding. Like if you use now HGPD and so forth or Copilot, you will also get to be exposed to my code because I use GitHub, for instance, which is also open source. So I lift this open source spirit a little bit so everyone can access my code. So also the trained models are used with.

01:53:21 Based on this now. And if I talk to programmers these days and companies, computer scientists, it's very clear that the current tools, that the current models are sometimes comparable with the state of juniors, with junior coders. Will they replace them? To everyone I talk to in this industry, no.

01:53:49 You need the human capital. You need what you said earlier in the previous podcast. There's so much different creativity. There's so much different thoughts coming just by being part of the process. The process itself will change. It will become accelerated. It will be a little bit different. But again, and it's so important to also as a company see that.

01:54:14 um, because it's creative capital and it's capital to be supposed to be trained also, because if we would start replacing all junior positions, um, there will not be any seniors at all. But this is again, coming back to the positive side. I know I'm talking now a little bit positive. I just try to show the potential.

01:54:38 But what we are trying to work on right now, for instance, are tools, how to use those AI tools and models to help you become better and learn faster, learn specifically for your special needs. Listen, that is a thousand percent correct. Like, here's an example I'm going through right now. Right, so I'm trying to replace Adobe programs.

01:55:04 mit Open Source Programmen. So what I do is I have a local AI installed, right? Saving the environment, yay. So what I do is I give it the documentation of Substance Designer, and I also give it the documentation of Material Maker, which is an Open Source Alternative. And I'll be like, okay, give me all the replacement for the nodes, and I'll just learn from that, because they might just have a different name. That is all.

01:55:33 So I'm just giving it all those resources. It's giving me the results back. Not always correct, by the way. Like 80% correct or something. It's still good. It's still good enough to... It's like having someone who knows 50% about everything. You know? You can trust it 100%, but you can get there to make your own thought by the end of it. You can make your experience...

01:55:59 Aber die Gefahr mit dem, ich denke, ist, dass viele Menschen es speziell in relationships oder... Let's just talk in relationships, right? Like, who ist right, who ist wrong? Look, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt, ChatGPT hat gesagt

01:56:17 Das ist das Problem. Es wird Antworten. Wie wird es Antworten? Welche Biasen sind? All diese Dinge, die wir nicht wissen. Wie gesagt, es ist alles Amerikanisch. Was sind die Biasen hier? Wir sehen das sehr viel mit DeepSeek. Oh, es ist sehr, sehr chinesisch, government-orientiert und es ist als ob die US ist nicht.

01:56:42 But it's quite interesting because the bias is also, since it's using all of our historical data and all isms are combined in one data source. Brilliant. But again, those are things which is important to work with. That's why it's super important to sort of expose oneself. This is always what I try to say. Try to see how it works, understand it. That's why I'm very...

01:57:08 Pushy again about computer science education early on, because if you understand how this model works and the basic is not rocket science, if you go deeper there can be can get nasty, but like to understand the base, this is not rocket science and we could teach this in schools. And if you learn.

01:57:29 wie das ist und was die Daten sind, und das ist eigentlich ein bisschen wie ein Probabilitätssystem, dann versteht man, was eine Hallucination ist, was man muss, was man glaubt.

01:57:42 that you cannot trust the outcome, that you need to fact check. So maybe the research, for instance, if you want to research to a specific topic, can be accelerated. But I still need to double check and I need to know what to double check, how to double check and what can I trust and what can I not trust. Because it was very obvious in the first models, because the first models were purely

01:58:07 Text-based. So it did not have any logical training at all. So you could not do math. And all of a sudden people were, hey, this is so stupid. It cannot like calculate two plus two. Yes, the system which is just trained on text cannot calculate. Right. And this is again, it's not rocket science, but we need to bring this knowledge to the people because how can you

01:58:34 Work with a system which you cannot, you don't need to know like the base, base, base things, but at least to understand so much that you understand where the results are coming from. You don't need to know the nasty, all the gritty details, the structure and so forth, but at least the basics. Yeah, I think a lot of people are scared about that. And we have four minutes left and that's where I...

Abschlussworte und Verabschiedung

01:59:01

01:59:01 Ich hab meine Guests und mich gefragt, ob es noch etwas, was ich noch etwas möchtet? Ja, nein, ich habe nicht gesehen, dass die AI-diskussion gekommen ist. Und ich wollte nicht so positiv oder negativ sein. Ich habe eine sehr, ich denke, neutrales Opinion an das. Und ich versuche immer, wie es ist, wie es ist.

01:59:24 There are a lot of issues, like you said, bias discrimination, the missing transparency, the big companies, the accountability, the ethical concerns about the data, the privacy issues, the potential job losses. How fast it's going, too, that the laws can't keep up with it and everything. But again, on the environment, energy, but on the other hand, that there are so many positive chances. And I think since everything is...

01:59:54 so fast, we sort of need to work together to try to understand also the potentials, but also the potential problems together as fast as possible. All right. Yeah.

02:00:09 Das war großartig. Und ich bin sorry, dass wir nicht darüber reden können, aber wenn du ein Part 2 machen willst, dann muss ich ein Part 2 machen.

02:00:25 Let the viewer kind of know where they can find you, if they have any questions. Yes, thank you so much. So if you want to talk about those topics, I sometimes give also Tiny Lectures, they're called. They're supposed to be 15 minutes, but the last one was four hours. Where I sometimes talk about computer science topics on Twitch and on the YouTube channel, both on Joyprink. All right, I'll make sure that I'll link all of this. I'll talk to the viewer.

02:00:53 Just a little bit to say goodbye to them and then we'll talk for like a minute or two. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll leave all the links down below. If you liked it, like it. If you disliked it, liked it and let me know. You know, dislike it and let me know why you disliked it. And let's have a discussion in the comments. Alright everyone, Jack the Journalist here and Johanna, we both say bye. Bye everybody. That was awesome. Thanks for doing this.

02:01:18 I quickly give a shout out again, so I think now it works again. So everyone in my chat, this was the, or this is, we are still here. This is the wonderful check. Again, we had now two podcasts in one. And please, there's now, it's here somewhere at the very top, this join us in following check.

02:01:46 So please make sure to press this tiny heart. Thank you. He has also a YouTube channel, which I quickly need to also post into the chat since we're here. A lot of really cool podcasts like these are happening. And this is now in the chat. And if you want to look at PathOut.

02:02:13 kann, für einige Gründe, nicht in Deutschland sein. Oh, ich habe das gesehen. Das ist interessant. Ich weiß nicht, warum. Aber da ist die I.O. page, wo du kannst. Das ist so sad, dass du es nicht in Deutschland sein kannst. Ich war es an der Science Busters Show. Die Science Busters sind ein Austrian Comedian.

02:02:39 um show basically and i was invited to the podcast and of course i mentioned pass out um and then they made me aware that it's not playable in german what then i actually got this got this plan b link maybe maybe someone can fix that yes we can reach out to someone all right thank you so much for your time i need to go and check on the cats because i forgot to feed them oh johanna thank you so much

02:03:08 Yes, absolutely. Alright, bye everybody! Bye!

02:03:35 Hast euch gefallen? Also, Jack macht richtig tolle Sachen. Wie gesagt, über Pathout habe ich, glaube ich, schon 100 Mal. Mein Lüfter ist so laut. Das ist der Rucksack-PC. Das ist schade. Heute kommt alles früher oder später auf EA zurück.

02:03:59 Ja, ich verstehe es, ich verstehe es eh. Also das KI-Thema, ich rede eh gern drüber, so neutral wie es geht. Brauche ich noch einen stillen Rucksack-PC? Die Wärmeleitpaste tauschen. Sagst du Software Engineering?

02:04:29 Ich bin immer froh, wenn ein Computer dann läuft. Dann kann ich alles damit tun. Aber Hardware-technisch schaut es ein bisschen trist aus. Ich glaube, der Thomas hat sogar schon mal einen Lüfter bei mir wechseln müssen. Ich glaube, einmal hat schon der Thomas einen Lüfter wechseln müssen. AI. Wer von euch verwendet den AI schon einmal die Woche? Plus.

02:05:26 Ich glaube, dass viele Systeme das inzwischen schon was direkt verwenden. Also wenn ihr zum Beispiel eine Google Suchanfrage verwendet, dann ist das Thema auch schon, also dann wird inzwischen schon oben zum Beispiel, wenn ihr da jetzt irgendwas sucht, wenn ihr jetzt da zum Beispiel eine Frage eingibt, dann gibt es oben manchmal schon eine kleine Zusammenfassung, die auch KI generiert ist.

02:05:59 Aber das merkt man gerade inzwischen, dass es wirklich so heavy use versus wenig use ist. Ich bin gerade am lernen, wie man lokal KI trainieren kann und besser Wissen aufbaut. Also die lokalen KI-Systeme, darüber zu lernen, das ist auf jeden Fall was sehr, sehr cooles. Tak tak go und LibreOffice und die Bibliothek. Cool.

02:06:36 Ja, es waren halt echt ganz andere Zeiten, auch zum Beispiel, wie ich damit aufgewachsen bin. Es wird schon sehr viel verändern. Es wird auf jeden Fall sehr, sehr viel verändern. Also das mit dem Halluzinieren ist noch immer wild.

02:06:59 Ja, das ist halt das nächste, also das, wie du schreibst bei jüngeren Arbeitskollegen, wenn sie mit deinem KI-Code daherkommen. Und das ist mal dann halt ein bisschen das Problem, weil, wenn du gerade lernst und dann hast du halt die Wahl zwischen, gut, du schreibst jetzt eine Zeile und du kriegst den Code, der das macht und der funktioniert und der ist wahrscheinlich auch so gut, wie du das gerade in deiner Kapazität könntest, weil du bist ja ein Junior.

02:07:27 dann bist du vermutlich ein bisschen versucht, das einfach zu verwenden auf der einen Seite und vielleicht sogar ein bisschen frustriert zu sein, weil du denkst, okay, warum braucht man mich dann? Aber es macht halt leichte Dinge leichter und komplexe Dinge bleiben halt komplex.

02:07:52 Na gut, also wir haben heute zwei Podcasts aufgenommen. Es geht munter weiter. Es wird jetzt die nächsten Tage ein paar Streams und ein paar Podcasts zu geben. Das wird recht cool. Ich werde euch auf Discord am Laufenden haben. Vermutlich ist der nächste, also ziemlich sicher ist der nächste Stream.

02:08:20 Sorry. Ist der nächste Stream slash Podcast tatsächlich schon am Donnerstag. Also ich möchte jetzt nicht zu viel spoilern. Dafür der Effekt, bitte reden wir nicht drüber. Ich habe einmal den falschen Button gedrückt. Wollt ihr es nochmal sehen? Kann ich das nochmal nachmachen? Joey lernt nach fünf Jahren Streamen zum ersten Mal, was diese Buttons auf OBS machen. Krass.

02:08:57 Das war es mit den Buttons. Ich glaube, das war... Was ist das da? Krass. Filter könnte ich auch haben. Nein, nein, übertreiben wollen wir es jetzt nicht. Übertreiben wollen wir es nicht. Also, ich hoffe, es hat euch gefallen und war spannend. Ich sehe, der Jasool ist online.

02:09:25 Und gibt Sachen weg. New World spielt dann was denn sonst. Ich schicke euch weiter zum Jasur. Und wie gesagt, vermutlich sehen wir uns das nächste Mal am Donnerstag. Jetzt ist es wieder in Graz.

02:09:38 Okay, also Raid Chazool. Schön, dass ihr da wart. Ich hoffe, das war spannend. Also wie gesagt, ich finde das, was der Jack macht, richtig, richtig, richtig toll. Also bitte schaut ab und zu in seine Streams rein. Liebe Grüße beim Chazool jetzt. Ihr habt jetzt noch einen Timer von 7 Sekunden. 4, 3, 2,

02:10:08 Und papa!