I owed you an explanation

I know that the public at large is generally not aware of the ‘peak oil’ phenomenon, nor its potential significance. Among “peakniks” like me, it seems obvious. Peak oil as a subject has been thoroughly discussed. Just check some of the links at the right column of this blog.

The oil industry press and many analysts and consultants now openly talk about “depletion”, “plateaus” and “demand outstripping supply.”

Even magazines like The Economist, the Bible of neoliberal economics, appear scared shitless when talking about the current dangers for the global economy. And they talk a lot about oil.

But this blog is an experiment that mixes my own past (and present) as a gaming journalist, theorist and teacher, with a phenomena that could be the worst nightmare for the electronic entertainment industry. It won’t be a passing fad.

If we are really about to pass the peak of global oil production, we will learn the hard way how dependent we are on oil. Its uses for transport, as a feedstock for petrochemicals and the way it is used to produce food. Of course it is also a primary source for generating electricity amongst other non renewable fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.

My own feelings are mixed about the outcome of an early peak. Maybe we won’t have time to react. I do not think (maybe I don’t want to believe) we will suffer a catastrophic crash. But the adjustments that will occur will be remembered in the history books.

Because basically, we are in uncharted territory.

But I think I still owe you an explanation. Yes, I am games reviewer, I love racing simulation games. Yes, this blog is called Yamauchi’s Paradox. But what is so paradoxical about Kazunori Yamauchi, the man behind the Gran Turismo series?

Everything started when I read some news about the party held in Japan to celebrate the completion of Gran Turismo 4. There Yamauchi, perhaps after too many drinks, announced his new project.

"I'd like young kids to more fully understand the fun of cars. Using the entertainment power of games, we will be, in a sense increasing the number of car lovers twenty years or so down the road."

Defending this strange pet project even further, Yamauchi stated, "if we don't grow to love cars in youth, we become adults who are uninterested in cars."

Knowing what I know about the prospect of cheap and abundant oil for the coming decades, this was terrible. It was like being the only person who can see the elephant in the room. Emperor’s new clothes.

The average car enthusiast is probably expecting that we will have the same car industry in twenty years. The cars themselves will be running on whatever combustible human ingenuity could be found. But many of the solutions proposed now, such as hydrogen fuel cells or electric cars have very difficult futures.

Hydrogen, fuel cells and electricity stored in batteries are not energy sources themselves. They are vectors to store and transport energy produced elsewhere. The energy we use to fuel our cars and all the transportation we use will not be substituted easily.

If Yamauchi’s assumptions are right, and he is fostering a love of cars by young people, he could be educating youngsters for a future that may end up exactly the opposite of what he expects.

Of course Yamauchi’s vision and impact is just a tiny drop of water in an ocean of consumer orientated culture. But it can serve as a symbol for the big contradiction between what markets demand (more consumption, and an ever growing head-in-the-sand culture) and what the future can bring us. That is if we do not react soon enough to our future energy challenges.

That is the reason I write this blog. Because I need some way to bridge the part of my persona still entwined in the videogame industry to my interest in oil and energy. I am not a luddite, nor a pessimist by nature. But I am a realist. Although I love technology and all the good things it has done for me, I do not buy the notion that ‘technology will save us’. No matter how it is put. You know, after all, ‘the sky is the limit’ is just a catch phrase.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I already placed my bet. I started Crisis Energetica, which has now spawned an association. I also became an Oilcaster, starting to plan for a future where the world will not be like the world in a Playstation 4.

I know my fellow gamers are an intelligent crowd. Full of extraordinary ideas. Some of them even willing to transform the videogame medium to a fully featured form of creative expression. One able to convey all kinds of emotions, not just mindless maze chasing or button-smashing fights.

As technology lovers, they would agree that oil is finite. But they are also optimists. This optimism should no be wasted. We do not have to buy every press release that says that this or that alternative energy will solve all our problems. Instead, we have to ask the right questions.

I don’t even want to start talking about the geopolitics of oil depletion. That is when the frightening tale, that the world may be past its peak of oil production, really starts to unfold.

Maybe it is time to start a dialogue with gamers? Especially those brave gamers starting to peel off the superficial ideas that often invades the gaming industry and press.

What is going to become of us when the world oil production peaks? When the recession sets in? When every videogame will be a classic?

I know we are intelligent and resourceful, but you need to wake up. To start to think about the stuff things are made of and transported by. The stuff that fuels our bodies and our cars, what makes our high energy world run.

Maybe we can’t do anything after all, but as the always classy Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari says:

Un homme averti en vaut deux

Adding injury to insult...

The little finger in my left hand is in pain. And I am not alone. Playing too much GT4 will cause various sorts of physical damage, strained tendons (my case), sore thumbs, involuntary eye twitching, etc, be it with the DSC or the DFP, not to mention the psychological damage caused by the too frequent restarts when hotlaping in Nurburgring (BTW, it's 7:30 with a BMW M5, medium sport tires, manual shifting and no driving assists whatsoever).

Worst of all is that I haven't played so much lately... aging.. agh!

***

In the oily world things are starting to get out of hand... masks are falling, PO is becoming more mainstream with each passing day. Big new oil projects, the so called "mega projects" that will come on stream from here to 2010 won' t cover projected demand, daunting reports, from Goldman Sachs, the IEA, the Bank of Montreal on Saudi Arabia...

And next week I am going to give two presentations to second graders about the multimedia industry, and how to become a game developer. Crazy.

And now for something completely different...

Racing simulators are very good for short, intense bursts of gameplay. You take seat by 18:00h and by 18:0h you’re already cruising at 200 km/h at the Ring. No need to wait to build up an army and beat your real time armchair general, no need to upgrade your weapons to defeat the big guys. Also, no need to load your savegame and try to find out what’s next in your favorite FPS maze. If you’re short on time, racing simulations are a perfect solution for your gaming needs (ok, all the puzzle and mini games are even better for a quick fix).

So here it comes Silent Hunter III. I am a long time fan of this series and other titles as well, like Silent Service II (I didn’t play the first one, I was too young!), Aces of the Deep, and a bit of the modern subs simulations, like 688 Attack Sub or Sub Command. And those games need a lot of time! Yesterday I was doing the Naval Academy missions, learning the ropes of the game. Well, yesterday I did just ONE mission, the final one. I repeated it three times, and it took me like one and a half our... Real time simulations of machines that can go over big distances in a gaming session are not new. There’s people flying MS Flight Simulator doing transoceanic flights in real time, or doing bombing runs over the Nazi occupied Europe in virtual B-17s. But with a WWII sub simulation you can do a dynamic campaign that is going to take you months!!!

Thanks gods for time compression!