WEBVTT

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(logo chiming)

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(bright upbeat music)

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(bright upbeat music)

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(no audio)

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(bright upbeat music)

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- [Narrator] In the early 2000s,

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the multimedia software
platform Flash exploded

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in popularity and with it
came a flood of free games

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created by both
professionals and amateurs.

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It had never been easier
for children and teenagers

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to access computer games.

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You didn\'t need a copied
floppy, sketchy download

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or your parents\' credit card,

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all you needed was a web browser.

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Though most flash games were
single player experiences,

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occasionally a company or an organization

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with enough resources

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would put up something that
was networked for multiplayer.

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Americans of a certain age might
remember social flash games

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like \"Habbo Hotel\" or \"Club Penguin\"

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but Scandinavian millennials
had a popular hangout spot

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of their own

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\"Hundaparken\" or \"The Dog
Park\" was released in 2003

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by the Danish Public Broadcasting Company.

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It was a rare example of
a completely nonprofit

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virtual world and one that didn\'t impose

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the English language on its players.

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We spoke with a Danish
video game archivist

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and an old school \"Hundaparken\" player

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about how the game managed to
survive crisis after crisis,

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even the death of Flash itself.

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(bright upbeat music)

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- [Allan] My name is Allan Christopherson,

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I work in the Royal Danish Library

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doing video game preservation,

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trying to find all Danish
video games that have existed

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and making sure that we
preserve it as best as possible.

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Sus is an old friend of mine
who grew up with \"Hundaparken\"

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and has a lot more experience
with actually playing it.

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Sus also does some kind
of preservation work

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in that she physically
restores and repairs

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video game consoles and cartridges.

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- [Sus] Yeah, I don\'t
really have anything to add.

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I guess it all started
back in primary school

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where one of like the
girls that I looked up to,

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she was like this very chill girl.

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She was like, \"I\'m gonna
show you this cool game\"

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and then it all kinda took off from there

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and it was a game that I played every day.

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I have no idea how many hours
I have spent in this game

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but it was a very big
part of me growing up

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when I was a kid.

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- [Allan] For \"Hundaparken\" though,

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the first thing that\'s
relevant happens in 1997

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where a Danish company, Netstationen,

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launches a sort of chat program
which was called Hojhuset

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which would translate it be
something like the high rise

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or the skyscraper and it was
just a like simple picture

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of a room which had
people in that chat room

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represented with small avatars.

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This is some of the earliest
real experimentation

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with the whole chat
game concept in Denmark.

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Obviously, there were
chat rooms before then,

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but this is sort of where
the concept of chat games

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start in Denmark.

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This is gonna come in
because one of the people

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who developed this game was later hired

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to work on \"Hundaparken\".

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Another thing that was
happening around this time

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is that the Danish Broadcasting Company,

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they had decided that they
wanted to start focusing more

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on like cross-media youth audience.

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They started doing TV programs
aimed at a youth audience,

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sort of MTV-style popular music charts

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and that sort of thing in
a program called \"Boogie\".

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And they also wanted to do
something on the internet.

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A lot of people had started
having access to that from home

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and even more would have it
at schools and libraries.

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This was a new youth cross-media platform

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that they were calling SKUM.

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2002, that officially launched,

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\"Hundaparken\" launched in 2003.

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They wanted a game that
first and foremost appealed

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to a tween audience which is
why we are playing as dogs

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and running around the dog pack.

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And the sort of crude
boyish sense of humor

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is immediately apparent.

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Right now we are looking at a screen

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with a bunch of dog poops on the ground,

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which is used as a way of
leaving messages for other users.

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You can also pee on the ground

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which will then give people
a link to your profile.

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The game launched at first in Denmark

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but very quickly expanded to also being

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in Sweden and Norway.

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The Danish Broadcast
Corporation made a deal that

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they would also join
in and that meant that

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there would be an influx of
users from all three countries,

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making sure that there were
always a bunch of people online.

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In the earliest version of \"Hundaparken\",

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which today is called Hun \"Hundaparken 1\",

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the three countries would have
separate areas to walk around

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and then there would
be a spot in the middle

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where they met up where
you could talk with users

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from the other countries.

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You\'ll notice that people
speak in the native language,

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unlike today where we sort of
expect Danish European users

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in general to just speak English in games.

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People just spoke their native
language and because Danish,

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Swedish and Norwegian is
close enough to each other

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that people can sort of
understand each other

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without too much problem.

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It was a massive success.

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It had at its peak 250,000
users, a quarter million,

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which was at that time more
than what \"Second Life\" had

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which is fairly impressive

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for a game that only
existed in Scandinavia.

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But since DR was more used
to how radio and TV work,

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the company didn\'t really
know how to handle it

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from there.

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They sort of struggled with
the concept of maintaining this

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as an ongoing thing.

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Most of the game is
essentially getting resources,

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buying items and chatting
and that\'s more or less it.

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Obviously, there\'s twists to
it; the theming around dogs,

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but essentially, that is the gameplay.

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As you can see, someone has
laid some poops on the ground.

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You can also dig in the sand
and play some small mini-games

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to collect bones, which is one currency,

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but I\'m gonna get into that later.

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And of course, importantly,
there is the act of mating

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with other users like this.

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You may have noticed there was
a small plus sign above you.

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This is to indicate the
karma gain from doing this

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because the game rewards
this kind of behavior.

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I will say it has always asked
for consent with doing this,

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which is nice.

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The game featuring mainly a
tween audience needed moderators

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to manage all sorts of
pedophiles and anyone else

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that might want to prey on
the very young user base.

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The people running the
game started promoting

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very active players to
moderators and then inviting them

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to come to the physical
headquarters of DR to hang out,

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eat dinner together and
get to know each other,

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to foster like a sense of
camaraderie and get them invested.

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The moderators at this point
were not paid in any real ways

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so this was more of
like status type thing.

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Moderators failed very
strongly about the game

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which is also why the game still exists.

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- [Sus] And since they
were big participants

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or like very active users of the game,

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it was usually also people
with a lot of friends.

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I had a moderator friend
and the thing they can do

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if someone misbehaves is they can like,

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\"Ooh, what is that called, Allan?\"

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Like this giant spear comes
down from the heavens.

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Your dog would then automatically
also say all kinds of,

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\"Oh, I\'ve been a bad doggy
and I need to be better

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\"and I\'m so sorry.\"

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You couldn\'t stop that from
being said out loud publicly

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and you\'re basically just
impaled until midnight.

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Then it resets.

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But basically, when when you
were friends with a moderator,

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it kinda became a thing
to like pester them like

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\"Can you impale me please,
please, impale me or something.\"

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And then he would lie there
and then would be like,

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\"I\'m a bad doggy.\"

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And then they would obviously
just take out the spear,

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but we just found it was incredibly fun.

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(bright upbeat music)

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- [Allan] So if you\'re into gambling,

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there\'s a slot machine there
where you can gamble for bones.

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So that\'s maybe a good spot to
talk about The game economy.

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The game has a couple of
different numbers that can go up.

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First and foremost, is your karma.

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That\'s the system put in place

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to try and foster certain
types of behavior.

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If you sniff other dogs,
it increases by one

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and if you meet with them
it increases by seven.

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You can increase a max of 50 each day

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so you are encouraged to keep logging in

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to increase this number.

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Karma then be spent to try and
advance, what\'s that called?

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- [Sus] Your rank?

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- [Allan] Yes.

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And the rank then gives
you additional abilities

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or places you can go as you advance.

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I believe most of you will have something

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that looks like a cage.

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This indicates that you are puppies

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and have fairly limited abilities

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to interact with your environment.

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I am currently a sled dog

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which means that I can do a
couple of different things

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such as this.

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I\'m riding another dog.

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The next rank after that
allows you to leave these poop

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and pee messages on the ground.

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After that is one that allows
you to swim in the water

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to access an area that
other dogs cannot access.

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Obviously, this is
something that people want

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not only because this is status symbol

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but also because it means you can interact

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with the game more

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in a game that does not
have a lot of interactions.

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And this all happens at the
very north end of the map,

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at the Wisdom Mountain,
where for 15 karma points

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you can answer a quiz question

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and if you answer enough
correctly, you might advance rank.

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- [Sus] I remember I was like
nine years old or something

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when I played this game and
I sat in our office thing

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on the computer and was
playing a game, right?

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And then I went back into the living room

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where my mom was sitting
watching TV and I was just like,

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\"Mom, what is the legal sexual
age for people in Denmark?\"

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And she\'s like, \"Why the
fuck are you asking me this?\"

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Like, \"What kind of question is that?\"

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And I\'m just like, \"Mom,
I\'m playing \"Dog Park\".\"

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Like \"What is this game?\" Right?

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And like I showed her like,

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I need that to become like a
sled dog or whatever, right?

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Oh, okay.

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- [Allan] The other currency is dog bones.

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Those are things that you can
dig up from specific tiles

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like these ones.

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The third type of number
you\'re dealing with is your hp.

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It\'s a little bar next to
your diary and you can see

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on one side there\'s a heart,
another side, there\'s a skull.

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This indicates how healthy your dog is

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and if you neglect your dog,

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that is to say you don\'t
log in for a while,

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the bar will lower until
it reaches this skull

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and your dog will be permanently dead.

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It\'s a sort of Tamagotchi mechanic

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to make sure that people keep logging in

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or they will lose their dog.

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People don\'t like it when
dogs die, that sort of thing.

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It further adds to people
getting very attached

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to their dogs.

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Many people that are still on this server

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still have the names of
their original first dog

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that they have gotten so attached to

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that they\'re still logging into this day.

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(bright upbeat music)

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- [Sus] In here is the trading room.

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If you look at the design of the room,

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you can very clearly
see it\'s for two users

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who then place the item
in each corner of the room

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and then they just run for it.

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When I was a kid, I was young and naive.

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I came across a person who was like,

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\"Well, I know this duplicate code

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\"where if you like drop your item,

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\"then it duplicates it and
then we don\'t have to trade.\"

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\"We are just gonna have two of each item,

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\"isn\'t that just gonna be magnificent?\"

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And I was like, \"That sounds so amazing.\"

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And I went in there and
the so-called cheat code

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was the keyboard shortcut for
closing that active window.

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And so, I was just shutting down the game

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and he could then just
pick up the two items.

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I had been digging for
those bones for so long

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and just lost that hat, it
was like a pair of antlers

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and I went to my mom and I was so upset

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and she was just like,

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\"Well, if you can\'t
handle this kind of stuff,

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\"maybe you\'re not old
enough to play the game.\"

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It was so annoying because
then I obviously had to stop

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making a tantrum.

00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:42.263
(bright game sounds)

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- [Allan] The first \"Hundaparken\"
was very quickly found out

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to have a bunch of security issues.

00:14:49.380 --> 00:14:52.500
Very quickly users started to
figure out various glitches

00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:55.200
and that sort of thing to game the system.

00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:58.770
The actual reason that they
ended up being a remake

00:14:58.770 --> 00:15:01.860
that they called \"Hundaparken
2\" was that some users

00:15:01.860 --> 00:15:05.880
figured out how to gain
administrative privileges

00:15:05.880 --> 00:15:10.880
which was bad because that
sort of ruins the game,

00:15:11.010 --> 00:15:12.990
if anyone can start
kicking all the players

00:15:12.990 --> 00:15:16.530
and harassing, that sort of thing.

00:15:16.530 --> 00:15:18.810
But it did mean that the developers

00:15:18.810 --> 00:15:22.470
certainly had to start
working on a major update

00:15:22.470 --> 00:15:25.140
and they decided to do
a sort of rebranding

00:15:25.140 --> 00:15:28.740
where they started hinting
that the world was doomed.

00:15:28.740 --> 00:15:30.067
- [Sus] Oh, yeah.

00:15:30.067 --> 00:15:32.700
- \"Hundaparken\" was, I think
gonna be hit by a meteor,

00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:33.540
is that correct?

00:15:33.540 --> 00:15:34.530
- [Sus] Yeah, I think so.

00:15:34.530 --> 00:15:37.677
But for some reason it was so like

00:15:37.677 --> 00:15:41.760
the ground was breaking
apart and lava was coming out

00:15:41.760 --> 00:15:44.220
before the meteor hit.

00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:46.650
- [Allan] Yeah, real dooms day type stuff.

00:15:46.650 --> 00:15:49.620
They were doing a lot of
teasing on what was gonna come

00:15:49.620 --> 00:15:53.970
and they were trying to create
activities for the dogs to do

00:15:53.970 --> 00:15:55.160
to sort of prepare for this.

00:15:55.160 --> 00:15:59.670
There was a spaceship being
built to travel to another world

00:15:59.670 --> 00:16:00.840
to save all the dogs.

00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:04.290
That\'s a very nice little
trailer made for that

00:16:04.290 --> 00:16:08.010
that was shown on Danish
television where they introduce

00:16:08.010 --> 00:16:11.130
the fact that now they are
migrating to another world

00:16:11.130 --> 00:16:14.640
and all the dogs are
inside this big spaceship

00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:17.280
and then landing on a
new world to explore.

00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:19.350
And with that they did a bunch of small

00:16:19.350 --> 00:16:22.860
quality of life changes and
also introduced a bigger things

00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:26.040
such as abilities and such.

00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:29.340
I know Sus, that\'s about
where you stopped playing,

00:16:29.340 --> 00:16:30.600
I believe?

00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:33.840
- [Sus] Yeah, I think, mainly
because it was too big.

00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:37.320
They combined all three countries into one

00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:40.950
and also they took away this tile format

00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:45.240
where we are on one tile
in the bigger map system.

00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:47.070
It was just one open world,

00:16:47.070 --> 00:16:50.613
you didn\'t have to load every
room, if that makes sense.

00:16:51.780 --> 00:16:53.160
- [Allan] In \"Hundaparken 2\" especially,

00:16:53.160 --> 00:16:57.720
the design philosophy was
to try and enable people

00:16:57.720 --> 00:16:59.730
to play the kind of
things they wanted to do,

00:16:59.730 --> 00:17:01.500
to enable users to do that

00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:03.180
but because these were young users,

00:17:03.180 --> 00:17:05.460
they tended to role play a lot

00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:08.430
like playing out relationships
and that sort of thing.

00:17:08.430 --> 00:17:11.820
And one of the very early
things that happened

00:17:11.820 --> 00:17:14.280
was that people would
attempt to get married

00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:17.190
and there was not such system for that.

00:17:17.190 --> 00:17:21.030
So the game developers
started adding items

00:17:21.030 --> 00:17:23.100
that would allow that to happen,

00:17:23.100 --> 00:17:27.210
trying to facilitate the
plays that people were making.

00:17:27.210 --> 00:17:29.160
And I think maybe that\'s
a good time for us

00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:34.020
to head to the Gravplassen
part of the map.

00:17:34.020 --> 00:17:37.770
This is the graveyard but
since that\'s the closest thing

00:17:37.770 --> 00:17:40.950
to a church, this is also
generally where you would expect

00:17:40.950 --> 00:17:42.901
to have weddings and that sort of thing.

00:17:42.901 --> 00:17:46.068
(bright upbeat music)

00:17:48.822 --> 00:17:51.150
So there is one thing that didn\'t make it

00:17:51.150 --> 00:17:55.020
past \"Hundaparken 1\" and it sort of plays

00:17:55.020 --> 00:17:58.470
into the karma system where
there was an item you could get

00:17:58.470 --> 00:18:03.000
at that time, I\'ve heard
refer to it in different ways,

00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.420
either as a sausage or
more often as a dildo.

00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:07.560
- [Sus] Oh, no.

00:18:07.560 --> 00:18:11.520
- [Allan] Where you would
use this item on another dog

00:18:11.520 --> 00:18:14.430
to insert it into their anus

00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:17.306
and they would then run around with it

00:18:17.306 --> 00:18:20.430
and be unable to remove
it by their own power,

00:18:20.430 --> 00:18:22.680
would need help from someone else.

00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:25.710
Helping another dog like
that would help your karma.

00:18:25.710 --> 00:18:30.060
And I\'m not sure but I think
I remember inserting it

00:18:30.060 --> 00:18:32.073
would make you lose karma.

00:18:34.110 --> 00:18:35.430
This has not made it

00:18:35.430 --> 00:18:38.340
past the first version of \"Hundaparken\".

00:18:40.410 --> 00:18:43.170
- [Sus] In regards to things
that would decrease karma,

00:18:43.170 --> 00:18:46.950
I think the Molotovs were also,

00:18:46.950 --> 00:18:50.730
I think it\'s still here, that
you can buy it at at the shop.

00:18:50.730 --> 00:18:55.200
It\'s the Molotov cocktail kind
of thing where you basically,

00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:58.260
you throw it at another
dog and then it\'s black,

00:18:58.260 --> 00:18:59.940
as in it\'s been burnt.

00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:01.980
There\'s a burning animation.

00:19:01.980 --> 00:19:05.100
But I do think that you throw it around

00:19:05.100 --> 00:19:07.410
and then at some point
someone would explode

00:19:07.410 --> 00:19:08.670
and you wouldn\'t really know who.

00:19:08.670 --> 00:19:10.110
So it was kinda like playing,

00:19:10.110 --> 00:19:12.720
is it called \"Hot Potato\" that game?

00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:14.077
Something like that.

00:19:14.077 --> 00:19:17.077
(bright game music)

00:19:27.783 --> 00:19:32.783
- [Allan] \"Hundaparken
2\" launched in 2009.

00:19:32.790 --> 00:19:36.840
Two years later, SKUM, the
youth portal closed down

00:19:36.840 --> 00:19:41.220
on DR\'s homepage which then meant

00:19:41.220 --> 00:19:44.160
that \"Hundaparken\"
basically had no place to go

00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:46.350
and would have to shut down.

00:19:46.350 --> 00:19:48.540
With the closure of SKUM in 2011,

00:19:50.857 --> 00:19:54.090
\"Hundaparken\" still had a lot of users

00:19:54.090 --> 00:19:56.880
that were very attached to their dogs.

00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:00.900
And so two of the then
developers decided to buy out

00:20:00.900 --> 00:20:03.750
the right to \"Hundaparken\"
and then continue running it

00:20:03.750 --> 00:20:05.430
on private servers.

00:20:05.430 --> 00:20:06.930
And so they did.

00:20:06.930 --> 00:20:09.570
And that allowed people
to continue logging in

00:20:09.570 --> 00:20:14.160
even if it was no longer run
by the public broadcast system.

00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:16.590
This also led to a bunch of other issues,

00:20:16.590 --> 00:20:19.710
certainly, they had to start
figuring out what that meant

00:20:19.710 --> 00:20:21.647
for administrators and moderators
and that\'s sort of thing.

00:20:21.647 --> 00:20:24.150
And they needed to find hosting.

00:20:24.150 --> 00:20:27.930
You\'ll notice there\'s no
in-game way of funding the game.

00:20:27.930 --> 00:20:29.700
Nothing costs actual money,

00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:32.460
that was simply not
something that you would do

00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:35.460
with the public broadcasting
system for a thing

00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:37.650
aimed the children or just in general

00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:40.350
since it was supposed to
be owned by the people.

00:20:40.350 --> 00:20:44.130
So this meant that it was
sort of a hobby side project

00:20:44.130 --> 00:20:47.340
they were continuing to run
to allow people to continue

00:20:47.340 --> 00:20:50.730
to have access to all their
friends and their dogs.

00:20:50.730 --> 00:20:54.480
And that in turn meant
that they had to find

00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:57.240
some cheap postings so
they wouldn\'t get ruined

00:20:57.240 --> 00:20:59.493
from all the people
still accessing the site.

00:21:00.330 --> 00:21:02.280
And there\'s a funny story about that.

00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:06.870
They had an Norwegian user
who had repeatedly tried

00:21:06.870 --> 00:21:09.360
to game the system, trying to make sure

00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:14.360
that he would rank up, get some
kind of recognition in-game,

00:21:14.370 --> 00:21:19.370
he was very obsessed with
this and tried to suggest

00:21:20.220 --> 00:21:23.460
that they do hosting on a specific

00:21:23.460 --> 00:21:27.300
very cheap hosting service
and the developers ended up

00:21:27.300 --> 00:21:30.330
jumping on this because
that helped them out a lot.

00:21:30.330 --> 00:21:32.730
But eventually they started figuring out

00:21:32.730 --> 00:21:35.940
that other private
servers of \"Hundaparken\"

00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:38.010
started popping into existence.

00:21:38.010 --> 00:21:41.250
Clearly somehow, someone
was copying their code

00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:44.040
and it was not like
open source or anything

00:21:44.040 --> 00:21:45.450
so that shouldn\'t happen.

00:21:45.450 --> 00:21:47.430
So after taking a whole lot,

00:21:47.430 --> 00:21:51.210
it turns out that the hosting
service that they\'re using

00:21:51.210 --> 00:21:56.210
is actually in the name of
this Norwegian guy\'s mom.

00:21:56.340 --> 00:22:00.660
He had somehow managed
to convince her to create

00:22:00.660 --> 00:22:05.660
a hosting service in her name
so that he would have access

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:08.910
to all the code running on that server

00:22:08.910 --> 00:22:12.840
so he could create copies
where he was the admin

00:22:12.840 --> 00:22:14.013
and would have power.

00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:16.540
- [Narrator] That is wild.

00:22:17.580 --> 00:22:22.580
- [Allan] Yes and the then
owners got sort of scared

00:22:23.310 --> 00:22:24.840
about what this would mean.

00:22:24.840 --> 00:22:28.350
They were fearing like a coup of the game

00:22:28.350 --> 00:22:30.540
but they sort of burned
out on this whole thing.

00:22:30.540 --> 00:22:32.210
It took all the fun out
of it because that meant

00:22:32.210 --> 00:22:35.310
they were not working on the actual game,

00:22:35.310 --> 00:22:37.830
improving that the way they had before

00:22:37.830 --> 00:22:41.040
where it was all about
listening to what the users

00:22:41.040 --> 00:22:43.980
wanted and trying to make that happen.

00:22:43.980 --> 00:22:47.373
And instead it was all about
what do we do about this fella?

00:22:48.300 --> 00:22:53.300
Which is sort of how one of
them let himself be bought out

00:22:54.090 --> 00:22:58.590
by two admins who had been
there since the early days,

00:22:58.590 --> 00:23:02.790
two Norwegian women, who had
grown from moderators to admins

00:23:02.790 --> 00:23:07.036
and then bought him out so they
had a share of \"Hundaparken\"

00:23:07.036 --> 00:23:10.500
and could then continue
running it more actively

00:23:10.500 --> 00:23:12.150
which they have done ever since.

00:23:12.150 --> 00:23:15.360
They are very engaged in making sure

00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:17.283
that this place is still running.

00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:20.880
I asked them why \"Hundaparken\"

00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:24.600
and the answer I got was
sort of the usual answer

00:23:24.600 --> 00:23:26.640
that you get with these things that,

00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.790
obviously, there\'s a large
part of nostalgia about it.

00:23:29.790 --> 00:23:31.200
They grew up in this game,

00:23:31.200 --> 00:23:35.400
have a lot of very positive
memories associated with it

00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:37.860
but also they just couldn\'t
stomach the thought of it

00:23:37.860 --> 00:23:41.460
disappearing with all of their friends

00:23:41.460 --> 00:23:44.760
and everyone they knew
and all these memories.

00:23:44.760 --> 00:23:47.160
And I completely understand that,

00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:49.410
that\'s the same reason that led me

00:23:49.410 --> 00:23:53.010
to go into a video game
preservation in the first case,

00:23:53.010 --> 00:23:57.450
that I just cannot stomach
the idea of these things

00:23:57.450 --> 00:23:59.400
that are very important to a lot of people

00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:03.600
just disappearing completely forever.

00:24:03.600 --> 00:24:07.590
They have this Discord
server that has since become

00:24:07.590 --> 00:24:09.600
this central point for people to interact

00:24:09.600 --> 00:24:11.790
outside of the game in the ways that

00:24:11.790 --> 00:24:13.650
the game does not facilitate.

00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:17.340
People have been posting
all their old screenshots

00:24:17.340 --> 00:24:20.880
and videos they had
made, not purposely so,

00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:24.060
but an actual archival preservation effort

00:24:24.060 --> 00:24:27.570
that just sort of spawned
naturally out of nostalgia

00:24:27.570 --> 00:24:30.360
and community and that\'s pretty cool.

00:24:30.360 --> 00:24:34.410
They have created a party
committee where people sit down

00:24:34.410 --> 00:24:36.570
and think about what kind
of events they can do

00:24:36.570 --> 00:24:38.640
to keep the thing fresh.

00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:42.390
This is all really a
continuation of the way

00:24:42.390 --> 00:24:47.193
that the game was always
very user design friendly.

00:24:54.870 --> 00:24:59.870
The original instance of
\"Hundaparken 2\" was handed over

00:25:00.510 --> 00:25:04.650
to the new owners and they
kept running it for a while

00:25:04.650 --> 00:25:09.270
but the game was
Flash-based and as you know,

00:25:09.270 --> 00:25:13.020
Flash was recently discontinued.

00:25:13.020 --> 00:25:17.070
Support was removed from every web browser

00:25:17.070 --> 00:25:22.070
and that resulted in one
of the biggest erasures

00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:26.550
of digital culture that has ever happened.

00:25:26.550 --> 00:25:29.430
In the case of a lot of
these games from \"Newgrounds\"

00:25:29.430 --> 00:25:30.360
and the like,

00:25:30.360 --> 00:25:32.700
there have been preservation
efforts elsewhere,

00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:36.240
but obviously this meant that
\"Hundaparken\" was gonna die.

00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:41.004
This started the next major
crisis in the lifespan

00:25:41.004 --> 00:25:46.004
of \"Hundaparken\" and they did
a bunch of event-type things

00:25:46.710 --> 00:25:49.800
like trying to collect
crystals for a science dog

00:25:49.800 --> 00:25:54.720
that they had added as an NPC
who would then create a portal

00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:56.760
to another dimension.

00:25:56.760 --> 00:26:00.210
And once that happened,
the game briefly shut down

00:26:00.210 --> 00:26:04.350
and opened again in November 2021

00:26:04.350 --> 00:26:09.350
after they had finished making
an entirely new \"Hundaparken\"

00:26:10.350 --> 00:26:13.320
in a new engine which would
still run in the browser.

00:26:13.320 --> 00:26:15.120
And that\'s what we are playing now.

00:26:15.120 --> 00:26:17.880
This is also why it\'s lacking in some ways

00:26:17.880 --> 00:26:19.470
that \"Hundaparken 2\" didn\'t

00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:23.160
because this is all new
re-implementation of the game

00:26:23.160 --> 00:26:26.190
and they\'re still missing
a bunch of features

00:26:26.190 --> 00:26:29.160
but it\'s still there,
you can still access it.

00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:31.920
And as you notice, there\'s
still a bunch of users

00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:36.920
just hanging around every
single day, just logging in,

00:26:37.560 --> 00:26:40.800
and I think that\'s pretty wild for a thing

00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:44.370
that is no longer advertised anywhere.

00:26:44.370 --> 00:26:47.850
The game is sort of lackluster

00:26:47.850 --> 00:26:52.850
compared to any newer chat
games and that sort of thing.

00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:54.750
If it\'s for the gameplay,

00:26:54.750 --> 00:26:58.740
you are probably better
off playing \"Final Fantasy\"

00:26:58.740 --> 00:26:59.910
but it\'s still here

00:26:59.910 --> 00:27:03.663
and people are still
participating actively with it.

00:27:04.808 --> 00:27:08.220
And the amount of effort it
must have been to make sure

00:27:08.220 --> 00:27:11.160
that it survived the death of Flash,

00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:12.540
building it from the ground up

00:27:12.540 --> 00:27:17.540
by a very small amount of
people is honestly incredible,

00:27:19.740 --> 00:27:22.350
because it could just have died
with every other flash game

00:27:22.350 --> 00:27:26.458
but it\'s still here and
that\'s frankly amazing.

00:27:26.458 --> 00:27:29.625
(bright upbeat music)

00:27:35.248 --> 00:27:38.415
(bright upbeat music)

00:27:44.040 --> 00:27:45.900
This version of the game

00:27:45.900 --> 00:27:48.840
does not actually have
any child users anymore.

00:27:48.840 --> 00:27:52.260
The average age of the user base advances

00:27:52.260 --> 00:27:57.260
by a year every year, these
are all old users essentially.

00:27:59.490 --> 00:28:02.583
You see this computer here on the right,

00:28:04.020 --> 00:28:06.360
if you click that and click shop,

00:28:06.360 --> 00:28:11.360
you\'ll notice that a very
special skill that is newly added

00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:14.373
to this \"Hundaparken 3\" version.

00:28:15.540 --> 00:28:18.700
And the thing is that because
these are all adults now

00:28:19.650 --> 00:28:24.300
and the game is run by
former users who fell in love

00:28:24.300 --> 00:28:29.190
with the room-making system
like the level editor,

00:28:29.190 --> 00:28:31.950
they implemented that for users to use.

00:28:31.950 --> 00:28:33.480
They can design rooms,

00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:35.580
they\'re not gonna show up in the main game

00:28:35.580 --> 00:28:38.700
but they can share them
through the Discord server

00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:41.910
and then the admins can load
them up in one special zone

00:28:41.910 --> 00:28:44.490
where other people can experience them.

00:28:44.490 --> 00:28:46.260
I\'ve actually just gotten in contact

00:28:46.260 --> 00:28:48.660
with one of the current
owners who will come in

00:28:48.660 --> 00:28:49.493
and show us a thing.

00:28:49.493 --> 00:28:53.703
So if you go down to Slottsplassen
and enter the castle.

00:28:57.448 --> 00:28:58.980
- [Iria] Hi.

00:28:58.980 --> 00:29:02.141
- [Allan] So Iria, that
you may see on the screen

00:29:02.141 --> 00:29:03.993
is one of the owners.

00:29:06.390 --> 00:29:09.886
This is the place that I
mentioned where the admins

00:29:09.886 --> 00:29:13.680
can swap in user-created rooms.

00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:15.300
Today there has been an event,

00:29:15.300 --> 00:29:17.770
a competition of true or false questions

00:29:19.474 --> 00:29:21.393
but now we are doing something else.

00:29:24.390 --> 00:29:28.623
I do like the way it slowly loads in.

00:29:32.089 --> 00:29:36.352
So this is a room created
by user called Hdgf.

00:29:36.352 --> 00:29:37.380
- [Sus] Hdgf.

00:29:37.380 --> 00:29:39.530
- [Allan] I believe
it\'s the pronunciation.

00:29:41.042 --> 00:29:44.125
(soft upbeat music)

00:29:49.100 --> 00:29:51.960
- [Sus] Back in the first park,

00:29:51.960 --> 00:29:55.110
this was a place for me
to actually have friends.

00:29:55.110 --> 00:30:00.110
I was very much an
outsider when I was a kid

00:30:00.150 --> 00:30:01.890
and got bullied in school,

00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:06.000
so there was really nobody to
hang out with after school.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:09.660
So the fact that I could
find other kids too

00:30:09.660 --> 00:30:12.600
to have fun with and chat
with and interact with

00:30:12.600 --> 00:30:13.830
meant a lot to me.

00:30:13.830 --> 00:30:15.630
And I think other kids on there

00:30:15.630 --> 00:30:18.420
had the same kind of experience that,

00:30:18.420 --> 00:30:20.370
it was a place where you could be yourself

00:30:20.370 --> 00:30:25.080
and you could like dig
for bones and level up

00:30:25.080 --> 00:30:28.863
and you could just have fun
while also having friends there.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:33.690
I am a diagnosed autistic person.

00:30:33.690 --> 00:30:37.230
I got diagnosed back when
Asperger\'s was still a thing,

00:30:37.230 --> 00:30:39.480
apparently that\'s not a thing anymore.

00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:43.770
I don\'t know but I would say that I\'m like

00:30:43.770 --> 00:30:47.430
on the much more functional
end of the spectrum.

00:30:47.430 --> 00:30:49.800
I\'m very aware of my body

00:30:49.800 --> 00:30:53.520
and I also have like
struggles with anxiety,

00:30:53.520 --> 00:30:58.448
so if something feels off
I can get very anxious

00:30:58.448 --> 00:31:03.063
so that\'s my biggest
struggles with my autism.

00:31:04.080 --> 00:31:09.080
And yeah, I definitely felt
much more safe in \"Hundaparken\"

00:31:11.280 --> 00:31:13.740
because there wasn\'t any pressure

00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:18.740
and I guess for me it became
also like pretty traumatic

00:31:21.780 --> 00:31:24.186
when it comes to interacting with people

00:31:24.186 --> 00:31:28.560
because like every time I was at school,

00:31:28.560 --> 00:31:30.510
I would just get bullied, right?

00:31:30.510 --> 00:31:35.510
And so, I isolated myself a lot
when I met other humans too,

00:31:37.410 --> 00:31:41.730
basically being very fearful
in interactions in general.

00:31:41.730 --> 00:31:44.760
I still struggle with
that so the fact that

00:31:44.760 --> 00:31:49.020
I could be like a pixel
talking to another pixel

00:31:49.020 --> 00:31:51.393
through text was just amazing.

00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.250
As a human being,

00:31:56.250 --> 00:32:01.250
you want to like interact
with other humans, right?

00:32:01.830 --> 00:32:06.540
And the fact that there was
no way of doing that for me

00:32:06.540 --> 00:32:07.800
was terrible.

00:32:07.800 --> 00:32:12.800
So the fact that I ended up a
place where I could do that,

00:32:13.890 --> 00:32:17.630
I could be human with other
humans without being too human

00:32:17.630 --> 00:32:22.080
or how you would put it, it was amazing.

00:32:22.080 --> 00:32:25.163
(soft upbeat music)

00:32:27.060 --> 00:32:29.610
- [Allan] You may have noticed
when you are walking around,

00:32:29.610 --> 00:32:32.371
one of the very common things that happens

00:32:32.371 --> 00:32:35.880
is that people will greet
you by name as you walk past

00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:37.143
when you enter an area.

00:32:38.310 --> 00:32:41.700
That seems to be like a
cultural \"Hundaparken\" thing,

00:32:41.700 --> 00:32:43.740
that people greet you as you appear.

00:32:43.740 --> 00:32:47.640
- [Sus] And that\'s not very
normal in the real world, right?

00:32:47.640 --> 00:32:50.070
And I think it\'s gotten
worse over the years.

00:32:50.070 --> 00:32:53.340
We\'ve distanced ourselves
a lot from each other

00:32:53.340 --> 00:32:55.230
and I find that so sad.

00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:59.340
- [Allan] Scandinavia
famously has this concept,

00:32:59.340 --> 00:33:04.340
the Law of Jante, that you
have no worth as a person,

00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:06.720
you should not believe
yourself to be better

00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.570
than other people because you\'re not.

00:33:09.570 --> 00:33:11.940
There\'s a whole set of rules around this,

00:33:11.940 --> 00:33:15.480
it comes from an Norwegian
book but it\'s an expression

00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:19.500
of something internalized in
much of an northern Europe

00:33:19.500 --> 00:33:22.380
which is funny when we
keep scoring really well

00:33:22.380 --> 00:33:23.970
in happiest countries.

00:33:23.970 --> 00:33:27.150
But a lot of that is this concept that

00:33:27.150 --> 00:33:31.020
you shouldn\'t believe that
you are something special

00:33:31.020 --> 00:33:33.330
and that you are better than others

00:33:33.330 --> 00:33:35.790
and it\'s considered incredibly rude

00:33:35.790 --> 00:33:39.393
to try and posit yourself as such.

00:33:40.620 --> 00:33:43.050
But it also means that when
you\'re sitting on a bus

00:33:43.050 --> 00:33:46.650
in Denmark, you should
never speak to other people

00:33:46.650 --> 00:33:48.420
and if other people speak to you,

00:33:48.420 --> 00:33:51.600
presumably you\'ll be pointing
towards the headphones

00:33:51.600 --> 00:33:53.123
you are presumably
wearing to indicate that

00:33:53.123 --> 00:33:55.980
you are not interested
in speaking to people.

00:33:55.980 --> 00:33:58.410
This is very weird and they\'re breaking

00:33:58.410 --> 00:34:02.520
into your personal space
and that sort of thing.

00:34:02.520 --> 00:34:03.750
And I think that sort of plays

00:34:03.750 --> 00:34:06.900
into some of what Sus was talking about,

00:34:06.900 --> 00:34:09.240
that to quote Cheers,

00:34:09.240 --> 00:34:12.060
\"A Place Where Everybody Knows Your Name\",

00:34:12.060 --> 00:34:14.760
it\'s nice to feel a sense of
belonging and this is something

00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:17.130
that the internet can create.

00:34:17.130 --> 00:34:20.970
And back in 2003, if you
were a neurodivergent,

00:34:20.970 --> 00:34:24.480
the internet was probably your
best chance of finding people

00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:26.343
who would not be bothered by that.

00:34:28.050 --> 00:34:31.020
- [Sus] Yeah and and also just
that you\'re not being judged

00:34:31.020 --> 00:34:35.010
on your looks or if you were having ticks.

00:34:35.010 --> 00:34:38.340
I like to fiddle when I
get nervous especially

00:34:38.340 --> 00:34:41.790
and a lot of things that people can see

00:34:41.790 --> 00:34:44.213
and be also very like, \"What is she doing?

00:34:44.213 --> 00:34:49.213
\"That\'s so weird,\" or
something, is also taken away

00:34:50.520 --> 00:34:52.683
in these online worlds.

00:34:53.640 --> 00:34:56.730
When it comes to popularity and stuff,

00:34:56.730 --> 00:34:59.183
it was about are you a nice person,

00:34:59.183 --> 00:35:01.020
are you fun to be around?

00:35:01.020 --> 00:35:05.760
Obviously, also a bit
about like having rare hats

00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:10.500
or something, but I never
remember it being about

00:35:10.500 --> 00:35:14.160
for instance, what level
or like rank you are.

00:35:14.160 --> 00:35:15.967
It would much more be,

00:35:15.967 --> 00:35:19.800
\"Oh, congratulations you
reached the space dog rank,\"

00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:20.633
or whatever.

00:35:22.470 --> 00:35:24.960
- [Allan] I obviously try and preserve

00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:26.340
all Danish video games.

00:35:26.340 --> 00:35:29.460
That generally means I
don\'t spend a lot of time

00:35:29.460 --> 00:35:33.150
on each one but \"Hundaparken\"
is a fairly major

00:35:33.150 --> 00:35:38.150
cultural media in Denmark and
so this was a very good excuse

00:35:38.580 --> 00:35:41.490
for me to actually dig in
and talk to the developers

00:35:41.490 --> 00:35:42.783
and see what\'s still out there

00:35:42.783 --> 00:35:45.660
that we could potentially preserve

00:35:45.660 --> 00:35:47.010
in the national collection.

00:35:49.200 --> 00:35:53.010
One of them specifically
managed to find an old backup

00:35:53.010 --> 00:35:55.590
which had all of the old assets

00:35:55.590 --> 00:35:57.960
from the first version of \"Hundaparken\",

00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:00.570
several of which had been assumed lost

00:36:00.570 --> 00:36:02.310
by the current owners.

00:36:02.310 --> 00:36:04.050
So I managed to send that to them

00:36:04.050 --> 00:36:05.880
so they can start implementing that

00:36:05.880 --> 00:36:08.007
in this third \"Hundaparken\".

00:36:11.610 --> 00:36:14.400
We are very lucky that
we are written directly

00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:17.220
into Danish law, like
the direct deposit laws,

00:36:17.220 --> 00:36:21.540
we get through copies of
every work of media sent to us

00:36:21.540 --> 00:36:24.510
for preservation in two
different cities in Denmark.

00:36:24.510 --> 00:36:26.880
So in case that one of
the cities is burned down,

00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:28.280
we still have the other one.

00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:31.440
We are fairly lucky in Denmark

00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:35.550
but we still run into trouble
with even if we have saved it,

00:36:35.550 --> 00:36:40.550
copyright law still limits our
ability to give people access

00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:43.170
to the things afterwards.

00:36:43.170 --> 00:36:46.800
We cannot display things
without getting license

00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:51.178
from the rights holders to
put the things on display.

00:36:51.178 --> 00:36:53.290
Denmark does not have a fair use law

00:36:54.630 --> 00:36:58.590
which greatly limits what
I can do with these things

00:36:58.590 --> 00:37:00.090
after we have saved them even.

00:37:02.850 --> 00:37:06.060
I just think it\'s important
that people remember

00:37:06.060 --> 00:37:09.240
the importance of saving
these sorts of things

00:37:09.240 --> 00:37:11.190
in whatever form possible

00:37:11.190 --> 00:37:14.910
and maybe try and change
public discourse and politics

00:37:14.910 --> 00:37:18.210
in a way that enables
people actively working

00:37:18.210 --> 00:37:21.870
with preservation to do the
preservation work they want.

00:37:21.870 --> 00:37:25.080
If people who are trying
to do this to save our past

00:37:25.080 --> 00:37:30.080
get stopped by DRM or copyright,
that\'s really dangerous

00:37:30.690 --> 00:37:33.783
and we are gonna lose
so much of our heritage.

00:37:40.740 --> 00:37:42.533
One of the things that\'s of interest

00:37:42.533 --> 00:37:46.830
is \"Hundaparken\" is a
game in the Norwegian

00:37:46.830 --> 00:37:48.570
and Danish and Swedish language.

00:37:48.570 --> 00:37:52.440
You don\'t see that a lot,
especially not these days.

00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:54.956
Back then you would have
a couple of Flash games

00:37:54.956 --> 00:37:56.520
here and there but there was no really

00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:59.220
like multiplayer games of that sort .

00:37:59.220 --> 00:38:01.050
If you wanted to interact with others,

00:38:01.050 --> 00:38:03.450
it had to be through chat rooms

00:38:03.450 --> 00:38:07.327
which were lousy with pedophiles.

00:38:07.327 --> 00:38:11.100
\"Hundaparken\" was sort of
a safe space for children

00:38:11.100 --> 00:38:12.780
who wanted to interact with each other

00:38:12.780 --> 00:38:15.330
in a game-like environment
playing with each other.

00:38:17.160 --> 00:38:20.070
And it was in a language
that they could understand.

00:38:20.070 --> 00:38:23.785
It was also like the dogs very cute

00:38:23.785 --> 00:38:28.785
but still just crude enough
to be humorous to children.

00:38:29.220 --> 00:38:32.520
It was a good point for
children to start exploring

00:38:32.520 --> 00:38:36.930
online communication in
like safe environment

00:38:36.930 --> 00:38:38.970
and it was much beloved.

00:38:38.970 --> 00:38:41.970
Most times I talk about this with people,

00:38:41.970 --> 00:38:44.160
it unlocks core memories

00:38:44.160 --> 00:38:46.020
that they had completely forgotten about

00:38:46.020 --> 00:38:47.820
which I think is often the case

00:38:47.820 --> 00:38:50.580
when people suddenly remember
something from their childhood

00:38:50.580 --> 00:38:53.040
that they haven\'t thought about for years.

00:38:53.040 --> 00:38:55.923
Then they get very nostalgic
and gushing about it.

00:38:56.910 --> 00:39:01.910
And as far as how important
that is, only time will tell.

00:39:02.332 --> 00:39:05.499
(bright upbeat music)

00:39:11.010 --> 00:39:14.177
(bright upbeat music)

00:39:20.584 --> 00:39:23.751
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00:39:29.452 --> 00:39:32.619
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00:39:38.524 --> 00:39:41.691
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00:39:47.565 --> 00:39:50.732
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00:39:56.488 --> 00:39:59.655
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00:40:05.612 --> 00:40:08.779
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00:40:14.509 --> 00:40:17.676
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