Blog Topic (3)

The video game community is something else entirely from the playbook of consumer response. In no other industry is it considered participation by taking a marketed product and completely modifying it to your own desires. You can mod entire franchises and its A-ok! Crazy, huh? Even crazier, people share it with each other all the time – 24/7, 365. The modding community is alive and well, a vast ocean of innovation and origination for new games and mechanics to flow from.

And to think, this is only a small fraction of the entire gaming community.

There’s the modding community. The online emulator people. We got Halo-whores (turn off your mic!), Street Fighter Fanatics, and don’t even get us started on DDR. Shooters are popular, Tetris still has thousands of addcits, and acrobatics like those in Prince of Persia or Assassin’s Creed still have the power to wow people.

In short, there’s a taste for everybody in the gaming community. Everyone can enjoy something, be alive within their culture, but just stop and think about it: their culture.

That’s right. Even before the popularity of the internet brought mass communication and social interaction on a global scale to your front door, the gaming community was already social and united in bringing that crazy fun game back home to show everyone. How many nights were spent going nuts on a Final Fantasy, or a Super Mario World, or a Mario Kart? Hell, think about it in terms of today – how many millions spend more hours on Xbox Live or AIM then they do outside? The gaming community is vibrant and active, my friends, and I’m here to help bring it to you.

Welcome to Gamer Response, a place where we’ll be talking about industry rumblings and tournament humblings. I’m not here just to talk about my favorite game of the week – there’s stuff going on out there, in the gaming community at large. PA’s got the witty commentary, and Kotaku’s got the general information to keep you on the head’s up, but where can we go to find the intersection of the two? Not only to comment about industry happenings and events, but to talk about the talking? To see where we are with the community? Right here, that’s where.

I’ll be updating as I can regarding video game community. Developments and events in the industry proper will be covered, to be sure, but that’s only part of it, a place we can start. The meat and potatoes we’ll have going here will be dealing with the community itself. Xbox Live gone haywire and everyone’s raging about it? We’ll talk about that uproar here. Holiday season got everyone in a tizzy over the new releases? We’ll watch that buzz right here.

-Zhuge

Social Bookmarking Soul Mate: Dark Alex »« Persona Review: Tycho from Penny Arcade (1)