Gamers speak one Language
July 23rd 2008
Or something like that….
Today just a quick update on our plans for the Games Convention in Leipzig, enjoy!
Metal Monks, Jedis and a Wall of Flames
July 18th 2008
One of my colleagues just pointed me at a BBC report about a Capuchin monk who is the Lead singer of a Heavy Metal band</a>. I must say, he is pretty good, and the part when he is doing the “horns” made ma chuckle. Way to go Bro’!
There was also the announcement that yes, Bioware is indeed developing a KOTOR MMO - to quote Alec from Rock Paper Shotgun:” As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in rapture and were suddenly fanboys…”
It is indeed a good day for people who love the Star Wars IP (and I have to confess I am one of them), as Bioware’s reputation of making good games might give us a good Star Wars MMO again after the terrible thing called NGE that was done to SWG. I am just curious to see how many Jedis an MMO can handle ^^
In other news:
We are coming along nicely with our planning for the Games Convention in Leipzig – although it looks like regulations seriously interfere with Martin’s (ze Rabl, the other Martin) artistic vision 
With this I head into a well deserved weekend, thank you for stopping by.
Oh – and because I got asked – the shark is fine and well cared for.
The end is nigh!
July 17th 2008
Ok, i must confess that this blog has been dead for way to long – I was doing a good job at proving the epic fail concept I guess….
Anyway…
I was watching many of the game trailers coming out of the E3 today, and I definitely think the end of the world is close. It might be due to my selection of trailers I watched, but I have the feeling that like 70% of the games shown either have a post apocalyptic or horror/zombie based setting – not that I mind, games like that are right down my alley
I guess one of the biggest announcements so far was that Final Fantasy XIII will be available on Xbox 360 – that means that, after GTA, Sony now has lost its second big franchise. I am interested in seeing how this will turn out in the long run.
In other news:
I am pretty busy planning for the Games Convention in Leipzig at the moment; we will have a massive and very beautiful booth there, so we community people are working to breath life into it. Unfortunately, a shark tank is no longer an option…
I leave you with this – thank you if you stumbled across this and took your time to read.
Peace out,
Martin
What is this community thing you talk about…
May 12th 2008
Ok, because this is something that i do for a living – let’s talk a little bit about gaming and community.
With an increasing number of people getting better and faster internet access, online gaming has become more and more popular. And I am not just talking MMOs here: console games like Call of Duty 4, Forza 2 or GTA 4 that have a strong multiplayer component also increase the number of people playing together/ competing against each other online.
In my opinion gaming has become another form of entertainment people do in their spare time, like going to the theatre, the pub or the movies. Just look at the latest phenomena, GTA 4: According to chart tracker, they sold 631.000 copies of the game on Day one – and these numbers are UK only.
More than 6 million copies were sold world wide during the first week – more than any movie or record launch ever did (according to Take Two at least). So I guess we are pretty safe to say that gaming is not an obscure thing done by overweight kids sitting in a basement somewhere (one of the many stereotypes encountered when talking about gamers), but rather is well along the way to establish itself as a mainstream entertainment activity.
I shared a little bit about what working in community is in a PCzone interview that was done with me and my colleagues, so I will try not to repeat myself here. Let’s just say: Working with and for an Online Community is very important for every company, and it is getting more important every day. Because the more mainstream gaming actually gets, the bigger the communities playing the different games will become. And it is a very rewarding and very frustrating job – sometimes both at the same time 
Why is that? Because, actually THE community does not exist. It is a very diverse group of people who end up playing your game, sharing a passion – and each individual has different opinions and views on how your game should progress and where your priorities should be.( You might want to check out Alex Weekes’ blog where he discusses the same thing from a PvP angle). And because they love the game they are playing, they are very passionate about it, and they get very upset if they perceive something as harming “their” game. So very often as a Community Manager, you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, explaining why certain things are not possible, even if many players tell you “this is so easy to implement” – and the Devs tell you that it is not possible at all because the engine/code/database structure/ general framework is not supporting the requested changes. And don’t even get me started on balancing, if your game has a strong PvP part…
But the thing is – all this is what makes a vibrant, lively community, hundreds of thousands of individuals sharing a passion for your product, heated discussions about single aspects, insanely creative ideas (ok, and insanely bad ideas ^^) – so if you have a game and you have a community – look after them. I know that this is a rather superficial view on a subject this big, I intend to come back to it in a later post.
Until then – thank you for stopping by.
Let there be light…
April 30th 2008
Following the shining example of most of my colleagues, I finally decided to open my own blog as well. Hopefully I will be able to fill it with stuff that some of you might find interesting. I will mostly blog about gaming- because that is what I do - but expect me writing about other things that I find interesting as well.
And because I feel extra-ambitious, I will try to write this blog bi-lingual in English and German - we will see if it actually works ^^
Anyway, thank you for stopping by, see you soon