I stuck with WarCry for a good while and became a news reporter for them. I covered something like 10 or 11 MMOs, and quite a few major ones at that. I also picked up a column that revolved around game design and online communities. Technically, it was similar to what I did on the Vanguard and EVE sites overall, save I didn’t have to worry about managing forums, drawing in new readers, holding contests, etc… etc… It was less responsibilities, but also a much, much broader scope. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, too. While I didn’t enjoy my stint as a game reviewer over at MMORPG.com very much – not because of the site, but simply because it drained the enjoyment out of playing games – it was still nice to get back into game media. That was even more true, given the fairly dull day-job that I had at the time.

I’ve found that game journalism has a strange sort of appeal to me, and before I joined on with Bigfoot Networks, I was actually considering trying to make a full career of it. While I love being a Community Manager, and I actually prefer it, I think game journalism will always have that draw in it. I really liked covering news for a wide variety of games. I also really liked attending conferences and tradeshows, and holding interviews with game studios and developers. It was a blast.

In a way, it is actually why I have such a hard time keeping the blog updated with new posts. What I find myself really wanting to post about is… well, game news, but I don’t really want this site to focus on that. There are plenty of great places to go if you just want to find out about what’s new in gaming already, after all.

… And no, there was really no point to this article. Thank you for wasting five minutes of your life here. Please do so again!

GDC is now something akin to a marker for me. While the first industry event I ever attended was E3, it was at GDC that I feel I found my true calling. I knew I wanted to get into the industry, but I just didn’t know where it was that I fit. I didn’t like programming overly much, I wasn’t a great artist, and design wasn’t something you just waltzed into – nor was I sure I wanted to dance that dance. However, I attended a few panels on community management and social gaming, and everything became clear.

Since that time I graduated from college and actually got myself a career in community management and social media. During the first year of this job, I found myself back at where I felt it all started: at GDC. This time though, I wasn’t learning about what I wanted to do with my life, but instead I was actually living my dream. That was an accomplishment that felt like none other.

This year I wasn’t attending any actual sessions, but instead I ran a booth. Considering I’ve been to E3 as media and GDC as a student, actually working the show and running a booth was a totally different experience. Instead of holding interviews, I was the one answering questions. Instead of learning about every company I could find (well, I had plenty of time to walk the expo floor, so I did that too), I was doing the informing. It was different, and it was an awful lot of fun. I met a ton of very cool people and I am absolutely looking forward to the next show.

While I uploaded these to Flickr, I haven’t paid for a pro membership yet, so… Here are links to the relevant Facebook albums:

• The Grand Shrine at Ise
• Fushimi Inari Taisha – Also my favorite place in the world.
• Shirakawa
• Minoo
• Graduation Day
• Japanese Flowers!
• Misc Japanese Images
• Last Semester of College in the US – Just as a bonus, although also old.

… I need to start taking more pictures again.

I’ve also had one other thing dropped on my lap too, that isn’t so related to the job of Community Management: performance testing. However, that comes with a certain perk: two nice towers and a shiny new monitor which are stored at home. The machines are for testing purposes, of course, but still!

Yet, the important question here, is what does a company need to do to be successful on something like Twitter? It seems like you can sum it up quite simply as this: don’t just talk about yourself, pick an area to focus in, have a real conversation, and make sure you come across as a real person behind the keyboard. The real important thing though, is to be sure that you’re simply interesting. Apparently well over 60% of Twitter users (according to a poll over at Stwittergy) don’t care if the person they’re following is a business or whatever, so long as they have something interesting to say.

Basically, if you’re running a company and you want to advertise yourself with Twitter, don’t’ just talk about yourself. Post links to what people are saying in related fields, talk as an expert on the field in general and not just on your own products, and basically take part in the conversation. The best example I heard on Thursday is that Twitter is like a cocktail party. You don’t just walk in and start shouting out “I MAKE GAMES” or whatever. Instead, you listen in on what people are saying, and you pipe up when it makes sense to, and otherwise just add to whatever the conversation happens to be.

Oh, and apparently you should also Retweet a lot.

On a totally unrelated note, I appologize for the silence lately. I picked up a new contract and I’ve been adjusting to the new schedule. Hopefully things should be evening out again.

I will be acting as one of the judges for this year’s event, along with The ZMan, Loren Roosendall, and Chris Rhinehart form HumanHead. This should be pretty fun – I mean, after all it pretty much means I have an excuse to play a bunch of games, right? I helped out with the very first Houghton Game Jam while I was still attending Michigan Technological University, where I was attempting to Live Blog the whole thing – although, that was met with some problems given that the room it was hosted in lost Internet only a few hours in. Actually, this blog was created around the time the original Gam Jam was being hosted, even.

Game Jams themselves are pretty neat events. The Global Game Jam that was hosted a number of weeks again went a long way to showing what a few developers can do in a short amount of time. They’re fun events where you can get together with other people and just hash out some games. It also means, if you aren’t in the Industry yet, you might even get something you can show off afterward.

Yesterday was spent at the Screenburn Arcade over at South by Southwest – hence the lack of news coming from the site yesterday. I had planned on spending a fair bit of time at the free section of the SXSW event going on here in Austin, but quickly discovered that was going to be unlikely. Suffice to say, the expo was, well, tiny. Extremely tiny.

There were approximately two companies there: Gendai Games , who are indie developers working on a spiffy project called GameSalad which is designed to allow people with no programming experience to create Flash games easily, and Critical Mass who are an outsourcing development studio for games and films. Given that I already knew the Gendai Games people and Critical Mass was largely focused on running gamers through Halo 3 matches up against the professional girl gamer they had at their booth, that was only minorly interesting.

Still, it turned out to be fairly good in the end, although largely not for the actual Arcade event. Instead, I managed to meet a few interesting people from a couple of companies after being tipped off to a premiere party for an upcoming indie comedy movie called 2 Bobs, which focuses on two game developers who have their game stolen before launch and begin tracking down the thieves. Also, I can totally say I attended a movie premiere party. So, the day was far from a bust.

Also, I’m not a fan of PureVolume. Sorry guys, but waiting outside of an empty bar/club for over an hour with the rest of your RSVP’d guests is just dumb.