Today is my 22nd Birthday, and I'd like to take some time to reflect on this past year, especially since so many things changed in my life during that time.

In terms of a theme for my 21st, I'd have to sum everything up under "Friendship".  This past year I really learned the value of friendship, as I went through some great highs, got through some tough times, and did it all with the help and alongside some great friends.

Coming in close second to Friendship as a theme for my 21st, I think "Twitter" or "Social Media" would be suitable themes.  Social media has made a huge impact on my life, and pretty much everything I did professionally revolved around social media and Twitter in particular.

Everything really kicked off when I made my "Video Game Companies on Twitter", back on January 11th, 2009 (ironically, I start my new job at Perfect World on January 11th 2010!).  What started out as a blog post that I was writing at 1am while watching Edward Scissorhands…quickly grew overnight and later that day was up on most of the major gaming blogs.  It later lead me to create GameIndustryTweet.com as the permanent home for the list – a site that I hope to update sooner rather than later.

One of my favorite people of 2009/my 21st, is Gene Mauro, my former boss at gamerDNA.  Gene was a great boss because he gave me a lot of opportunities to do new things and put myself out there.  Not only that, but he taught me quite a bit and contributed many great things to gamerDNA.  Gene was the guy who helped me build off this new Twitter "celebrity" from GameIndustryTweet, and he gave me the opportunity to lead several projects that were based on Twitter and social media trends.

In March I went to my first GDC with gamerDNA, and we put on our first (the first?) GDC Tweetup, which had over 200 people in attendance.  It was a great event for us, and we went on to throw a similar event at (my first) E3 2009.  Both events were awesome, and I'm so thankful that I was given the opportunity to attend them.  Hopefully I get to go to these events and others this year!

At E3 we also launched TweetMyGaming.com, a site that tracks all of the video game mentions on Twitter.  This was a project that I co-lead from the beginning, from concept, through development, and then represented at E3 in interviews (both video and written form!) with gaming blogs and video companies.

Fast forward and later that summer I was promoted to Online Marketing Manager, took over PR for gamerDNA's Relaunch on September 2nd, and in late October – ended my journey with gamerDNA.

GamerDNA made a huge impact on my career and my life, and gave me the opportunity to made a lot of great friends.   All the guys pictured above (and even the folks not pictured!) were fantastic people, and I'm happy to call them my friends.  Outside of the people I worked with directly, I also made many friends from all across the country that I owe a lot of gratitude to.  From letting me crash on their couch while I interviewed for my next job, to giving me advice, for being great friends on Twitter…I've met a ton of awesome people this past year and I'm seriously grateful for it!

Right now I'm just wrapping up my last few days in Ohio with my family, right before I fly out to San Francisco to find a new apartment and start my new job at Perfect World Entertainment.  In 2009 I started out the year as a Community Manager, went on to become an Online Marketing Manager, and I'm starting 2010 as Senior Social Media Marketing Manager for an online video game company.  I'm pretty happy about that!

I owe huge thanks to my family and friends, as everyone has been more than nice to me this past year.  It has been truly amazing, and I can't wait to see what a new city, a new job, a new company and team, and a new year will bring for me.  Thanks everyone!

This year I hope to find a great place to live, make some awesome friends in my new home of San Francisco, and knock the socks off of everyone at Perfect World and kick some ass in the game industry.  2010 and 22 should be great years for me!

Thanks,

Sam "QforQ" Houston

I've got a job!

Senior Social Media Marketing Coordinator – That's my new position at Perfect World Entertainment, a video game developer and publisher in Redwood Shores (South Bay of San Francisco, CA).

After about two months on the job hunt and several interviews and meetings with various companies, I was able to find a great opportunity with an exciting company – Perfect World Entertainment.  I will be joining the Marketing and PR team in just a couple weeks, working alongside ambitious and energetic folks that are trying to take over the Free to Play MMO space in the US.

Perfect World is probably most commonly known as the developer publisher of Perfect World International, their main MMO in the states which gamers can play for free, but can also buy items in-game through their cash mall.  You've also probably seen the Perfect World cash cards at your local 7-11 or GameStop.

Perfect World also has two other games out now, Jade Dynasty and Ether Saga Online.  They've got a number of new games coming out next year, with Kung FOO! coming out very soon.  What most people probably don't know, though, is that Perfect World published the popular PC RPG "Torchlight", which is a game that released this fall and was developed by former Diablo/Blizzard devs at Runic Games in Seattle.

To sum things up – Perfect World is a very ambitious company that is very successful in China and they want to make a big impact in the US.  Their current games are doing pretty well (1 million active players across their three F2P MMOs right now, I read in an article most recently), and they've got quite a few coming out in the new year and beyond.  They're doing some exciting publishing deals (Torchlight for example), and I'm very excited join Perfect World as they transition into a new phase of growth and expansion.

As I mentioned in my last post, the prospect of focusing 100% of my energy on using social media to build game communities and market games is *very* exciting to me..and it is ultimately what made this position a real winner for me.  I'll be joining a great team with some big goals and a totally open canvas in terms of what we can do.

Perfect World has community managers for their games, and I'm very excited to work with them to help build stronger and bigger communities around their games. With three games out now (and more coming next year), we should have a wealth of content to share and talk about with our community.  I'm going to try to really push things forward in the F2P MMO space, which based on some of my research doesn't seem to get a lot of love in the community department.  I'm very excited to get on Twitter, Facebook, build our blog presence, and hopefully get into other mediums/platforms so that we can interact with our community in the places that they are online.

Ironically, the week that I accepted the position, Perfect World relaunched their web portal and launched a new company blog.  I encourage you to check out the site – Nice work guys!

This job successfully rolls up my passion for community, social media and marketing into one role – and I'm very excited.  I've got big goals for myself in the social media/game space, and I think this company and this team will help me attain those goals.  I'm looking forward to starting in just a couple of weeks!

The whole F2P MMO space is new to me, and working directly for a game developer/publisher…but I'm looking forward to learning what works, what doesn't, and taking the journey along the way.  If anyone has any suggestions/insights on F2P MMO community, please feel free to contact me!

On a different  note – I now need to find a place in SF in a very short period of time. If anyone needs a roommate, or knows someone that does, *please* contact me ASAP.  I need everyone's help, since I need to move cross country *very* soon.  Thanks for any help you can provide!

In summary…I'm scared, excited, and very anxious to start a new chapter of my life in San Francisco at an awesome game company and in a dream role of a job.  It was a great Christmas/Birthday present, and I want to thank everyone for all the encouragement, support, and help that got me here!

Thanks!

Sam "QforQ" Houston

It has been over a month since my last update and a lot of stuff has happened in that span of time.  My lack of updates isn't because of a lack of things going on, but has more to do with the fact that all the cool stuff I've been doing I can't really talk about at this time.

I still don't have a job, but I feel confident that that won't be the case very soon.  Just this past week I was out in San Francisco meeting with a few game companies, and all my interviews have gone very well so far.  I'm feeling very good about my chances of finding work soon/in the new year, and I can't wait to share with everyone where I land, and more importantly..start at a new company.

The past few weeks have been very exciting because as I talk to more companies, I'm getting a better idea of exactly what I want to do in my next job.  I'm getting more creative ideas, and getting more inspired about what I can do in my career and how I can be someone in the game industry that is moving game community and social media practices forward.  It has brought me to an ambitious goal that I now have, which is to be one of the best social media professionals in the game industry – and I think I can do that.  I'm very proud of and excited by what I've been able to do over the past year in the gaming social media space, and I hope to be able to continue on that path in 2010 and really make some waves in the game industry.  I think there is a lot of opportunity to utilize new social media technologies to build communities and engage with gamers, and I can't wait to get out there and do that for a company that I'm passionate about.

So far the unemployment train ride has been an interesting one, with lots of different waves of emotions going over as situations change or new things happened.  November was a bit rough, since it was my slow month and nothing was really happening, so it was definitely a tad bit sad and lonely.  Staying at home all day and no longer going into an office of your best friends took some getting used to, but things are much better now.  December in general has been a much better month, and I'm very thankful for all my friends and family that have helped me get through this temporary run-in with unemployment.

All in all, things are looking up, and I'm hoping to have some good news in near future.  At the very least, I'm excited to go back to Ohio for a few weeks of Christmas vacation, with plans to hang out with my nephew as much as possible and get my family together for some Beatles: Rock Band.  Then after that, I'll be turning 22 on January 2nd!  Lots of good things ahead of me

Lastly, I wanted to close out with an update on gamerDNA:  Today it was announced that the gaming news website Crispy Gamer has merged with gamerDNA.  I've met Chris (CEO of Crispy) several times, and I've always liked him a lot.  I wish Crispy and the remaining GamerDNA crew the best of luck on their new journey!

Thanks!

-Sam "QforQ" Houston

Yesterday our industry saw some of the biggest changes we’ve seen in one day, with EA announcing the $400 million acquisition of social gaming startup Playfish, and the 1,500+ person downsizing and studio closures at EA. I totally agree with Shacknews’ Garnett Lee when he wrote in a column yesterday, “As the dust settles this marks one of the most dramatic signs of the times for the videogame industry“.  What I would like to do is share some of my thoughts on what this might mean for the game industry and some possible outcomes that I see from this huge change.  Some of this may dip more into “What is the new game industry”, rather than just what will happen in the aftermath of the changes at EA.

More social game company investment and development

A $400 million exit is a pretty good indicator that the social game market is huge, and that doesn’t even take into account the hundreds of millions of dollars a year companies like Zynga are making (Zynga is a competitor to Playfish, with games like Farmville and Mafia Wars in their portfolio).  These companies are crushing it, with what I’m guessing is huge profit margins.  These games aren’t particularly complicated..and in most cases aren’t even original.  They’ve got to be cheap to make and maintain, and the money that is made on microtransactions and offers is huge.  This market was already expanding quite rapidly, but I’m betting this encourages more game developers (that are now unemployed?) to create new businesses, and it encourages more Venture Capitalists to invest a few million in a social gaming startup.

More “social” elements and micro-transaction models in EA portfolio games

This isn’t anything particularly new, considering EA has been dabbling with this stuff for awhile now.  Most recently we saw them launch Battlefield Heroes, a free-to-play, micro-transaction funded game based on the popular Battlefield franchise.  I’m not sure how well it has done since launch, but I’m interested in seeing how many more games we’ll be seeing from EA that are micro-transaction based.

This should also manifest itself in the form of more paid DLC for released games, which EA has said “extend the life and profitability of our disc-based games“.  Last week Dragon Age: Origins released and had DLC immediately available, and EA reports that they have “seen strong early performance”.

More engaging social game experiences

In my opinion..most Facebook games are pretty lame.  I don’t feel particularly invested or engaged with the games, with most of the motivation for playing coming from the competition with friends to be a higher level Mobster/Farmer/whatever.  Ultimately everyone is the same, with your character and farm looking exactly the same as all the other players.  I never feel invested in my characters or the games themselves, which I think is a lost opportunity.

I personally would like to see more engaging and interesting experiences – something more along the lines of Quake Wars or even Battlefield Heroes, but in the browser and as a Facebook game.  I’ve never played a Facebook game that blew my socks off, and I’d like to see that changed.

Enthusiast Press will start covering the social game space

I think it has been interesting to note the lack of coverage of the social game market by the enthusiast press (Joystiq, 1up, Shacknews, Kotaku, Destructoid, etc).  I understand why they do it, though, since they’re writing content for their community, and most of their community probably doesn’t find this stuff very interesting.  If perhaps the game experiences become more interesting and advanced, the coverage of the space will start to increase.  Or maybe if EA continues to dump millions and millions of dollars into the space the enthusiast press (and hardcore gaming community) will have to take notice.

It’s probably worth noting that EA owns Pogo.com, a company that makes free internet games and casual retail games, and the enthusiast press don’t really cover that side of EA’s business…so perhaps this one won’t come true

Opportunities for game developers and publishers

I’m wondering what Activision thinks about all of this…Do they see a big opportunity to take market share in the vacuum that may form from all of the EA titles being canceled, or will Activision follow suit and join the social gaming market?

Since so many developers are now out of work, now is a great time for new businesses to be created.  Hopefully we will see all these creative and talented folks start new game companies that will push the boundaries and do interesting things.  The traditional big publisher model of funding isn’t the only way to go, with alternative funding models like Venture Capital investment being real opportunities for developers.  Riot Games recently spoke to Gamasutra about how they have funded League of Legends without taking money from publishers and sacrificing IP ownership.

These new indie studios could partner up with hungry publishers like Warner Bros. Interative Entertainment, who seems to be pretty eager these days to try new things.  They’ve been acquiring quite a few studios over the past year, and most recently published 5th Cell’s Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts.  With 194,000 unit sold in the first month, I’d guess that 5th Cell is pretty damn happy with that arrangement.

What are your thoughts on the impact of the EA changes?  Where do you think the game industry is going next year, and beyond?  Am I full of shit?

Interested in your thoughts!

-Sam

Since I’ve got a lot more free-time now, I’ve set several goals for myself that I can now attain. One of those is catching up on a lot of reading, online and offline, since for the past few months I basically had to unplug a bit from all the game news, community management articles, books, etc.  It started this summer when I took over all the PR for gamerDNA’s relaunch, and then carried on through to the last couple months when things were still busy and slightly crazier.  They used to call me “The Internet” at work because I knew so much about current gaming and tech news…and I don’t feel so internet-y any more.  So anyways…I’m trying to fix that now, and I thought I’d create a blog post every once in awhile that shares some cool stuff I’ve come across in my internet travels.

BioWare Reveals Dragon Age’s “Massively Single-Player” Details – Stephen Totilo – Kotaku

Stephen Totilo has a really interesting article that goes into the details of the new BioWare Social Network that just launched recently.  On the surface the social network doesn’t look a whole lot different than most other social networks powered by Social Engine software.  The customization is in the rich features, though, and it sounds like BioWare has spent a lot of money tying the game to this social network.  The features described in this article get my really excited about this game and definitely make me want to check it out…at least for professional research purposes  ;)

The Future of the Social Web – Brian Solis – PR 2.0

Forrester Research published a report that describes what they believe will be the future of the social web.  I happen to agree with a lot of it, and it actually describes a lot of what we built at gamerDNA.  Relevance and reacting to what we knew about a member were two huge factors in what we built at gamerDNA.  Definitely worth a read.  Makes me think about how this would affect game community websites specifically (in house sites, like WoW Armory for example), and not just 3rd party internet consumer websites.

5 Ways to Use Twitter’s New List Feature for Marketers  - Influential Marketing Blog

-This past week Twitter launched the List feature, which makes it so anyone can add a Twitter user to their own list, and that list can be shared with other people and even followed by others.  This blog article outlines some ways that people could use blogs and should help you think about some cool ways you could use Twitter Lists at your company.

From Strategy to ROI Model – slide deck from Dawn Lacallade, Community Manager for SolarWinds

As I get ready for job interviews, I’m trying to read up more on some various community manager topics and generally see how people are doing things these days.  I liked this presentation because it was very basic and didn’t skip over much as it explains the process of pitching and creating a Community plan for your organization.

Getting Started 1: Do you know what people are saying about you? -Fresh Networks

Fresh Networks wrote a blog post series/guide to help organizations “Get Started in Social Media”.  It’s all pretty basic, but I liked the list that they put together of free buzz tracking tools.  In the paragraph prior to the list, Fresh Networks says, “The best results come from using paid-for services..”.  I can’t really say this is right or wrong, since I didn’t have experience with paid services at a large scale.  I tried out Radian6 (the service mentioned in the article) at gamerDNA and wasn’t very impressed with it, but I think that probably has more to do with our scale at the time and the amount of conversations on the web. That and the price tag was pretty hefty for a startup like us.

If I remember correctly, it was roughly $5,000+ a year or more for the type of account we would need with Radian6.  It would have been a huge waste of money for gamerDNA, so we decided not to spend that money.  If you’re a larger company and/or have a large amount of mentions (to the point it is truly overwhelming and you need help sifting through it all), I suggest looking into these services.  Radian6 and Techrigy are two services that come to mind, and I know or have met people at both and they’re good people.  Hopefully at my next gig I’ll have the chance to check these services out – They’re doing some interesting stuff, if you’ve got the money in your budget.

The best buzz tracking services that would fit into this blog post are:  Google Blog Search, Technorati Search, Google Alerts, Twitter Search.  IceRocket search was basically worthless, bringing up posts that were (relatively) ancient, so it just turned into a waste of time when you checked your searches.  I covered this last year in my blog post “Are Video Game companies active in Social Media?“.

I think I’ll cover this topic in a bit more depth in a blog post later this week.  There are some decent new, free tools and services that can help you monitor your brand and interact with your community.  They can get you a long way, with no money spent at all (besides time).

Staying Power: Rethinking Feedback to Keep Players in the Game – Gamasutra

Microsoft Game Studios did some user research on gamers completing games and offers some solutions/insight into how game designers could help people complete their games.  This is a pretty in-depth article chock full of data..even with references at the end!  Worth checking out for sure.

That wraps it up for this blog post.  If you have any thoughts on the above articles, I’m interested in hearing them!

Thanks,

Sam “QforQ” Houston

As of this past week, I am no longer employed at gamerDNA and I’m now looking for a new job.  Myself and five others were laid off last week, freeing up the company a bit so that it can operate at break even and continue to do awesome things.  A news article about the situation came out earlier this week with some quotes from our CEO Jon Radoff, if you’re interested.

Working at gamerDNA was an amazing experience and has helped my career in huge ways.  I’m very thankful to Jon and the rest of the staff for giving a (at the time) 20 year old from Ohio the opportunity to work at a video game internet startup.  I came on board in March of 2008 as the eighth employee, when the company was still meeting at Jon Radoff’s house and our desks were his dining room table.  I saw the company grow quite rapidly, move into its first office, change our name and rebrand itself, and launch GamerDNA.com in early June of 08′.  I remember the meeting that we had where we decided on the new logo, the awesome work of art from the super talented Sean Duhame.  Everyone was always involved and kept up to date on what was going on in the company, and I came to love our Wednesday “Lunch and Learns”, where the company would have lunch together and update everyone on the progress that we were making and any big news or exciting projects.

I’ve been to PAX twice now, I’ve been to BlizzCon, GDC and E3…all because of GamerDNA.  Two years ago it was just a dream to be able to go to those events (especially E3..such a video game nerd’s dream!).  I even had the pleasure of launching a website at E3 and representing the company in interviews for MTV.com and Current.TV.  Most recently I put together all the PR for our GamerDNA.com relaunch on Sept 2nd, which resulted in the most coverage GamerDNA.com had ever received for one launch.

GamerDNA gave me a huge amount of opportunities and responsibilities, and for that I am very grateful to Jon Radoff and the rest of the team.  What started out as an entry level marketing position (”Game Talent Lead”), later turned into a Community Management role and then ultimately my role as Online Marketing Manager.  It was a great ride.

If you haven’t yet, please check out yesterday’s blog post which included a picture of the product team at gamerDNA.  It was taken last week at our company party at Trapper Markelz’s house, and it shows a great group of guys that have become my surrogate Boston family.

So what’s next?

Now I’m interested in going to my next dream job, a Community Management job at a video game developer or publisher.  I don’t have anything lined up just yet, so I’m still looking and applying to various job opportunities out there.  I’m looking to take what I’ve done at gamerDNA, take all my passion for Social Media and Community Management, and turn that into a career at a game company.  That’s my hope, at least

If you’re interested in finding out more about all the cool stuff I’ve done in my time at gamerDNA and more details on my experience, please check out my LinkedIn Page: http://www.linkedin.com/in/samhouston .  I’ve updated it quite a bit and it’s basically a web version of my resume.  If you’d like to get in touch with me directly, please shoot me an email at Sam AT QforQ dotcom.  I’m willing to relocate for a new job, and I’m especially excited about CM roles that will give me the opportunity to interact directly with gamers, as well as work with press and represent the company at events like PAX.

Other things on the horizon are a relaunch of GameIndustryTweet.com with updated pages and a new look….and some time relaxing and catching up on all these video games I need to finish .

Thanks for reading this far, if you know of any exciting Community Management gigs in the game industry – Please give me a shout!

-Sam Houston

Last week we got the GamerDNA product team together at Trapper Markelz’s house for some Beatles Rock Band, food, and beers.  It was a great time with lots of fun had by all.  Before we all headed out for the night, we all got around the GamerDNA Banner and took a photo.

From left to right, Trapper Markelz (VP Product), Collin Waid (Interface Engineer), Steve Sopp (Data Architect), Antares Meketa (Engineer), Jon Radoff (CEO), Sam Houston (ME!! Online Marketing Manager), Russell Miner (Engineer), Sean Duhame (Creative Director).

I’ve spent more time with the above dudes than I have with any one else in the past couple years.  They’re like family, and they’re all more than awesome.

I’ve gotten back into MMOs in a big way…with Aion sucking in my PC gaming life almost completely. I’ve been playing it since it came out in September, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit!

With the way I like to play games, I actually don’t particularly enjoy MMOs and I especially don’t enjoy RPGs that much (Although I admit I haven’t given RPGs that much of a chance…I’m thinking I’ll check out Dragon Age: Origins or Fable 2, to get a taste of some RPG-type games). The reason I think I like Aion so much is that I’m playing it with a Legion (guild) that we formed from basically just a group of friends from my hometown in Ohio. It is great to play with a group of guys that I haven’t talked to very much in years, and I’m really looking forward to playing more and more with them in the months and weeks ahead.

I’ve also been using the time playing Aion to listen to podcasts…something I haven’t done since I moved a block from work, and something I really miss. I mostly listened to podcasts when I was commuting to work, so the 7 minute walk to work isn’t really conducive to listening to podcasts. Grinding mobs in Aion is the perfect task for listening to podcasts, and I’ve been getting back in to some of my favorites, as well as some new ones!

My favorite podcasts so far for grinding in Aion:
-The Abyss
-The Aion Fancast
-The Giant Bombcast
-This Week in Tech

I’m hoping to get back in to Geekbox.Net, along with the rest of the new and old video game podcasts from former 1up-ers. As a sort of tack on to my last post about Game Communities and Game Media, the video game podcast space is going to be growing a lot more as all these sites create new podcasts. I’m looking forward to checking out the new Game Informer Podcast, ShackNews podcast, 1up podcast, GeekBox, RebelFM, and the many others that I’m sure are going to crop up due to the shake up in the game journalism industry. Hopefully it results in a wealth of great content and great conversations about video games and the game industry.

I’m also thinking about getting into podcasting again. I’d like to join a video game podcast as a co-host, or a reoccurring guest host. I miss doing stuff like that, and I think I would enjoy having that sort of outlet again. If anyone out there reads this and is doing an awesome podcast, give me a shout!

Anyways…I kind of wrote this blog post to test my new Posterous blog, which should be hooked up to my blog at QforQ.com. I want to use this new tool to make it easier for me to blog and upload pictures on the go..which will result in more content on QforQ.com.

Thanks for reading guys, I hope to have more posts in the near future about social media and game communities

Here is my level 28 Gladiator in Aion:

Posted via email from samhouston’s posterous

Ramble about a trend I’ve been thinking about for awhile:

This is a trend that I’ve noticed over the past year, and it’s something that I’m obviously paying close attention to since I work for a game community:

As media is changing and leaving print media more and more, we’re seeing the media companies adapting to these changes in interesting ways.  Most recently we’re seeing companies like GamePro (IDG) and Game Informer (GameStop) invest money in bringing their readership and community from their magazines onto the web to their online communities.

This isn’t anything new or mind blowing…heck, 1up.com did this years ago with Elecontric Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World/Games for Windows Magazine.  (I’m wondering if 1up was just ahead of its time, or if it lacked some sort of feature set or push from Ziff to really get it to making bucket loads of cash)

Over the past week we’ve seen some pretty interesting changes:

• Garnett Lee, former executive editor for 1up.com left to join GameFly Media as their Editorial Director.  GameFly doesn’t just rent games any more..they own several different gaming websites, including Shack News.
• John Davison’s company/website WhatTheyPlay.com was sold to IGN, and now he’s leaving to go join GamePro as their Executive Vice President of Content.  His goal is to “reboot” GamePro, with better integration between the website and the magazine.
• Billy Berghammer (Director of Gaming Editorial) is no longer at G4TV.com…and I suspect others left as well.  I’m wondering what direction G4TV.com will take now, if any change at all, since they just relaunched their website at E3 and dedicated a lot of resources to it.
• GameInformer totally revamped and relaunched their website, turning it into a community website with editorial content in the spotlight.  It’s very 1up.com, and the site is looking great.

We’ve also got the new Electronic Gaming Monthly reboot happening this winter..which promises to be some sort of mix between Web and Magazine content.

We’re also seeing existing and new media sites recognize the importance of community and invest in interesting ways to help facilitate community.  For instance, Giant Bomb now tracks your PSN, Xbox Live, Steam and World of Warcraft Achievements.  Not only that, Giant Bomb is some sort of hybrid Wiki site mixed with an editorial site, the editorial brought to you by Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Carravelli (Sorry if I butchered your name man!).  All of these guys are former GameSpot guys, and they’re doing some interesting stuff.  As a side note: the parent company of Giant Bomb, Whiskey Media, is doing some interesting stuff in general. Keep an eye on them!

Other examples of news sites being communities would be Destructoid.com, Kotaku.com and Joystiq.com…all three of which are blogging sites that are growing more and more, and being taken more seriously by the game industry..and by themselves.  The amount of people reading these blogs every day is huge, and their power is not something to underestimate.

We’ve also got CrispyGamer.com, which is carving out its niche with a feature and video content based offering, and an advertising model which refuses to take money from game advertisers.

Lastly we have the GameSpot’s and IGN’s of the world…humongous game news sites and communities on the web that inform and entertain tens of millions of gamers every single day.

Anyways…I think there is some *really* interesting stuff happening out there right now, as some huge companies (and even smaller startups like Whiskey and Crispy Gamer) all invest in making the next version of the Media/Community site for gamers.  This is definitely something I’m going to be keeping an eye on, and I’m excited to see what everyone does next, as they all push each other to do something new and interesting in the game industry.

Are there any trends that you’re noticing?  Do you think any of the companies above are wrong about their approach, or one of them is totally dead on?  I’m interested in what others think of this trend..what others think is the larger story.  Let me know!

The last month and a half have been very crazy, wildly different, and sometimes a rough journey.

The week after my last blog post, I went down to Hartford to see Blink 182 and Weezer in concert.  I had pit tickets and I was very excited since it was the first time I’ve ever seen them that close in concert.  Unfortunately, the night before the concert DJ AM died, a guy who was a very close friend to the Drummer and Bassist of Blink (Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus), and was the only other person (other being Travis) who survived a fatal plane crash last year.  This made the concert very emotional for the guys in the band, with the guys being visibly upset on stage during the show.  You definitely could tell that this was a tough show for everyone, and about four songs in Mark had the band and everyone in the audience have a moment of silence.

It was a really interesting experience for me as a fan, to be a part of this very emotional and very personal time for these guys.  This is a band that is very responsible for my musical tastes today, and a group of guys I’ve admired as people and musicians for several years.  All in all I’m very glad that I could be there and be a part of this historical moment for the band, and it’s something that I’ll remember for a long time.

Now that brings us into the first week of September, which was the launch week of the new GamerDNA.com.  This was something that we had worked on for a substantial amount of time, and it was my first PR project that I worked on entirely by myself.  I had to make the PR plan, write the press release, coordinate all the press interviews and demos, and much more.  It was an interesting learning experience since I had never done anything like that before, but it was satisfying in the end.

All the work ended up paying off when we had write-ups in Kotaku, Mashable, VentureBeat, Big Download, Fast Company, SideQuesting, and an appearance by myself on GamerTag Radio Podcast.

The night before we officially announced everything, I stayed up way too late making a Walk-Through video of the new site and uploaded it to YouTube.  I’ve never done that before either…and Adobe Premiere continues to be a big frustration, particularly when it comes to Codecs.  I’m happy with the outcome, though, so check it out here!

Literally the next day after the launch, I was on a plane to Seattle for PAX 2009.  I spent my first day in Seattle hanging out with my friend Dayne, who is an Associate Producer and Community Manager for Monolith.  Dayne gave me a tour of the Monolith (my first game studio I’ve ever been to!), and it was very cool.  Everyone at Monolith is very nice, and the team there is working on some very cool stuff!

After that, Dayne gave me a tour of Seattle..and I’ve got to say..I love that city.  There were some awesome parts of the city, and it really reminded me of parts of Cambridge/Boston (except the crappy winter weather).  Seattle was officially added to my “Cities I wouldn’t mind living in” list, alongside San Francisco.

The remainder of the weekend was All PAX, all the time.  On Saturday I had my community management panel, which I put together with help from Morgan Romine from Ubisoft, and our awesome panelists.  Here is the description of the panel:

Saturday, 1:30pm – 2:30pm, Unicorn Theatre

Twitter and Beyond – New Game Communities Online

Online game communities are changing rapidly as social media is being used more and more by gamers. No longer are people primarily congregating on official game forums. They’re talking with each other on Twitter, Facebook, and in other types of online communities about games. For this reason, Community Managers are actively leveraging social media tools to keep online communities informed and engaged with their games. This panel will discuss the exciting transition of game companies using social media to build, communicate with, and engage with players as well as highlight the macro-trends that impact all online communities. Panelists include executives from both the game development and social media side of the fence.

Panelists Include: Michelle Broderick [Moderator] – (Marketing Director and Community Manager, Yelp.com), Morgan Romine (Fragdoll Team Captain, Ubisoft), Jaap Tuinman (Director of Social, Community, & Online Marketing, EA), Sam Houston (Online Marketing Manager, GamerDNA), Meghan Rodberg (Senior Manager of Online Community Relations, Turbine)

The panel had a pretty good attendance, with mostly game industry folks in the crowd (very weird for PAX?). The audience questions after the panel were particularly good, and I enjoyed helping out one of the PAX Enforcers by answering her questions about how to get into the Game Industry and Community Management.

PAX this year was very good for me personally, and the feedback and conversations I had with people about GamerDNA were also very good. The previous year’s PAX was basically GamerDNA’s coming out show, so it was interesting to note the differences between last year and this year’s conversations. GamerDNA had much better brand recognition amongst industry folks and press, which makes me really happy as member of a team of people that work non-stop to bring more awesome to GamerDNA and the Game Industry as a whole.

The remainder of the month was up and down, with the last two weeks being a bit rough.  I found out that a guy I graduated High School with was killed in Iraq by an IED earlier in the month.  That shook me up a bit and definitely made me think about some things differently.

That same weekend I also learned that a very close friend and coworker, Trapper, had a terrible tragedy happen to his family.  His baby daughter had died earlier that morning, and I received the call from another coworker/friend who was helping out.  The next few days were very sad, but it was great to see how we all came through for our friend in need.  Everyone at work showed up for the Memorial Service, and I was very proud to be a part of such a great company and a great group of people.  Trapper gave a great Eulogy for his daughter June, and I encourage everyone to check out his blog post and give him and his family some support.

Life continues to be a journey..filled with awesome times, and sometimes I’m put in some trialling situations.  Here’s to hoping that October delivers more awesome