...and after a lengthy delay, we're back in business. Our apologies for the gap in service. This was due to leaves on the Internet. Plus an unresolved billing issue that screwed things up and stopped the SG.biz team updating the blog.
However, that's all now in the past and you can look forward to a revised, redesigned and reconstituted SG.biz in early 2007.
In the meantime, we wish you a merry winterval and a thoroughly jolly new year.
SG.biz
There will be a gap of a few days more in the normal Scottishgames updates as we move to a new server system. We apologise for the inconvenience. Dare to be Digital, EIEF and other relevant updates will be back in early September.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
In the meantime, here is some light music....
Da dum, dee dum dum dum dum da dah duuuumm!
A crisp fiver for the first person to correctly recognise the tune.
Guys, we appreciated your input. We do, but 3rd year jokes about people smelling and companies being dicks, aint going to make it online...
Only we're allowed that privilege.
The Guardian's Gamesblog mentioned SG yesterday, with Keith posing the question, what is the greatest game ever to come out of Scotland? The comments are fairly revealing, with GTA picking up almost as much criticism as praise.
A couple of people chose quite unusual titles though. One enlightened soul mentioned DMA's Unirally (Uniracers if you're American) and another Body Harvest. It was something of a shock finding someone actually talking about Brave by Vis, which the SG team will happily admit, they had no idea was ever released.
As for Dominik Diamond (note the spelling). The cheeky wee funster and ex Games Master host is back on the air, presenting XFM Scotland's breakfast show. You can read all about it on the XFM website or show him you care and drop him a text on 80XFM. If you get in touch, give him our love...
So, who's your favourite Guardian Gamesblogger then?
We're trying a new look on Scottish Games. Don't be afraid to let us know what you think.
For over a year now, there has been a Yahoo group called 'Scottish Games', which was a convenient gathering place for everyone involved in the videogames sector in Scotland.
The idea was to give all of the various companies, individuals, organisations and initiatives in Scotland a single point of contact where everyone could find out what's going on, up and coming shows, look for information, employees, gossip, tout for work and generally use it as a place where everything relevant to the industry in Scotland is listed.
It was a nice idea.
However, games companies are notoriously bad at communicating. Even when offered free beer and pizza/curry, they tend to remain in their offices, rattling away over a smoking keyboard.
The number of posts declined over the last 12 months to approximately 'bugger all' by the tail end of 2005 and new members were greeted by a howling desolation of emptiness when they can to say 'Hi'.
I blame Yahoo. The whole logging on thing was a pain in the bum and it was hardly conducive to a quick and convenient browse, having to remember the login/password, find the damn link on their damn homepage and so on and so forth.
So, meet the Scottish Games Group, MK II
ScottishGames.Biz
It's a blog.
That means no logging in, no passwords, no having to check obscure sites or wait for summary e-mails.
It has permalinks, it has syndication for the smart arse RSS fans out there, it has comments, links and tons and tons of space. It even has a clean, simple, stark and relevant design, which was inspired by the traditional colours of the Scottish flag and took less than four minutes to knock together.
It is, in short, just what we've been waiting for. The 21st century come to life...
So, the idea is this. The blog will become a focus for the latest news and information from, regarding and relevant to the Scottish Games Industry (yes, it does deserve the capitals).
I'm looking for additional authors to help out with contributions. To the extent where each and every company in the country can have one guest author, who can add posts from that company.
In addition, we will link to every single company's site - and blog if they have one - along with the best news sources for the games industry overall.
PLUS, if all goes according to plan, we will start generating our own content (can I have a 'Hallelujah'?), with exclusive interviews with some of the industry leaders about topics relevant to us all. Imagine Jack McConnell giving us an interview about his favourite Xbox games, or Peter Molyneux reminiscing about childhood holidays in Pitlochry...
At that point we become an information source in our own right, everyone starts linking to us and Scotland is recognised as the world leader in videogames culture and industry.
So, starting today, I'll be populating the blog with some of the latest news from the various companies, plus keeping up with the latest stories from E3 2006.
Next week, I'll start contacting people and letting them know ScottishGames.Biz exists and see who else wants to join the citizen journalist revolution.
Spare Change?
