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.
Excellent idea. I for one, heartily endorse this new initiative and believe it should receive tangible government support...
Posted by: Brian Baglow | May 08, 2012 at 09:35 AM