Carnival of Gamers

… about the Carnival of Gamers #4!

The Place: Cathode Tan
The Host: Josh of Cathode Tan
The Submission Email: carniegrue AT gmail dot com

Make sure you get your entries to Josh ASAP! I’ve got something I’m working on but I’m not sure it will be ready for the Carnival, so I may have to comb through the archives for something this time around.

The Carnival of Gamers #3 is up!

Update: Okay, I’ve been really lazy updating around here. I’ve been stricken with some wicked Poison Ivy (I thought I was immune!) but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve got a bunch of irons in the fire so I’ll be doing some catching up this weekend. Hopefully you’ve checked out all the delicious Fair food at Carnival #3 (man, I love Fair Food). Since Corvus decided do hold a little contest for the best entry, I voted for AggroMe’s entry. The first time I saw the commercial in question on G4 I couldn’t start laughing. I’m glad the “Not intended for residents of Texas or Massachusetts” disclaimer hasn’t gone unoticed. There’s so many good quotes from this one, but I love this:

When one of the dudes says, “I can’t believe we got jobs doing this!” I’m not sure if he is referring to the game design job or the fact that someone hired these two as actual actors.

Of course, I found some great new bloggers to read and I’m really glad so many people are taking a liking to the Carnival. This is good stuff.

Also, on a semi-carnival-related post, render sends word about an upcoming blog event called the Blogathon where bloggers do what they do best, blog. Only they blog for 24 hours, all for a good cause. I think we’re going to do a group effort and I’m not sure what charity we’ll be hooking up with, but you can follow the progress over at Render.

Finally, I’ve updated the Carnival HQ page with some new host information. Remember to always check there first for any Carnival questions you have.

I should be able to get some good blogging in this weekend, if I can ever take a break from scratching this dang poison ivy. It’s insidious!

You still have a few hours left to get your submission in to Corvus for the Carnival! Summer is in the air, the Midway is rocking and the Carnies all look like slime-balls! All that’s missing is your blog!

Thomas has taken the Carnival of Gamers and thrown it on a 5.25 Floppy Disk and loaded on his Tandy 1000. And the results look fantastic. Go check out the 2nd Edition of the Carnival of Gamers. I haven’t had a chance to read any of the posts yet (sleepy time) but I had to make sure I posted this now so everyone checks it out.

I’ll have a chance to digest it tomorrow and I’ll check back in.

Update:: The second stop of the Carnival seems to have been a success. There were some great pieces. My vote for best quote goes to Maggie at The Game Chair:

After all, no one game appeals to all people – so why in the world would one game appeal to all women gamers? Each of us is looking for different things in a game, regardless of sex.

Excellent point. The whole thing was very well written and enjoyable to read.

I’ve read Foton’s AFKGamer for a while now but I missed this about his benevolence as a an EQ Guide. Foton granted god-like powers? Scary.

Josh hasn’t been given enough credit for the work his put into the Illinois video-game law happenings. I’ve read them all, fearing the worst. But honestly, aren’t we all helpless when someone says “Think of the children“?

Finally, I can no longer avoid it, I am giving Fate a try. I’ve been reading about it in numerous places but Bill lays out the goods.

Thanks again to Thomas for putting this together. I have a handful of new bloggers to read, which is great. My bloglines subscriptions are getting rather full. I look forward to the next Carnival stop. I’ll update the Carnival page when I return home from the in-laws this weekend.

I thought that since I was involved in starting this whole “Carnival” thing, the least I could do was centralize it. I’ve made a “Headquarters Page” that will be a place for any information regarding the Carnival of Gamers, including contact/submission information and future hosts. Make sure to stop in any time you’re looking for information about the Carnival. After all the feedback we’ve received on the first one, I’m thinking of installing a suggestion box.

And don’t forget, the Carnival of Gamers #2 will be hosted by Thomas at Mile Zero. Head over there for all the details!

Well it’s been an exciting and exhausting time, but I declare the Carnival of Gamers a success! A few stats for your digestion:

Total Carnival Entries: 20
Total unique visitors during first 48 hours: 3,279
Total number of pageviews first 48 hours: 5,621
Total number of unique visitors over Memorial Day Weekend: 4,477
Number of links to Carnival: 22 and counting

Links of Note:
InstaPundit (again, a great honor to be linked by the BlogFather)
Slashdot (albeit games.slashdot, but it counts)
Kotaku (I’m a Kotaku fan, thanks for the hat tip, Brian)
Craigslist (this was a weird one, never thought we’d show up here)
digg (thanks to Mike for this one)

There were some cheap shots taken at us in the slashdot comments, I tried to defend them however I could but it’s slashdot, so what can we expect. I did find this gem, though:

“Here you will find the best and brightest video game bloggers from around the world! Never before has such a group been assembled to bring to you the latest insights and observations from the gaming blogosphere. We’re a diverse group here, as you’ll see from the posts but we all have one thing in common — we are passionate about video games.”

Niether of them have a girlfriend either.

And someone who obviously participated but wished to remain anonymous replied:

“Niether of them have a girlfriend either.”

heh. Good thing too, or my wife would kill me.

Classic.

There was also this posted on Computer Games Online. (Deliciously titled “New Superblog Launches, Sticks Foot In Mouth Immediately”) It’s unfortunate, because Mr. Gallant sums up the Carnival by saying

If that’s what “Carnival of Gamers” is going to be about, they may as well not bother.

That’s a shame. If you’ve come here from Computer Games Online, please look around. While Mr. Gallant may not agree with one of the bloggers, don’t assume the rest are more of the same. I’ll be dropping Mr. Gallant a note when I get a chance to let him know he’s missed out on some good blogs. Funny thing is, The Big Corporate Website cgonline.com has only sent us a handful of referrals from his article. That’s not a very big audience they’re reaching. I’ve had more hits from some of the small-fry bloggers than him. Funny, but this is just another MSM vs. Blogger debate, something I didn’t think would happen with the Carnival. But that’s what blogging is all about.

So in conclusion, the feedback I’ve received has been positive, people have emailed me wishing they had known about the Carnival before the submission deadline, others wanting to get in on the next Carnival, and a lot of people thanking us for introducing them to new bloggers (the original purpose). So let’s keep this going! Thomas will be hosting the next one, so get on over there and email him your submissions. I’ve had a few people volunteer to host the next one, I’ll be in touch with you soon. This has been great! Thanks to everyone involved.

Game on!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Carnival of Gamers! Here you will find the best and brightest video game bloggers from around the world! Never before has such a group been assembled to bring to you the latest insights and observations from the gaming blogosphere. We’re a diverse group here, as you’ll see from the posts but we all have one thing in common — we are passionate about video games. So let’s get right to them —

The first submission award goes to Tea Leaves with a blistering piece on the state of video game reviews, taking just about everyone to task.

Bill from Dubious Quality was at E3 and saw some themes rise above the din that is the spectacle of E3. Great “macro” view of E3 and all the trimmings.

Everbody always roots for the underdog and Adam at render gaming thinks Nintendo has assumed the role of the underdog for this generation of consoles. And like everyone who’s ever rooted for the underdog, he wants Nintendo pull the upset.

Foton says he knows better than to read gaming message boards. He claims to be aware of the dangers. Problem is, he can’t help himself. Somewhere, someday, someone could post something relevant, interesting or amusing. So far, no luck. But he can dream, can’t he?

We’ve all felt that pang of shame when we tell someone who isn’t a gamer that we love to game. But should we? Troy at Portico doesn’t think so.

Corvus gives should get a standing ovation for the defense of PC Gaming and independent PC Gaming here. Bravo, Corvus. Bravo.

Guild Wars has enthralled me lately, but Ethic is right – the pathing and instancing both leave something to be desired.

Jason wasn’t impressed with the art of i-am-8-bit and it shows.

Aggro Me asks: why look for Queen Antonia when they’ve already got Queen Heather?

Electroplankton is an enigma to me and this piece from Thomas doesn’t really clear it up but makes for a great read. I don’t think Thomas is alone in hopthing that gaming goes in this direction.

Alex at Damned Machines looks at Video Game Magazines and finds them wanting in more ways than one.

Finster does some excellent research about the Xbox 360 and the PS3 and comes to some interesting conclusions.

I’ve got mixed feelings about selling virtual game items for real life cash but Cosmik has some pretty strong feelings about it. He makes some pretty convincing arguments.

I hope your sitting, because this is a long one from Krones. He takes John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, out behind the woodshed and does all manner of unspeakable things to him. I will admit that I laughed, cried, and felt bad for humanity while reading this entry.

Joseph has seen the future and the future is the PS3. Not only will it cook you dinner and do your laundry but it will also “age”, grow up and then, as a teenager, take your keys and crash the family sedan into the neighbor’s mail box. Then you’ll get a disc read error. How about that for the future?

Mike looks at the specs of the Xbox 360 and then waxes on the future of online play, and more specifically Microsoft’s Xbox Live. I’m still not convinced I want to get nickel and dimed to death but Microsoft does have some ambitious plans and I think this will be the future of gaming.

Is GTA an RPG? Simon would like it to be. Read what happens when he tries to role play Grand Theft Auto.

Vanhemlock wonders what The Business of Teamwork is all about. Rather humorous stuff.

If danking is wrong, The One Eyed Man doesn’t want to be right.

Newcomer Ninjack compares MMORPGs to the buffet line. And now I’m hungry.

Well that wraps up the first edition of the Carnival of Gamers. It has been a lot of fun reading these entries (some of them for the first time) and it has been great to see the support from gamers to see this succeed. I look forward to future Carnivals, and we’ll have the next one in two weeks – hosted by Thomas at Mile Zero on June 9th. If you’re available and willing to host a future Carnival of Gamers, let me know!

A big thanks to everyone who participated and made this happen. If you wanted to participate but didn’t have the time to submit this go-round, please don’t miss the 2nd edition. Let’s keep this going strong!

GG everybody.

Update: Honor of honors, we have been linked by the Shigeru Miyamoto of Bloggers, Instapundit. A super huge thanks to Glenn for the linkage. (Now I await the dreaded Instalanche!)

Welcome Instapundit readers, hopefully some of you, like me, are gamers and will find some new bloggers to add to your feed readers. These guys are excellent bloggers, enjoy!

Another Update: We’ve now also been linked on games.slashdot.org. Welcome games.slashdotters, hopefully you’ll take the time to read some of the blogs here. The initial reaction over there wasn’t the most positive but others have come to the defense of the bloggers and the Carnival (thanks, Josh). I took a stab at defending the carnival as well. Hopefully people will actually read some of these pieces before they make broad, sweeping assumptions about video game bloggers.

Update #3: Now we can add Kotaku and Digg to the growing list of Carnival referrers. Thanks to Brian and Mike for the links, this has really taken off (3.2k hits as of 2:30 pm EST). I am on my way out of town but I wanted to thank everyone again and wish everyone a nice Memorial Day weekend. I’ll check back in later for a recap.

Really late update: To be listed in The TTLB ÜberCarnival I needed to add a link. That should take care of it.

Don’t forget The Carnival of Gamers rolls in tomorrow. If you’re still interested in participating and you haven’t submitted your link to me, please get it to me by the COB tomorrow so I can get the Carnival up before I go to bed tomorrow night.

Then you’ll give you something to get your weekend started when you read it Friday at work.

T-minus 3 days and counting until the First Carnival of Gamers! Don’t forget to submit your entry ASAP!

All the info can be found here!