NEWS
The latest issue of Disposable Media is out now, and if you want more of your favourite 'zine you can start to prepare yourselves for a move webwards: this lowly Blogger thing is just the beginning...
WEB/CULTURE
Why? Answer me that. It was a question that popped into my head about five minutes before I sat down to start writing this waste of your time and mine. Over sixteen of my years have been spent chasing the dream, and now that I'm living it, what's left?
Let me explain. In late 1990 I was introduced to the world of gaming journalism thanks to Commodore Format. Even today it remains a wonderful example of informative, entertaining and unique writing, but back then I adored the deconstruction of every great game, every rubbish one. Little wonder that one of my ill-fated dreams would be to follow in the footsteps of my idols and write something that the world is able to see.
Twelve years later, I wrote my first review for a web site, and I enjoyed every moment of doing so. I was critiquing what was at the time one of my favouritest games ever and so I poured my heart into detailing what was so brilliant about it, because I wanted the world to know about how good this title was. In hindsight, my views were somewhat shallow and short-sighted, but that's not the point; the point is that I was taking full advantage of the web's ability to get one man's voice out to the world.
But what next? Well, eventually I would write for my first webzine, and again I delighted in telling everybody about how good game x or game y was. But there was something more: as the reserve of favourite games got shallower, I was forced to look at games I had missed out on in the past (it was an 8-bit retro 'zine and so I had plenty of downloadable games and emulators at my disposal.) I saw this as a new opportunity for myself: an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of a history, and experience the best and worst games; the famous names and the overlooked gems. It was a fascinating time...eventually I had documented my thoughts on a little slice of gaming's past - or rather, the slice I was most interested in.
I've offered to help out many other sites between then and now. I know how easy it is to get your opinion online. I know that the web has enabled me to live the dream. And yet, whilst it's all been good fun, this evening one thought made me question my motives thus far: "I'm here, now what?" You see, the dream has now been lived. What's left? Am I just going through the motions; is the hobby becoming a job? I think a bit of self-discovery's in order; to find out why I love writing about gaming, surely I must consider why gaming is worth writing about. Sure, that opens the whole "why play?" can of worms, but thinking about it, that's a can I've always been tempted by...
qazimod
PRESS
Feeding off a PDF's lifeforce
It's not hard to see the advantages that browser-based opinion has over downloadable opinion; just go to a well-disciplined forum, perhaps with a tight-knit base of passionate frequent posters, and you can get not only all the latest news, updated by the minute, but coverage from dozens of different viewpoints, each one having the potential - just like additional external news that might surface during the discussion - to influence the others and frequently evolve the discussion.
In contrast, with a PDF you run the risk of getting outdated news in something that's released once every few months, containing coverage from half a dozen people about much less material, thus potentially dissuading those who don't care about the topics covered by said material. No-one likes specialist cliques, and it can be a bit dispiriting when you announce a new issue and wonder how many people have actually remembered that you exist.
For clarification, I'm talking about pre-Disposable endeavours here - since the webby side of DM is still under internal discussion it's not open for comparison here - I once spent time writing for a PDF 'zine where I churned out dozens of reviews before I saw the finished PDF; by the time Issue 1 was released I probably had enough content for issues 2-4. Meanwhile, nearly every online thing I've helped out with has been wonderfully efficient; since the production time is a lot quicker, there's a lot less pressure to get things right. PDFs can take forever to make in terms of getting the layouts right, and getting enough material to fill the kind of page counts that don't exist on blogs and HTML 'zines is a nuisance that shouldn't - and doesn't - have to be tolerated. Web sites have a lot less boundaries, and so it's important to make the most of the opportunities this presents, or else you might as well stick to your unwieldy, arcane PDFs.
qazimod
ONLINE
METAL GEAR AWESOME!
Disposable loves DeviantArt. Expect to see many a lovely Deviant Artist getting props on this blog as well as the magazine, but today I bring a lovely little link for a Flash movie done by a Deviant. Metal Gear Awesome is a truly funny flash movie that satirese Metal Gear Solid. Featuring some wonderful one liners, some impressively tight jump cuts and some excellent voice work, this gem of a movie will quickly find it's way about the internet, much to the hilarity of all who see it. So get in there first before your mates do in a attempt to look super cool, have a watch and be genuinely suprised at the quality of it.
http://ic1.deviantart.com/fs9/f/2006/053/4/f/metalgeartest.swf
Laters,
BlinkyBear
