It’s been some time since I haven’t spoken here or on the Gamocracy site itself. I am very sorry about that but I really needed to sort many things out before I knew what to say. Since the previous blog entry I have been thinking quite a lot about Gamocracy’s future.

I’ll spare the details but let’s say that, throughout the year 2010, the working atmosphere in the Gamocracy team hasn’t been so good. Nobody’s to blame really but many things have not gone the way we expected, starting with differring visions for the site among us.

It’s not only that of course, but from the moment working at an innovative project isn’t fun anymore, a lot of what made it appealing vanishes at once and there you are left with your crazyness and a lot of risks in your hands.

For the past three months we’ve been thinking and talking about how we could go on, one way or another. It turns out development on the Gamocracy platform is on ice and will stay like that at least for some time. As for myself, I will stay away from the site and community as I’ve done recently. I don’t see myself coming back to it anytime soon. That said, there are no plans to take the site down anytime soon either.

With Gamocracy going the way it is, I need to find ways to make ends meet. I’m not too worried about it, but I need to go for it full time or my rent will become an issue. I’ve started working at other endeavours that should help me do that. Above all, I wish to remain independent and not become an employee again.

Thank you everyone that took part in Gamocracy, one way or another. It was tough and the ending ain’t the happiest ever but I enjoyed walking down that path together with you.

Now let’s go eat that green mushroom!

We’re on Xfire… and almost choking in Steam too.

Call the firemen and join us in the hot hot fun!

Gamocracy on Steam
Gamocracy on Xfire

I didn’t check but it’s been something like two months? At least.

R4VI4TOR has been Gamocracy’s first “outside” moderator for that long. By “outside”, I mean outside the founding team: dotsMarc, Morgan, Nomalz and me.

What’s a Gamocracy moderator doing by the way? He can approve or cancel database edits proposed by players.

We chose R4V because… Let me make an understatement: the German dude has been around for some time. He’s the most advanced player on Gamocracy at level 11, 19 000+ DB points and 713 pwnz! garnered. He got himself almost all available Tokens too, including the one that bears his name, of course. (Talking about Tokens, dotsMarc designed a bunch of new ones! They’re coming.)

All that to say that his contributions to Gamocracy have been more unvaluable than a Mastercard advert.

Why am I only talking about all this now? Because I wanted an interview! I wanted to get words from the man… After a couple months of waiting for a reply, I’m giving up and tipping my hat to thee that doesn’t want no publicity.

Please give it up for R4V!

A few days ago – ok, maybe a few weeks, I’ve been busy – I received a rare email from a PR person. Not just any PR person, Sean Kauppinen founded his own agency over in California. And it seems big as far as I can tell, sitting here in Paris.

Sean is, guess what, a great guy. He’s helped a bit with Gamocracy already and gave an ear to what it is we’re trying to do. I had some of the most interesting talks with the man.

As it turns out, one of the things we, Gamocracy people, would like to establish is a new kind of relationship between PR people (and their bosses, publishers) and gamers. A relationship that’s clean of any suspicious befriendings, gifts and underlying pressures that would make it hard for, say, a journalist to keep doing their job if they happened not to be nice enough with the games they were provided with – for free – for reviewing.

Actually, to start with, I was thinking we would simply do without them PR guys and gals: don’t need them, don’t call them and let gamers just talk about the games they feel like talking about.

However, it so happens that, in his email, Sean offered a free review code for a new indie game: Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich Of Time.

So, if they’re coming to us, what should we do? Since I’m grateful to Sean for giving this code away, I don’t want to review it myself. It would be stupid to pretend to act as a critic when I’m just a fed animal, wouldn’t it?

That’s where you guys come into the picture. You don’t owe Sean anything, you don’t know him. If you gave Doc Clock the bad treatment, how could he complain that a player didn’t like the game? And at the same time, how could I be held responsible for your speech?

That’s why, your mission should you decide to accept it…
– Level all the way up to 6 on Gamocracy
– Get the secret review code from me
– Publish a review for Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich Of Time on Gamocracy within 15 days

Let me know in the comments if you’d be interested to go for it. If several raise their arms, I’ll see how we handle that since I only have one code.

Let’s see who, if any, is up for it tomorrow.

[UPDATE]
Yokiharo and GODJonez are in for the reviewing! Many thanks, guys. I’m pretty happy about all this since… this is exactly what Gamocracy is about.