Archive for the ‘On Tour (oh yeah)’ Category

Phone Video: Counter-Strike Playing Girls Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Just about two weeks ago I was at DreamHack in Sweden. (DreamHack?)

Going there I had this idea to do a video about the female Counter-Strike tournament entirely with my phone… I ran into a couple issues here and there but here it is now. The only part that’s not done with the phone is the intro.

If the video doesn’t display, try Vimeo.

I used an iPhone 4 and the iMovie app.

The intro was done on a Mac with pixel art software and After Effects. dotsMarc did the visual and my friend Koya animated it a bit.

Sleep Needed To Wake Up From DreamHack Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

Gaming events. They can kill you. I mean, if you really like them, that can happen. You get prepared, you know you’re not going to sleep much and run around a lot. Whether it’s for work or fun, it’s all the same.

I remember about ten years ago I was so excited I could hardly sleep before LAN Arena 5, the major French LAN party at the time. DreamHack is just the same, ten times bigger. And I’m not exaggerating one bit as they beat another world record for computers at a LAN party over the weekend: 12 734 exactly.

So, once again, I didn’t sleep much during a LAN party. As someone who’s travelled a lot for that kind of things, I can tell this one is very impressive. Both super well organized and messy. Filled with computers, guys and… a surprisingly big number of girls too.

It was amazing to meet all of you people. Let me give a special shoutout to Hans and Natalia for all the help, and also to my pal Jean-Pierre.

I’ve been uploading videos that I shot with my phone. Below are those I like the most. There are more on our Youtube channel. And even more will get uploaded later on as I find my way through the hundreds of clips I have.

>> More DreamHack Winter 2010 Videos

They Made It Big! Winners announced Saturday, November 27th, 2010

We got some impressively big entries for our ”Make it big @ Dreamhack” contest, and we just decided on the winners.

Without further ado, let me show you the winning entry:

Massive Mushroom Eater
And the ones responsible for it: Elin, Marcus and Mattias (and that guy in black to the right is myself)

Elin, Marcus, Martin & Nicolas

Their fantastic picture really captures the Gamocracy spirit: you’re the ones that’ll make it big! Or not.

The awesome prizes for first place are: 1 Zowie Gear EC1 mouse, 2 Zowie P-TF mousepads, 12 cans of Rockstar energy drinks, 2 Western Digital T-shirts and 1 MSI T-shirt. Congratulations!

If this wasn’t you, it’s definitely not over yet. We also have a second and third prize!

>> Take the jump for more entries and more winners

CONTEST: Make It Big! @ DreamHack Friday, November 26th, 2010

You shouldn’t have been able to miss that we’re currently at Dreamhack, the world’s biggest LAN party. And, well, we thought we’d go ahead and arrange a contest in honor of Dreamhack, you and Gamocracy.

And as it happens, this all coincides with us getting our new (and in OliT’s opinion really fantastic looking) cards. That said, with us being on a very low budget, they’re very small.

We thought maybe you could help us make them big!

Small small card

Here’s what’s going on: We’ll be walking around the DreamHack halls handing out these cards to people we meet. Let’s suppose it’s you we’re giving the card to…

You take the card (or make one of your own) and put it someplace where it looks as big as possible, like in the mouth of your sleeping friend, on the pizza you are having for lunch or on top of the highest stack of Coke cans in all of DreamHack. Then, snap a picture of this and upload it to us (instructions below)

The person who sends the picture that best shows the idea of “Make it big @ Dreamhack” to us by Saturday at 19.00 DreamHack time will win some nice prizes, including an EC1 mouse and a mousepad from our friends at Zowie Gear. Simple enough, right?

If you don’t meet us around the alleys, you can still go get a card yourself at the Esports Hall main desk. Ask for Nayya over there if you can’t find them!

If you’re wondering what’s big and what’s not, here’s an example:

Big! / Not Big...

Your imagination and point of view are the limit, just like they are on Gamocracy when it comes to sharing your opinion on games.

Instructions:
1) Take a picture or short video clip showing the Gamocracy card, or Gamocracy in writing.
2) Upload to the contest gallery on the Gamocracy Facebook page or send via email to incolas[at]gamocracy[dot]com. Remember to add some contact details to your picture, so that we can get in touch with you if you win.
3) Do it all over again, if you feel like it. There’s no limit on how many pictures/videos you are allowed to send.
4) At 19.00 DreamHack time Saturday the 27th of November 2010, the contest ends. During Saturday evening, we’ll announce the winner (or winners, who knows…).

Prizes: [updated Nov 27th at 15:42]


We’re currently roaming the alleys of the DreamHack show to collect more prizes! The more contestants, the more chances we have to get nice prizes for you guys.

ENJOY

You shouldn’t have been able to miss that we’re currently at
Dreamhack, the world’s biggest LAN party. And, well, we thought we’d
go ahead and arrange a little contest in honor of Dreamhack, you and
Gamocracy.
And as it happens, this all coincides with us getting our new (and in
my opinion really fantastic looking) cards.
So, here’s what we thought: We’ll be walking around the halls handing
out these cards to people we meet. You then take the card (or make one
of your own) and put it someplace where it looks as big as possible,
like in the mouth of your sleeping friend, on the pizza you are having
for lunch or on top of the highest stack of Coke cans in all of
Dreamhack. Then, snap a picture of this and upload it to us
(instructions below)
The person who sends the picture that best shows the idea of “Make it
big at Dreamhack” to us by Saturday at 19.00 CET will win some really
cool prices, including an EC2 mouse and G-TF mouse pad from our
friends over at Zowie gear (www.zowiegear.com). Simple enough, right?
Your imagination is the limit, just like it is on Gamocracy as always.
It’s your house, you make up the rules.
But remember, don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t allow you to.















Instructions:
1) Take a picture or short video clip showing the Gamocracy card, a
printed out Gamocracy logo (see below), or Gamocracy in writing.
2) Upload to the Gamocracy Facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/pages/gamocracy/115750723164) or send via
email to nicolas@gamocracy.com . Remember to add some contact details
to your picture, so that we can get in touch with you if you win.
3) Do it all over again, if you feel like it. There’s no limit on how
many pictures/videos you are allowed to send.
4) At 19.00 CET Saturday the 27th of November 2010, the contest ends.
During Saturday evening, we’ll announce the winner (or winners, who
knows…).
Prize list: EC2 mouse and G-TF mouse pad from Zowie gear
(www.zowiegear.com) + secret and still to be announced stuff. Stay
tuned!

Disclaimer: Gamocracy or its staff can not be held responsible for the
actions taken by individuals. Gamocracy does not condone or recommend
anyone to take illegal, immoral or otherwise forbidden actions. We do
however recommend people to have a good time!














A, B, C, ain’t easy as 1, 2, 3 Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Most notably because the main hall here at DreamHack is called D. That said, despite the frustration with directions, it’s not bad.

I got in Swedish Jönköping yesterday in the night, in the middle of a snow storm. Powder was whipping my face and for the first time ever, as they vanished into the white at each step, I hated my dearest Stan Smith.

Nayya welcomed me while DreamHack was still being prepared by 400 admins – 400 people, that’s the usual size for a whole LAN Party where I’m from – she introduced me to Jake, another Gamocracy player and an admin here too.

This big mess is why you need 400 admins. And that's just one messy hall out of three

I then walked around the almost empty venue and got to meet my friend TazZmAjaZz, a long-time DreamHack employee and before that a regular at French LAN events, where I was seen more than a few times myself.

TazZ

After he organized the coming of gamers from nineteen countries at DreamHack, he’s now taking care of them and giving a hand where a car is needed. He immediately took me on a little trip to help a painter bring some of his work to the event. It was one in the morning…

Since then I slept a bit and got joined by OliT, a former colleague at Xfire turned Gamocracy wingman for the weekend.

OliT and Nayya

So that’s the crew here. We’ve been around a bit, watched the lights go off, picked gamers at the the station a couple times and stuff like that.

Tomorrow we should get new Gamocracy cards to distribute… If everything goes well. They’ve been at the DHL office 100 km from here for three days now but they didn’t manage to deliver yet. Can’t wait to show you dotsMarc’s work on them.

For now, OliT and I will be headed to the tournament area to check on Nayya, Jake and the StarCraft 2 competition.

OliT and I have been putting more pictures on Facebook
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