As December looms over us, I've kinda been more and more reflecting on the whole OKg timeline over the course of this last year. It's been up and down, and now it really is starting to look up.
Of course, the last few months gaming in the area hasn't been totally awesome. Nu Wave closed. Fun and Games closed. No real results came from Mini-con, despite 1000 people seeing the flyers and tournaments. And then most recently, a tournament called GridCon came and went RIGHT before a OKg Monthly Sunday tournament, and when I asked that Sunday if anyone had heard about it - nothing. That frustrated me not for the con organizers, but here we were a year into OKg, and people still didn't know to post about things on OKgamers, and the average gamers didn't know about an event. Man what is going on.
But things are getting better. First off, OKgamers may have been around most of 2006, but we hadn't did anyone doing hardcore tournament throwing, or people willing to do shameless promoting like we've kinda started. Also, we haven't had 'jobs' open to anyone other than a few friends of mine, to help empower people ya know? You want to make a difference, give the person a position and let them go at it. That's something we are going to have worked out by 2007, and on the site to sign up for, so good times.
In that same vein of positions, Daniel has stepped up to be editor and chief for the Articles and Reviews section. This means making the site more than just tournaments and events, but making the site more of a resource - good for return traffic, and content that will help gamers be in the know about the events we've thrown, and the games that are out there. Daniel has also put in a great core concept: resume builders need OKgamers. Myself, a few others; we are doing this to just improve Oklahoma. However, anyone that can help the 'OKg cause' we'll happily welcome in... Even if they aren't so much worried about gamers, as they are needing a place to show their talents off. Video guys, writers, organizers, so much talent exists in the colleges and so forth around us - and if those people want to help with content and events, then so be it. It creates a win-win situation - OKgamers.com gets some first rate help, and those helping get the valuable experience of real life work.
Also, just working with the connections we've made over the course of the year, plus making new ones has really been nice. Nu Wave - I was practically BEGGING to put up their events, and then they went under months later without ever posting anything. In contrast, recently going into 2 new places I hadn't talked to - All About Games in BA, and Top Deck Games just down the street from my house in Tulsa, I've had awesome conversations with the owners about the future. One thing, as a small business owner my self, it's always great to meet people excited about their business too. With this whole 'getting the word out to gamers' site being my personal project right now though, it's even better to run into people that it's going to be another core win-win situation with.
A 'events and tournaments' site, or a networking site, is only as good as it's content that draws users.
If OKgamers.com doesn't have content of events and tournys - then we won't keep gamers coming back.
If store owners just post what's going on event/tournament wise, they get people that hear about it.
We are promoting the site actively through flyers, so it helps both parties.
It seems so simple, but it just doesn't seem to sink in to everyone. Meh - I'm just happy today after running into Top Deck and meeting a guy that has just about everything we have been missing. "Missing" as in well, the site was created for 'gamers'. That doesn't just mean halo players video games. It means people that table top game, roleplay, and card gamers as well. However, beyond the occasional random card tournament, we haven't had ANYTHING for those other types of gamers. Top Deck says they have Warhammer, and Yu-gi-oh and other types of tournaments all the time, and he seemed like he'd really get online and post the stuff, making the whole system work, and providing that content we need on here so very badly. It just - was a good day.
Course, I can't say everything has all been good lol. As you'll read shortly, once I put up the "Tulsa PS3 launch" article I wrote, when addressing some of the people outside of a Best Buy, you could see that a few people thought it was some kinda scam. How do we over come this?!@# I mean are Oklahoman's either so lazy or so jaded that we think things won't work so we don't try, and when people are trying, it automatically means they are just trying to sucker you? OY. Anyway, not everyone was like that, but being an honest enough person, just trying to provide something to help gamers get more outta Oklahoma, just kinda annoys me -_-;;
Then of course lately the whole 'cursing on the forums' has came up among the forum mods. It's not going to be an easy call. The problem we face is - gamers aren't just 18 and up. The kid that took 2nd place for the Guitar Hero Showmenship tourny back in August wasn't more than 14. I talk to gamers all the time under 18, in fact a decent amount of the OKg regulars are still in school. And of course, it's not the 16 year olds we are concerned about offending, it's the young teen's and their parents that we must not offend. Kids are gamers too, and if we just whole hog curse and let the forums be a place for fowl language, we'll loose the younger demographic. Something I don't want to do personally... But the hard calls to come will be handled by 'the Board', or the group that gets together to finalize all the OKg idea's for 2007.
In the end though, we are starting to make an impact. We've found a few positive sources of tournaments and events, we've made some connections with gamers at least in the Tulsa area, and maybe, just maybe, this thing'll work. We'll get the word out about OKgamers.com It'll start working, and gamers in Oklahoma, won't miss out on so much that goes un-advertised, and under the radar anymore.
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