Top Ten Freebie Amendment...

I'd just like to say that I'm making an amendment to my Top Ten Freebies and changing what's at number 10. So, in at ten now we have one of Ubisoft's Peter Jackson's King Kong The Official Game of The Movie beer mats.

Now, this had a lot of promise. While I rarely drink these days, I'll often indulge in the life giving nectar of the Gods: tea. It had a nice non-slip rubbery back and a nice glossy pictures of Kong about to go too far with a T-Rex's jaw.

However, only a few weeks after landing it, and hardly any miles on the clock, it's started to fray at the corners. Fray at the corners!!! This reveals that this intially impressive freebie turned out to be nothing but a cheap gift to satisfy those that didn't get the HMV voucher.

Not that I'm bitter.

Thumbs Up

So, I was casually browsing through a number of Gaming blogs recently (I'm not going to mention who because I'm sure someone would turn my "Name Dropping" parody around onto me).

But I came across a photo of me from the Far Cry Instincts Predator press day and I looked dead happy and it makes me dead happy to look at it now. So, I'll stick it on my blog because I'm really proud of it and myself.

Please note, I have no idea who those guys are despite the fact we all look dead chummy! That is the way of the press event. You just don't know who you're sitting next to.

Is this too sickening?

The Freebie Countdown

Puppy like yelps and squeals of delight echoed across the 360 filled room as the PR bod uttered those immortal words: "There’s freebies on the table." The pack of lean and goody bag hungry fansite owners clattered across the room, falling over each others wagging tails and making tired "Is there cake in them?" jokes to stone faced PR girls, jokes they’d heard a hundred...no maybe...a thousand times before.

A runt funsite owner is trampled in the greedy stampede and has to settle for the left over Rainbow Six Lockdown Beanie while his older brothers gorged themselves on as many free pens, t-shirts and keyrings as their mouths could carry.

A PR girl, green in more than one way, fled the horrific sight to hurl up her finger buffet and vodka cocktail in a nearby toilet while the fansite owners gleefully pawed at her exclusive Blazing Angels T-shirt.

Welcome to the world of the press event. Population: Thousands of grubby mitted, cheap, starving fansite owners and the occasional underpaid print journalist getting by on selling free gear to chumps on Ebay and complimentary HMV vouchers.

Now I’ve concluded my creative introduction I’m going to tell you what this "Freebie Countdown" is all about. I’ve been working in the Gaming Industry for a few years now and during that time I’ve landed myself a fair few freebies. Some of them good, some of them rubbish and some just not quite right.

Here is a run down of my top ten favourite freebies:
Coming in at TEN, and essentially one of the worst freebies ever to grace my mail box is Wings of War. Controversial to begin this list with a free game, none the less, Wings of War is the worse scored game on BXB with an appalling 3/10.

At NINE we find a Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones pen. Pens are the stalwart of any freebies collection. Without a selection of free pens, you are literally nothing. I own the following: A Tesco Clubcard Pen, an HSA pen, a Walls Sausages Pen and the aforementioned Prince of Persia pen. My life is like a rollercoaster chaps.

A Halo 2 themed press pass strap is at EIGHT. With a useful hook at the bottom, I was sent a good few of these utterly worthless freebies. Not only do all press events supply you with their own badges but they make totally pointless prizes for users who never attend press events.

The number SEVEN spot is taken by an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Calendar. It’s that exciting.

Prince of Persia Playing Cards are at number SIX. Seemingly unrelated in every way to the Prince of Persia series of games; they are still nicely designed - a solid freebie.

In at FIVE is the rather cool Xbox 360 pen that came through Phlashman’s door after we beat Xbox.com (and the rest of the world I might add) to have the Xbox Live Gamercard on our forum. It’s silver, it’s embossed and I want it so badly; I’d sell my mother for it.

Finding it’s way to FOUR is the beautiful Far Cry Instincts Beach Towel. One lucky winner walked away with no less than two of these at LAN 2006 and despite them being ideal Ebay fodder, these bad boys are great quality if a little small.

Respectedly ranked at THREE is Take-Two’s brilliant Serious Sam 2 T-shirt. The only gaming themed item of clothing I’ve ever worn despite being sent numerous Extra Large sized T-shirts. The only downfall is that it says Serious Sam 2 on it, while the just cool Serious Sam logo would have been fine on its own.

Earning it’s place at TWO place is a copy of Dub magazine. Kindly sent to me by my homies at Rockstar; how this magazine (clearly aimed at "urban" aka black people) would be any use to a skinny white guy from a small country town is beyond me. I doubt very much the 15 foot "rims" featured would fit inside my Vauxhall Corsa never mind on it.

And finally, stalking it’s way into the number ONE spot, like a charming rogue looking to chalk up another pretty filly is the amazing Far Cry Breath Mint. Not that I’m qualified in marketing but I’m really struggling to see where the brutally evolved, bad ass Jack Carver is going to require fresh breath in his jungle adventures. But who am I to question?

The dust has settled. The table previously bulging with freebies now lays empty, except for a half chewed mousemat that the shallow, fickle gaming media cast aside like another copy of the soundtrack to Outlaw Volleyball they just don’t give a toss about.

Welcome to the world of the press event.

Name Dropping Alert

I'm suffering from somewhat of a hang over today as I spent most of the evening drinking with the entire staff of the Tesco I work at! I chatted to a whole bunch of influential Tesco people like Damo, Skip, Pinhead and Bad Boy!

I also had the opportunity to ply the Boss with drink and try to get Tesco on board with my new Project Bore. I felt it went pretty well, and I'm very excited about working with the UK's biggest retailer on Project Bore. One doubt that does stick in my mind was that I later realised I'd been plying the Boss with pepsi...

I also chatted in depth with stock control manager Troy aka T-roy aka Potter who told me some incredibly exciting details about cubing, some stuff I can't go into now, but once the NDA is lifted, I'll tell you all about it.

Oh yeah, it was Adam aka Pixar Penguin's 21st Birthday yesterday so I'd like to say a big Happy Birthday to him!

And I'm going to play Far Cry Instincts: Predator on Tuesday.

Searching for the "One Thing"...

I remember when I first started working on BXB. My first stuff was published before I actually took on the role as Editor and LAN Manager. I basically published a few reviews which had already appeared in my local paper because at the time I was working as their Entertainment reporter.

I came up with the idea of holding the LAN events to get publicity for the site as it worked a gem. From then on I started working on the site.

Now, throughout my time working in this industry I've been searching for this "one thing" that will propel BXB into the dizzying heights of success. When I first started on BXB I'll admit I was truly naive to how this industry works leading to some very frustrated times. Here's one of the posts I made on Gamespress.com dated Tuesday June 15, 2004.


"Just a quick vent of frustration.

Has anyone else come to the conclusion that the Games Industry media is all backwards. It's the same in all forms of entertainment media. We are all people investing lots of time and money into marketing a product for our respective platform's companies whether it be MS, Sony or Nintendo yet we're the ones constantly have to be nice to publishers and the like to get preview copies etc.

They have the power in this relationship when clearly it should be us, we are the people spending hours and thousands of pounds providing somewhere for the public to come and find out about their product.

They should be being nice to us, lest we stop promoting their product.

*gets off soapbox feeling less frustrated*"

In hind sight, it's a very naive view and showed just how unprepared for this industry I was. While my previous experience has given me the basic skills to work in this industry, I still had a lot to learn and I'm still learning a lot right now.

I've come across numerous pretenders to the title of the "One Thing" during my time in the industry. BXB's LAN events, appearing in numerous magazines, joining the XCN or being added to the EMEA reviewers kit list. When each of these happened I believe that these things would propel BXB into a massively successful website. No shit, but they didn't.

Even when BXB was added to the EMEA reviewers kit list, I had people I consider to be experienced industry professionals that this is the moment that everything will just go crazy and it'll become a roller coaster ride. Wrong.

Even now, I know that Xbox fansite owners are striving to be added to the XCN, that Xbox fansite Editors are harassing Microsoft to be added to the EMEA reviewers kit list. Most of all I know that these things are not what you're looking for. They are not the answer. There is no "One Thing".

When I look back over BXB's history our most successful things like building our community, hosting our LAN events or the Join The Ghosts events have been things that we've had to work hard at; things that we've had to invest money into with almost no come back and things that we've had to sacrifice ourselves for. A grand don't come for free!

So, to the fansite owners out there who are searching for success, for popularity and for the ability to brag about not having to buy games ever again, I'll say one thing - there is no easy answer.

You're going to have to work your balls off to get what you want. Things will never get easy. You have to strive everyday, do everything possible in your power to make your site a success. Personally, I sacrificed a lot to get BXB to where it is. Everyone that's helped to get BXB where it is has sacrificed a lot and I thank them all.

In my opinion it's the willing to sacrifice that separates the "fans" from the "professionals".

State of Replay

Right, a follow up to my State of Play entry in which I made some dissenting comments about the XCN. I've now had and replied to a response from Crissie at Digital Outlook and I feel many of the issues have been resolved.

I think the most encouraging thing about this is that I've been able to voice some strong opinions to Digital Outlook. Crissie has been very helpful and I now feel we can move forward. However, I do have a couple of issues left behind now the dust is settling but I guess I will just have to accept these problems and move on.

I am a big supporter of the XCN, with our Join The Ghosts event we provided content for many websites including XCN sites, some that aren't necessarily high in my personal opinion. Regardless of my personal opinion of other sites, this is business and personal feelings should be left to one side.

Something I'll admit to struggling to do.

There's a disappointing level of fakeness in this industry that makes me feel sick. The very same group that attacked BXB and bullied me, think nothing wrong of taking advantage of my good nature and not giving me a shred of credit for it. Such a purely selfish and unprofessional attitude is one that will ensure karma one day bites them firmly in the ass.

The plan now is to focus on getting our house in order. The front page refresh, updating the portfolio and bringing in advertisers are top of our priorities now. Our online portfolio should be updated very soon with more details of our achievements in the last few months - looking back it's been a very exciting 3 months of BXB and hopefully things will keep improving.

We'll also be detailing our future plans as regards to out community events. If you haven't read our online portfolio, check it out here: Online Portfolio