Taking a Break.

So, I've decided to take a short sabbatical kinda thing from BXB.

Over the last few months I've felt increasingly like BXB has been taking over my life while at the same time, I feel, the site is really going nowhere.

This is no one's fault. Everyone involved in BXB works as hard as they can for saying they are volunteers and we've all achieved so much in the time this site has exsisted.

The last few months have been quite difficult for me as I've wrangled with the fact that I'm not really happy putting so much into BXB and seeing a lot of that effort wasted because of things that are outside my control and outside the control of everyone that works on the site.

More than anything, my own ambition, impatience and desire to see this site a success has left me feeling frustrated and dissapointed with the progress made over the last 12 months.

Also, inter-site bitching has turned this fun job into a real nightmare. In the last twelve months I've been embroiled in a battle against people that I believe are only interested in exploiting and abusing thier positions of trust within the gaming community and I feel this goes against my own strong set of moral values I try to live to. Regular readers of this blog (if there are any!) will know more about these problems.

Finally, I've like to thank everyone in the BXB community as you've all been just bloody nice over the last few years and the wider gaming community that have helped me out.

I'll be taking a break from my full job of Editor and Events Manager and I will have a reduced role as a reviewer rather than until September at the earliest.

I'll be handing the reigns of content management to Bill Bennett and Andy Gardiner. So good luck to them. I won't be a stranger on the forums and I hope that things are better when I come back.

Hence, BXB DNA will be put on hold until I return.

Copy/Paste

You've got to laugh really.

As I mentioned in my blog post Industry Leaders I'm really happy that other websites are taking inspiration from BXB's unique Join The Ghosts press event which I'm still harping on about four months later.

But there's a difference between "inspired by" and "down right copying".

Still no hard feelings and good luck Pro-G!

Clantastic...

Well, our latest round of hiring on BXB has come to an end with the appointment of forum regulars Samantha Gardiner and Deadeye Dan as Co-Managers for the new BXB Clan.

Clan BXB was originally started by myself in the early days of Xbox Live as a Mech Clan which played Mech Assault where we won many a great victory and suffered only a couple of defeats. We later evolved to play numerous other games and have quite a long history.

We really excelled at Halo 2 with only two defeats to the mighty TTK but sadly the clan split into two groups and clan BXB never really got going again. The other group went onto found CFU or The Clan from Uncle which is still going strong today.

Well, now it's coming back with Sam and Dan at the helm. Sam is a long standing member of BXB and has been part of the site since it launched. She's always been a great member of the community, involved in clans and has been really helpful in running our LAN events.

Dan is another long standing member of the BXB Community and has been in a number of clans include the now defunct PXL and BOX and someone I've enjoyed many games of Xbox Live with.

This looks like the beginning of a very interesting new concept for BXB and I look forward to what it brings.

Frustration Distilled

Since I was added to the EMEA Reviewers Kit list at launch of the Xbox 360, I've been trying to hunt down my first proper piece of preview code. Some people told me that now I have been added to this list everything will be easy that turned out to be false.

I've found that, as usual, I've got to start at the bottom of the pile and work my way up. I've fired off hundreds of e-mails over the last few months to try and secure preview code for games like DOA4, N3, The Outfit and loads more all without any success.

So, I was pretty happy when the PR and Marketing Manager of KOEI in the UK got back to me with a chance for me to get a preview copy of Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires. I've spent the last few days waiting patiently for the game to arrive.

It came through this morning and much to my disappointment it didn't work. I played around with the settings but still no joy and hence I've sent off confused e-mails to both KOEI and Microsoft to try and find out why it didn't work. Of course, no-one's at work until Monday and them returning to work doesn't guarantee an immediate response or solution.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of all this is that there aren't any guidelines or instructions provided by Microsoft and I've had to rely on the good nature of other people on the EMEA Reviewer Kit List for advice and guidance.

I've done some googling with a little help and it seems that I might have had to be sent updated software on a monthly basis but I've had nothing at all. I don't even know if I'm supposed to or not, or wether it refers to devs only.

I seem to be reading over and over that Microsoft is a great publisher to work for that really understands the development process and even assists third party development teams both technically and financially yet they fail members of their community so completely.

This is going to have a part two to it.

State of Play 3

I got my post this morning and there sat a copy of Moto GP 2006. I immediately sent the game off to one of the guys on the reviewing team to get the game played and reviewed. The review will then be published on BXB and the URL sent back to the publisher as proof of our coverage. This is what I call the "PR loop".

But Moto GP wasn't alone. I also had a bundle of four games which have been very kindly sent over to me by Digital Outlook who run Microsoft's Xbox Community Network. There's been a lot of focus on the role and ability of the XCN of late and I've chatted with a couple of Community Managers and PR types recently about their perception of the XCN and, sadly, many said they'd never heard of it.

One way to raise awareness of the XCN is to include itself in the "PR Loop". Some of the games sent by D.O. we're already sent to us from our publisher contacts and hence already covered on the site and the other games will follow the same path as Moto GP 2006 except with one vital difference.

URLs for both sets of already published reviews and reviews being written at the moment will be returned to the publisher via the XCN and hence help raise awareness. While the games I've received that BXB has already covered will be bundled up as a prize and given away to the winners of our Wimbledon 360 Tournament.

This simultaneously improves what we offer our users and what we return to the XCN as now they're involved in running what is turning out to be a great tournament. This in turn will impress publishers and increase the amount of support for the XCN. It's a self-replenishing process.

Sadly, this theory only works if D.O. supports the largest XCN sites first and the smaller ones second which would no doubt rub up the smaller sites as they perceive the larger XCN to not need the review copies. What these people need to realise that this self-replenishing process will help the XCN to grow and hence there will be more opportunities for growth of smaller sites.

I've had the criticism thrown at me recently that I'm only saying these things because it benefits BXB first and everyone else second, and to an extent that's true, I want the best for BXB but I also want to see the XCN grow and this method of getting D.O. into the "PR Loop" and encouraging the self-replenishing process is the best way for that to happen.

Playing Make Believe!

I've booked a week off Tesco and spent the last few days chilling out with my girlfriend, we've been holiday shopping and went to Alton Towers but today I've been focusing on BXB and getting the hundred of little jobs done that need doing.

As I said, I've been playing on Street Fighter: Hyper Fighting and we've already posted our Exclusive Hands on Preview of the game which is well worth a read.

If that wasn't cool enough, we've got some incredible content coming up over the next few weeks. We'll be sitting down and having a natter with the developers behind Xbox Live Arcade titles like Outpost Kaloki X and the soon to be released Cloning Clyde, the legendary Ninja Bee.

Plus, we'll have an exclusive Q&A session with Gastronaut, the guys behind the forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade title Small Arms which looks incredible.

I'm a big fan of the Xbox Live Arcade and think it's a massive source of some great content and some great games and BXB will be giving the service some much deserved focus over the next few months to really push how cool it is.

But we're not neglecting normal Xbox 360 titles and we'll have Exclusive content up on the site about a couple of games heading to the Xbox 360 over the summer soon.

How-Doo-Ken?

After a bit of a delay, I finally got my hands on Street Fighter: Hyper Fighter!

I've got to say it's pretty damn good with some cool new features like a new tournament mode and tons of meaty achievements to get your hands on. The game does support HD but the graphics are the same as the original version.

Both Pac-Man and Galaga are the same and to be honest I'm a bit dissapointed because I'd prefere them to beef up the graphics.

The gameplay is also really tough and at the easiest level, it was still a challenge.

Check out some Exclusive screens here.

N00bs!

It's been a bit hectic recently with a few new changes to the staff and structure around BXB which I'll give you a quick run down on now.

First up our News Editor Bill Bennett will be taking part in a slightly shifted and expanded role of checking and posting articles submitted as front page content (which aren't reviews) and also looking at gaining more exclusive content direct from developers and publishers along side me.

We've brought two fresh news boys on board so I'd like to welcome Bobby "Crimson" Grayson onto the team. He's been on the forums for a while now and he spent some time with Lionhead last year and it's always cool to get someone on board who's worked with developers.

The second news reporter is Paul "Nightstalker" Sterrett who's another long standing member of the forum and showed very natural talent when it came to news reporting. Welcome to the team both of you.

I've also just filled our vacancy for a review with Ali Own who has an impressive CV and history working on sites like the now closed www.xboxrules.com and www.xboxsolution.com and hence I'd like to welcome Ali on board the BXB team.

Ali represents a slight change in recruitment tactics from myself as I've historically always recruited from our forums but after some discussion a couple of weeks back with the community, I decided to bring on board an experienced writer to try and boost our content quality.

Finally, while not permanently enamoured with BXB, I'd like to thank James Woodcock for helping to contribute to the site as he'll be working on a voluntary freelance basis in the future and his first review will be up shortly!

No doubt, he'll deliver the content he promises unlike other freelancers I've worked with!

Gaffs, Cock Ups and Lies

Incredible. It's been another afternoon of drama in the XCN and I'm beginning to really despair about some people's perception of what's going on. All I'm trying to do is tell the truth and expose the blaggers and the liars for what they really are.

Sadly, some people have been so caught up in the web of deceit that they can't even see the truth when it's laid out in front of them. The party involved has asked not to be mentioned on my blog and I'm going to respect that.

I simply cannot get my head around the fact that I showed this person hard evidence that our web-spinner was using them for his own good and they refused to believe me. It's like I was banging my head on a brick wall.

I learnt the hard way and I just want to help others not have to go through the same. Does that make me a bad person?

It seems that I'm not alone in my attempts to do what's right and expose the people that are causing dissent, chaos and problems within the Xbox Community. MSXbox-World's Ade has posted more interesting evidence on his blog which you can have a read of here:

1304 days since Xbox LIVE launched. So, 200 Tournaments must be a typo?

Who's promoting, when is it and who's supporting it? "Top Spin 2 Tournament announced!"

Amazing, the same company that claims to have run 200 Xbox Live Tournaments, can't get a simple news post about a tournament right...?

It's been an incredible weekend of gaffs that would be funny if they weren't so serious.

Speculate/Accumulate

Well, looks like the final nail has been driven into Game Network TV and with it goes BXB's affiliation with the channel.

News that Dan Scammel left the company last week Whoops! Looks like my sources were wrong! Dan is still working hard filming babes! has pretty much ended speculation about the return of the channel since it was closed down a few months ago. When I recently met Dan in London for a few drinks I heard the alarm bells ringing but like a true optimist Dan stayed positive.

Ash and I took the decision to remove the Game Network tag from our General Gaming forum earlier in the week and I was sad to see it go.

A lot of people would level the same sort of criticism at Game Network TV that it was a load of rubbish and Sky 1's rather shocking Gamesville is actually better but I always believed that Game Network could have become much more than what it was with the right backing and the right people.

I felt that if the channel had been given another chance to move forward then I'd have been able to help improve the content of the show, sadly, it now looks like I won't be making my TV debut.

It's a shame to see this potentially beneficial affiliation end but you have to speculate to accumulate!

Unravelling the Web

Once again, I've been courting more than a little controversy within the Xbox Community with a recent blog entry about piracy sites being promoted in the XCN but in another instance I'm going to have to hold up my hands and admit that I may have been wrong.

So, to follow up the private apology I sent tonight, I'd like to back that up with an apology on my blog for my attitude which resulted in some rather heated and ill conceived words being exchanged on MSN earlier this week. It was an attitude born from a paranoia and distrust that I've learnt the hard way in this industry.

It seems that an intricate web of lies has been spun around every single Xbox Community Network website out there. Over time, the spider at the centre of this web has ensnared various different site editors with lies which played on their very basic desires to succeed in this cut-throat industry.

The web coats everyone and everything that encounters it whether they want it to or even without them knowing they have been captured. The spider uses people without their express permission or willing to bend others to their own means.

So deep; so intricate is this web that the people ensnared in it or those striving to break the threads still struggle to see the truth. It was this web of lies that's led me to have a heated argument on MSN earlier this week because everyone involved with the XCN or this spider can become a victim.

Such massive webs of lies can only be created by often insecure, compulsive liars and with so many lies being told, it's easy to snag onto a loose end and unravel the whole knot. It seems I've snagged one of these loose ends and began to unravel the whole web of lies and what I've discovered really is very disturbing.

It's certainly not how I'd expect a man who claims to be the "UK Operations Director for the Xbox Life Brand" to act.

Pushed to the Limit?

Piracy. Not a big fan myself. In terms of movies the general lack of quality rarely compares to a cinema visit or a nice official DVD watched on a big screen with lots of extras while in terms of gaming it puts a strain on an industry that's increasing stretched thin.

BXB has always held very strong rules around Piracy and Modding discussion which we enforce to the point of annoying some of our users, but we believe that promoting or condoning piracy is just wrong.

Hence, imagine my shock when a former OXM Journalist and member of the Xbox Community Network started promoting a new site which claims to have hacked the Xbox 360. Luke "The Duke" Newcombe, a self-styled community expert that works for two Xbox Community Network sites including www.news0r.com (a site we've had a problem with before.) and www.totally360.com has recently began promoting a website which conducts illegal Xbox 360 hacking operations called www.devil360.com.

Devil360 has appeared on Engadget and claim that due to the amount of traffic, that their site's server is currently down despite the fact we can still veiw the website.

Newcombe has posted an article on his blog which openly supports the website and says that "a devil will be unleashed upon the Xbox Live community". Newcombe is supported by numerous publishers as well as Microsoft and their Xbox Community Network and condoning illegal piracy not only breaks the law but is also a massive abuse of the trust publishers put in journalists to not encourage activities which are detrimental to the industry.

I've also done a quick screen grab of the blog entry in case the Newcombe decides to try and cover his obviously guilty tracks by editing the entry. It can be seen here

This sort of behaviour really crosses the line and in my opinion can only be resolved by the removal of all support for Mr Newcombe and any publishers that have NDA's signed by this man to alert their legal teams.

It's a real shame that some people don't have respect for those that work so hard in this industry.

Genesis Part 1

I've been running this blog entry around in my head for a while as it's definitely a story that's worth telling and I hope would provide a little insight into the genesis of BXB.

Before I carry on, BXB isn't the first website myself and Ashley had a crack at creating. It's actually the third. The first site we ever decided to work on was a Community based venture based around our home town of Coalville. It was going to be organised much like BXB is with content written by myself, the site managed by Ash and a community forum.

I even blagged a little coverage for the site in the local rag I was working for at the time. www.theville.co.uk never went live. (I'm surprised to see that the holding page for this early venture is still up).

The second website we tried out was gotmashed.com which was another Community focused website which was similar to clubbing websites like Gurn.net. Gotmashed launched, we promoted it and gained a small community but despite this it never really took off.

Gotmashed.com held regular "Board Meets" in clubs like Passion in Coalville and my experiences at these meet ups and others like it later inspired me to launch BXB's own Community LAN events. It's funny how an ideal evolves.

Click here to see a photo from the first ever Gotmashed forum meet up which happened at Passion in Coalville on the 21st of July 2001. You can see Ash in the back being flanked on his right by Drakau.

BXB wasn't planned to the level that the previous two sites we worked on were and it was more of a reactionary launch but still quite an interesting story. It's really two stories which converge into one. I'll tell you, to the best of my knowledge, Ashley's side of the birth of BXB.

It basically all began with Halo and Xbox Connect. Before Microsoft had launched Xbox Live, Ashley used to host mini-LAN events at his house where five or six of our friends would get together and slog it out on Halo:Combat Evolved for hours.

Then, tired of the same competition, Ashley signed up to Xbox Connect and we started playing Halo over the Internet with other Xbox fans including such long standing forum members as Little Cheif.

With appetites wet for online gaming Ash secured himself a spot on the Xbox Live Beta testing team. After hours on an MotoGP online demo, he'd made plenty more friends including some that are still working as part of BXB Editorial Team to this day.

Looking around the Internet, there was no dedicated British gaming forum. The original OXM had a reputation for spamming and being full of abusive kids and many more mature online gamers chatted over at Xbox365.com. One day, Ash set up a phpBB forum called www.britxbox.co.uk and the rest really is history.

And the second story? Well, that's my story and naturally that's worth a novel on its own! ;)

Wimbledon 360!

Wimbledon is almost upon us and to celebrate BritXbox and XboxGameZone have teamed up to bring you Wimbledon360.

Wimbledon360 will bring gamers together not only on the lush green centre court at Wimbledon but indoors as Table Tennis hits the scene, one thing’s for sure rain wont stop play this year.

During the course of this years Wimbledon we will be holding 2 tournaments side by side on 2K Games Top Spin 2 and Rockstar Games Table Tennis.

So if you think you have what it takes to be the racket ace of 2006 check out the details below:

Top Spin Tournament

Table Tennis Tournament

Gamers are welcome to take a shot at both tournaments, the only thing we ask is you keep those stamina levels up because demands will be high and you must fulfil your commitment if you’ve any chance of succeeding.

Industry Leaders?

Britxbox has shown it's industry leadership abilities in the past when we organised and launched our own brand of casual gaming LAN events which have been a massive success and appeared in numerous Xbox print and online media publications.

Since we did our first, we've seen a fair few copy cat events spring up around the UK including the BOX LAN events which were very strongly community focused as well as Last Man Standing Live which was due to happen this Febuary but, sadly, seems to have gone all wrong.

I'm pleased that our events have been the inspiration for other people to create their own unique LAN events.

Our Join The Ghosts event this year again proved that we are industry leaders in this type of Community focused event and history has repeated itself as another gaming website has started working with publishers to create community events for press and consumers.

Hexus.net's latest venture into Community events is to work with Atari on their Test Drive Unlimited title and they are offering members of the public the chance to get their hands on Test Drive Unlimited at Atari's headquarters in Hammersmith.

Interested? Find out more by Clicking On This Exciting Looking Linky Thing!

I swear there's some cash to be made here.

Jump In

It's been rather interesting on BXB over the last week as our users have been spontaneously giving us feedback and ideas on the future of the website in the latest IMO thread. It features some pretty harsh opinions of our editorial team which were a bit tough to read because I know how hard it is for everyone that works on BXB to keep passionate about the site. Such negative comments aren't helpful, more constructive criticism is.

Myself and Ashley have worked so hard on BXB that we're a little afraid of scaring people away with money making schemes like affiliates and advertising. We both know that too many adverts will drive people away while no adverts means we can't make enough money to improve the content. It's difficult to try and balance the desire to remain slightly underground and the need to go more mainstream.

Anyway, we've had a listen to everyone's feedback and I pretty pleased to say that no-one really said anything that myself, Ash and the rest of the team hadn't already discussed ourselves in the past. We've certainly got ambition for the site and we want to achieve that.

Onto the point of this post. If you did read that thread and felt that you wanted to get involved with BXB and contribute in a positive way then I've just started advertising two new positions on the team.

The first is a standard Reviewer position that I need to fill after someone left from the Editorial Team. Details below:

"We currently have a vacancy in our Editorial Team for a Reviewer.

An ideal applicant for the reviewing team would be an active gamer, who regularly buys games and would be happy to review them and take an active interest in the BXB community.

Successful applicants will receive copies of games to review, get free entry to our LAN events, be allowed to enter all competitions and the chance to visit both National and International gaming events like E3.

BXB is one of the top sites in the UK's Xbox Community Network and has appeared on numerous gaming sites, in several top magazines and on television.

Writing for BXB would also look excellent on a CV and successful applicants will receive training on how to use our back end systems plus constructive feedback on how to improve their writing style.

If you're interested in writing for BXB then please e-mail your details and a work sample (A review you've written will be fine) to mike@britxbox.co.uk

The closing date for applications is the 11th of June."

The second vacancy is something a little different. Have a read:

"BXB has created a new and unique position within our website and we're looking for someone to take on the role as "Clan BXB Manager" from our clan community. Clans have always been a strong feature of BXB and I feel that's waned a little in recent months and want to try and re-energise the clan section on the site.

What I'm looking for is someone who's willing to drive a new initiative around a new website wide clan which would be open to all BXB's users. The new Clan BXB would not only be a chance for people to play in games with their forum friends but to also help promote BXB out in the wider Xbox community.

An ideal candidate would have an obsessive desire to play online games; have experience in running a successful clan or have been involved in a clan in the past; have good management skills and basic writing skills.

I'll be putting a job description together in the near future over what I'd like to see from the new Clan BXB but if you're interested then please drop an e-mail to mike@britxbox.co.uk with your details, clan history and, if possible, ideas for how to organise the clan.

Date for applications closes on June 18th."

The most exciting thing about this position is that whoever gets the job will have almost free reign on which direction they take the concept. I've been sitting and brain storming a few things that I'd like this role to achieve but I'm open to all ideas.

It's an opportunity for someone to get involved with our community; to interact with our users; play lots of games; and win lots of games. A driven, passionate online gamer with a talent for organising would be ideal and I'm very interested in see what reaction the position will get.

Everyone Wins!

It's funny how things turn out really. Xbox UK approached BXB about two weeks ago with an offer of rewarding us with 1000 Microsoft points for every Xbox Live Subscription we sold through an affiliation with Play.com.

We initially turned the offer down because Microsoft points don't pay for hosting costs, however, Ashley decided that we could use the points to reward our staff for working on the site. We accepted and the ball began rolling a bit like Mouse Trap.

Obviously, our requests for the deal to be changed from points to pounds sterling have been heard by the chaps up at Xbox UK and they came back to us with an offer of rewarding us at a higher comission than Play.coms own affiliate scheme.

At the end of the day, this is a better deal for everyone. 1000 Microsoft points costs £8.50 to buy from Xbox Live and giving away £2 is going to save Microsoft £6.50 on every reward given. Plus, it helps us raise more money to pay for hosting costs.

Keep your eyes on the front page for your chance to win an Xbox House Party thanks to this new deal and if you're lucky, myself and Ash might come along and inject some of our LAN goodness into the day! (Plus, we're kinda wondering what the promised "Xbox Ladies" are.)