Calling all Alternative Gamers!
I just started a new webzine called Alternative Games. You can view it at
(that's Alt - Games.com) and I welcome you to be among the first to browse around and offer some feedback.
I created Alt-Games because I really want to read a publication focused on the non-conventional, experimental, fine arts, and indy / student games that are continually released online. It is very easy to find mainstream gaming coverage, and occasionally those outlets cover all kinds of things I'd personally classify as "alternative" (Katamari Damacy is an obvious example, as is Shadow of the Colossus, Seaman and any of the other "cult" mainstream games).
As a gamer, I feel a bit torn. On the one hand, the conventionalization of gaming genres and forms has really done a lot to solidify the form, providing a transparency of convention that allows certain elements to be explored. However, I also don't think we've really scratched the surface of what is possible in the game medium, and I'd rather play a dozen "kinda-crappy" experimental student projects over a single "pretty good" sci-fi FPS any day. But give me excellence in either category and I'm very, very satisfied.
So here we have Alternative Games, founded in May 2006. We're currently looking for writers. Several of the GamesFirst! staff have signed up to participate, so I know there will be a core of some very good writers. We're pioneering a new idea in shared ad revenue: Each author directly earns a portion of the ad revenue generated by their articles.
I'm hoping this revenue-sharing proposition, along with a general love of games and interest in the less orthodox elements of game culture, will entice some great writers to step up and get published.
If you're interested in writing for Alternative Games, contact me at
feedback@alt-games.com or send a writing sample to
submissions@alt-games.com
Very neat - I never expected that anyone could do for dynamic web applications what blogging did for static web publishing. Guess I should polish up my resume. (-:
And when Paul and I finally get user feedback running on the paper's website, you can boast that you beat us to it.
- Z
Yeah, I mostly wanted to try Ning. If people come, cool, if not, it can sit there. haha But I do think Rappaport needs to get into the 21st Century with his thing...
I checked out that ning site a couple weeks ago when reading up on the Zend Framework. Apparently, they built it based on that new framework.
Good luck, with a restaurant review site, I tried it two years ago :::link::: and at first I got no ressponse followed by, restaurants posting negative reviews about each other with things like, "So and so's food sucks, you should try our certain thing - it's way better." I promptly removed it from estrip. My push was for mobile suers and I don't think Buffalo was ready for that yet.