Hello, readers! This week, I reluctantly break from playing Final Fantasy XII to bring you more insight into the gaming world. In an unusual fit of introspection, I have decided to explore my roots within video gaming. To begin, I would like to discuss a few online gaming communities and why it is that I found myself drawn into them. The first of these communities is our beloved Lusipurr.com. I will revisit Lusipurr.com in more detail soon, but I will for now say that the biggest initial attraction of Lusipurr.com for me was the site’s sense of humor and the hilarity of the old, entirely not safe for work Megaphones Ahoy! podcasts. The humorous take on the gaming industry sucked me into Lusipurr.com, and I regretfully must inform our readership that I intend to remain with this site for as long as I possibly can.
Lusipurr.com's beloved mascot.
Many of our readers and staff members by now know that I am a member of the Backloggery community. For those not in the know, Backloggery is a website devoted to the organization of gaming backlogs wherein members list games along with their completion statuses in the eventual and usually vain hope of one day finishing all of the games on the list. Backloggery has a surprisingly close-knit community of like-minded gamers working towards a common goal. From the Final Fantasy XI linkshell to the weekly live streaming, Backloggery has simultaneously created an organizational tool and a community. Like so many other members of the site, I came for the game listing and stayed for the camaraderie. The Backloggery community has uniquely created a place where gamers bond over almost nothing at all; many of the people in my friends list are people with whom I have only shared brief conversations about their or my banner and avatar. In seeking a way to keep track of my ever-increasing game library, I inadvertently stumbled and bumbled into one of the kindest and surprisingly close gaming communities it has ever been my pleasure to be a part of.
Stepping away from Backloggery’s close-knit community, I now move on to discuss a much larger and less friendly gaming community: GameFAQs. Though not as active as I once was, I am a long-time member of GameFAQs; I have been using the site for gaming help since probably around 2002 and finally joined the community in August of 2005. The GameFAQs community is certainly a grand bunch of misfits, with a staggering number of message boards, both gaming and non-gaming. What continues to draw me to the GameFAQs community is its size: the message boards are populated by people from all over the world, with all sorts of interests. Despite its massive size, GameFAQs does keep some sense of community and camaraderie, as the website is made up almost entirely of gamers. The GameFAQs community is, to me, the forgotten old friend. Every so often I find myself compelled to return to some of my old haunts to remember what it is that drew me into the GameFAQs community and into gaming fandom as a whole.
The eternal enemy of the enterprising backlogger.
Finally, I return to my original discussion of Lusipurr.com. Aside from the site’s humor, the primary draw of Lusipurr.com has to be the readership and staff. Another staff member once admitted that despite the fact that most of us have never met in real life, there is an intense and close friendship among the staff and readers of Lusipurr.com. I would like to echo that sentiment and add my own thoughts on the matter. On most websites I have visited, the site staff is an aloof standalone entity, and I always have felt awkward trying to communicate with them. Lusipurr.com avoids this; staff and readers have always communicated as equals with little to no awkwardness. The closeness of our little gaming community is what has kept me coming back to Lusipurr.com. Despite the fact that I have never met most of them in real life, I still feel that I am very close friends with the staff and readers here onsite.
Well, I have briefly shared my experiences with a few gaming communities and why I am glad to be a part of them. What about you, readers? What gaming communities are you a part of and why? What is it about Lusipurr.com and other gaming websites that draws you and I into their communities and fandoms? Let me know in the comments, readers. I am curious to know.
