January 2011 – Page 2

Back when I was a kid, being called a geek was a crude insult thrown around by those unwilling to accept that people didn’t share their interests and hobbies. Nowadays it’s worn as a badge of honour. I’m not saying that you’ll see me standing on the top of a mountain with my shirt torn off, shouting “I AM GEEK” into the wind, but you get the idea.

I can see the same thing happening within gaming culture. The terms “casual” and “social” are thrown around with a sneer in the voice. After all, social gamers aren’t real gamers, are they? Casual gamers just don’t play games properly? Unless you’re playing the game in the style of a seasoned professional, you must be doing it wrong, right?

Continue reading “Casual Is Not A Dirty Word”

By now we’ve drunk our champagne, stayed up to watch the Hootenanny and welcomed in the new year with open arms. Before we wave goodbye to 2010 for good, I wanted to thank everyone for helping me to make Mana Obscura a success. From Blog Azeroth helping me take my first steps through to all those who’ve helped me or linked to my articles along the way, I owe you a debt of gratitude.

To all the readers and commenters, thank you. You help to motivate me to write new articles and come up with new ideas – you’re like the oil that keeps the blog turning. To everyone who’s e-mailed in with feedback or comments, thank you. And to those that I’ve talked things over with, bounced ideas off or generally nagged, thanks for putting up with me.

2010 was the first year of Mana Obscura, starting up in March as a small side project. Since then it’s grown, moving to a new home and spinning out a forum, podcast and youtube channel in the process. I’ve also started to use social networking more, with dedicated twitter and facebook pages. The year ends ten months later with 134 posts and more commenters, subscribers and readers than I could have hoped for. I just hope I can keep you all entertained and informed throughout 2011!

Continue reading “An Obscure 2010”