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[General] HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY, GUNSLINGERS!!!

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:33 pm
by McMurphy
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HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY, GUNSLINGERS!

15 years! Wow! A lot has changed around online gaming since we first opted to take our dozen PS2 members out from then confines of Jak X's in-game clan feature to "get serious" about keeping our gaming community going.

Think of it. The PS3 had just been released the previous November at an outrageous price, & the Xbox360 console debuted just the November before THAT. Outside of the PC gaming realm, a truly broad landscape of online gaming communities was just beginning to take root. There was no Twitch.tv yet. There was no Discord. No Looking-For-Games tool sites like 100io. Push Notifications wouldn't be a thing until AT LEAST 2009. Often, a game's in-game clan features began & ended with being able to add clan tags as a prefix to your character's name. There sure as Hell was no cross play between platforms. Get out here. That was crazy talk. If you wanted to create or join a gaming community, you googled for a forum. Gaming forums were all the rage for organizing gaming groups back in 2007. Sure, Reddit had launched in 2005, but, in all likelihood, you were registering a membership for an independently run message board.

So, that was our focus. A forum. First, a sub-board on a general gaming forum (looooong since shuttered). Next, a site & message board made with one of those free host & website providers: FreeWebs, but now it goes by Webs.com. Finally, we took matters into our hands & built our own site. A forum-focused site.

But forums aren't really needed like they once were, are they? Sure, a forum is a nice perk (& old turkeys like me who still prefer them), but the feature is no longer the solution wanted for addressing the central problem of a gaming community organizing itself amongst its members. Games like the Destiny franchise technically give a clan everything it needs to thrive. Twitch lets you live stream clan events & promote membership with a (relative) click of a button. Discord provides an array of text & voice features along with an army of bots to enable a gaming community to organize & communicate.

As online gaming evolved, so has our niche. For the vast span of the Gunslinger Gaming existence, we gamed under the motto of providing an oasis for mature, casual gamers. That is still true. Yes, the wild west of online gaming has been civilized to the point that, if we serve a niche, we do so on a crowded street rather than from a saloon in some ghost town.

Gunslinger Gaming still offers an unique gaming community experience. While it has become much easier to organize a gaming community online, so has doing so with a certain amount of financial kickback. Content creators ask for "donations." Remember to smash that subscribe button, everyone. Hit any like or bell icons you see on your screen. Podcasters have Patreon. Want me to create a website? Fund my Kickstarter, they say. Want to help me out? Please don't adjust your cookie settings. Everyone is pursuing their interests, but, boy, it should would be nice if you paid their way.

We are non profit. All our community leaders & "staff" are volunteer. We don't have ads. We don't give a shit what you last bought on Amazon. Please make sure your data isn't being tracked, because we ain't selling it. There is no tier in membership that you can buy your way into at Gunslingers. Your money is no good here. Aside from the aspiration that it could promote our community to other laidback older gamers, we could care less if you subscribe, like, bell, or follow any of our content on Youtube, Twitch, or any social platform. Everyone else is asking to do those things because it makes them money. That's fine. You do you, as they say. But that isn't us.

Gunslinger Gaming has always AND will always be about providing an inclusive oasis for older, casual gamers. Period.

In a world---online & off---full of people trying to sell you something, welcome to the one place that isn't.

Gunslinger Gaming.

Sincerely,
Lee McMurphy

Re: [General] HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY, GUNSLINGERS!!!

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 5:53 pm
by camaro2862
Happy Anniversary, Lee! Thank you for creating this wonderful community. Everyone I've ever had the opportunity to play with has had that same ideal of finding time to have casual fun playing games with others. Here's to another 15! 🍻

Re: [General] HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY, GUNSLINGERS!!!

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:47 am
by gotBurner
Great community to chat and game with, well done to all involved!

Re: [General] HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY, GUNSLINGERS!!!

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:24 pm
by BigFreddy
Hi Lee, you’re right a lot has changed. I still think that just sitting on chat every night talking on the old forum board was way cooler than all these flashing lights and whizz bang apps and streaming services. Lol.

Happy Anniversary to GS and thank you Lee and all the Admin past(with one or two exceptions, lol) and present.

Freddy.