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Behind the Screen at GC: What Do I Actually Do?

9/23/2014

1 Comment

 
I've done a fair amount of yammering about recording videos for YouTube and my time writing for Exfanding Your Horizons, but it's not as often that I talk about GameCola, the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website for which I've been writing since the beginning of 2009. Here and on Exfanding, you might see me mention the site in passing or rattle off links to posts I've written or participated in, but most of the behind-the-scenes tidbits are scattered in bits and bobs across 5+ years of videos, posts, and podcasts on the GC website itself. What's it like to be a Staff Writer/Editor and the YouTube Administrator for the most prestigious gaming website referred to in this paragraph? Well, since you asked...

Ostensibly, it's very easy. The longstanding rule for writers, dating way back to the dinosaur days when GameCola was published in a monthly newsletter format, is that you contribute one article per month. That's it. End of requirements. In our current format, this typically works well: we're posting one article a day, Monday through Friday, with our regular podcast posting on the first Sunday of each month; with a little over a dozen staff writers, some of whom are inevitably prolific enough to contribute more, it should be no trouble to meet our monthly quota. Anytime you see a "Classic 'Cola" article go up with a golden oldie pulled from the archives, it means we totally blew it.

As an editor, I can see how many articles are in the queue for review, and when things are scheduled to be published. During a dry spell, I'll often try to churn out a fluff post to help tide us over until the pace picks up. Anytime you see an article about a video series that's at least three years old, that's a sure sign our most prolific writers are on vacation, or else I'm really struggling to come up with a post this month. Actually, that's only half true; as both the administrator of GameCola's official YouTube channel and a completionist, I like to make sure all the videos we record get proper coverage on the main site.

Unofficially, I'm also GameCola's resident historian. When I was first invited to join the staff, I started doing my research, reading through the archives from the beginning. With the editor privileges I was given during the site's big relaunch in 2010, I soon embarked on a massive quest to bring all of our old articles up to code, proofing and editing them as I read them to ensure a minimum standard of consistency and polish across (at that point) nearly ten years of history. We have a GameCola Style Guide I adhere to when reviewing these old posts, and several of my suggestions for future revisions have come from past posts.
I'll do a full editorial review of one or two new articles in the queue per month, and I'll instinctively spot-check any others I read, but what I most look forward to is the day I catch up with the relaunch articles. Anyone who's familiar with my creative works probably knows how much of a sucker for continuity I am; seeing where we've been makes me appreciate that much more where we are now, and it's a joy to be working toward connecting those two places in a meaningful way.

That being said, there's some scary stuff in the archives that I'm sure most people would prefer to keep buried. But at least it'll look extra pretty. Like a skeleton wearing makeup, maybe. We can be selective about what we reference, but we can't always control where Google searches and those suggested "You May Also Like" posts take people, so I figure it's in the site's best interest for every metaphorical room of our metaphorical house to be as tidy as possible when we leave all the metaphorical doors open.


Likewise, I strive to keep our old videos on our GCDotNet channel in good order, moving things into playlists and updating descriptions if need be. The review process is much less structured and stringent there: upload a video privately, and I'll take a quick peek before posting it to the public, ensuring the description, tags, title, and video and audio quality all meet our basic consistency and quality standards. I very rarely watch YouTube videos unless someone specifically shares a link with me, but I make an exception for GCDotNet out of loyalty and my silly notion that I should be informed about the content I'm supposedly administrating. Of course, it sometimes takes me years to do anything more than skim through a video (have you seen our Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward series!?), but I plan to get completely caught up eventually, I promise.

That's one of the fun things about GameCola: I'm as much a fan as I am a contributor. I have side projects within my side project. Call it GamatryoshkaCola. Or don't, because that sounds terrible.

As one of the senior members on staff, I also feel a strong sense of investment in the site. I've been here longer than the majority of the people currently on our staff roster, and aside from Alex "Jeddy" Jedraszczak (our Editor-in-Chief), I'm the only old-timer who's been continuously active over the last year or two. I'm relieved that Paul Franzen didn't fire me about a half-dozen times while he was Editor-in-Chief, because it's been a fun ride so far, and I've been honored to collaborate with him and with Jeddy on some big and small decisions behind the scenes. Together, we've developed a process guide for editors, diffused a few potentially ugly situations on the YouTube channel, and turned The END DAY into an official GameCola holiday. My perfectionist and control freak tendencies have mellowed considerably since joining the staff; frequent participation in group e-mail discussions, podcasts, and video commentary has a way of instilling an appreciation for effective teamwork.

Do I see myself staying with GameCola indefinitely? Hey, I'm happy to stick around as long as they'll have me. As with Exfanding, there could come a day when it's no longer sensible for me to keep going, but I don't anticipate giving up being a gamer anytime soon. GameCola is a great outlet for that side of my personality, and I've met some wonderful and hilarious people as a result of being here; I'm in no rush to break away, especially with all those side projects left to finish. I've got some video and column ideas yet, and at least one more RPGcast that I'm really looking forward to pulling together. And let's not forget about the 40-odd Mega Man games I have yet to review.

In other words, as I say in my biographical blurb on the site, you're pretty much stuck with me. Sorry.
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Burger and Shake

9/15/2014

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I am a burger-and-shake kind of guy. You've heard of wine? Burgers and shakes are to me what wine is to other people. That's not to say that I'm unfit to drive after a couple milkshakes or that I swirl my burgers around in a glass and talk about their bouquet; rather...y'know, I think I'm going to start this post over.

I am a burger-and-shake kind of guy. It's a simple formula: beef on some sort of starch; ice cream and milk. These are things I like. These are things with which you can get creative. I freely admit that I'm a picky eater, but if you can find basic ingredients I enjoy, then I'll take a chance on practically any combination you can think of that isn't an obvious health hazard. And even then, I'm willing to make exceptions. Burgers and shakes are perfect canvases for culinary artistry, assuming you can describe runaway barbeque sauce and haphazard onion rings as "culinary artistry."

Oh man. Now I want a burger. Let's talk about milkshakes.

I kinda want a milkshake, too.

I think I'm going to start this post over again.

I want a burger and a milkshake.
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Fishing for Fantasy

9/7/2014

11 Comments

 
Judging by my enthusiasm for Dungeons & Dragons, the variety of fantasy novels on my bookshelf, the number of fantasy-themed RPGs on my Backloggery, and the fact that I've back-to-back marathoned both The Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy and all eight Harry Potter films (at separate times, of course), you'd think I was a fan of the fantasy genre. In truth, I merely appreciate a well-told story. More often than not, I like these works of entertainment despite their genre, not because of it.

I'm an escapist. The less my fiction resembles reality, the more I tend to enjoy it, at least as a general matter of principle. That's why I'm such a big fan of sci-fi: when was the last time you terraformed a planet or took a spaceship to work? Sci-fi is often futuristic. I know where we've been, and I know where we are, but I'm most excited to see where we'll go. Dystopian fiction? Forget it. I want to believe we have a bright future ahead of us, or at least a future where our prosperity and advancement have introduced a whole new set of conflicts unlike any we've previously dealt with.

Fantasy? Fantasy lives in the past. Medieval England. Old folklore. Rehashes of Tolkien. Fantasy is hung up on that which cannot be explained. Magic. Ancient curses.
Elements that do not hold writers accountable to any standards of logic or continuity. Fantasy is gimmicky; something familiar with something unfamiliar slapped on top of it. ("These aren't any horses! They're magical horses.") Fantasy has the potential to be a realm of pure imagination that bears only a passing resemblance to reality. What I want out of the genre is the whimsical creativity of Roald Dahl, the built-from-scratch feel of the Golden Sun universe, and the utterly foreign lifestyle and culture of Conan the Barbarian. What I most often see and think of is, "WHOA! Dirty peasants, filthy hovels...and a dragon!!!"

And elves. Always with the elves.


Anybody got any suggestions that might win me over?

11 Comments

Retrospective: August 2014

9/1/2014

1 Comment

 
August was a very good month for me, personally and...electronically? Whatever it is I report on the first post of each month. The book The Happiness Project made a big impact, as did getting to spend so much time with family and friends I haven't seen in forever. Even at my most exhausted, I was more at ease and rejuvenated than I've been for some time.

This Blog:

If you're particularly observant, you may have noticed a pattern this past month. In an effort to write more and about more, I launched a personal initiative to write a blog post concerning each of the category tags I'd used for previous posts, in order (so, Anime, Books, Collecting and Collectables, etc.). My original plan was to write a post every day or almost every day, timing it so that this post (tagged as Retrospective) would appear in order after a post on Politics and a post on Religion. Given my travel schedule for the month, it didn't take long to realize the strain that would impose. We'll pretend "R" for "Retrospective" falls squarely between "E" for "Exfanding Your Horizons" and "F" for "Fantasy". A B C D E R F...

-
Retrospective: July 2014
-
Anime Write About It After All
- The Happiness Project
- Married to Someone Else's Work
- Conventional Wisdom
- Indefinite Hiatus

GameCola:

One of the more amusing Q&AmeCola responses I've contributed, and probably my favorite thing I've written for GameCola all year. I also spent a fair amount of time behind the scenes, editing old articles to bring them up to code. That's an ongoing project you can assume I'll be working on for the foreseeable future, given that the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website has articles dating back to 2002, and I'm only halfway through 2005 for the review category alone.

-
Q&AmeCola: World Leader Appearances
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Wii-VC)

The Backloggery:

Well, this is a first. I don't think I've ever had a gaming month so slow that I had to remove games to make a dent in my backlog. A bit of cleanup that I thought I'd already done, clearing out Flash games I no longer intend to attempt to beat from Homestar Runner and my Flash Flood columns. I continued to slog through Tomb Raider III and Mega Man Battle Network 3 White, though I did add an old favorite, EarthBound, into the rotation—but because my first attempt at playing the game was years and years ago, Started status has long since come and gone, hence its absence from the list.

Removed:

- Awexome Cross  (Brwsr)
- Trogdor  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Attack  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Survival Special Mission  (Brwsr)

Between my blog post project, my GameCola archive project, a bit of revamping and updating of my Series Opinions feature on this site, the games I have going, and the next Mega Man 7 video that's already in the works, I've got plenty to keep me busy for the next month, and hopefully plenty to report on next time around.
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