I dag ser man megen snak om udviklingen i Counter-Strike, hvor flere spår at spillet generelt er på vej ned. I Danmark har der været et langt træk fra om CS 1.6 ville udgå eller om CS:Source ville lande på halen.
Source scenen startede ud med at være en gruppe gamle CS 1.6 drenge (18+ år) der åbnede armene for det nye spil og selvom det ikke faldt i god jord på CS 1.6 scenen, så har det holdt ved. I dag ser man dog stadig den ældre aldersgruppe spille CS 1.6, hvor Source mest har unge spillere i alderen 13-18 år.
Det skaber en anderledes scene end hvad man har været vant til, og tilvænningen ser man ofte på vores forum og hos andre sites. Her ved Gaming.dk har vi altid kørt med fokus på at vi er her for at skabe et community for alle spillere, uanset alder og erfaring. Selvom flere har valgt at skabe en bro mellem dem og nye unge spillere på scenen, fremfor at assistere og udvikle scenen, så er det noget vi er stolte af.
Vi er glade for at have unge spillere på siden og vi har altid været en side der forsøger at arbejde med de ændringer der sker indenfor eSport og derfor står vi også ofte foran når der skal kastes med kritik. Men vi gør hvad vi kan for at skabe så åbent et community som muligt og det vil vi blive ved med.
Vi har rykket os meget, selvom vi har mange unge på scenen. Vi har en konstant stigning i besøgende, brugere og partnerinteresser. Det er lykkedes os at indføre lønninger og en stærkere intern struktur, der sammen med et par stabile ildsjæle løfter det håb vi kæmper for at få frem.
Med det åbne sind har vi altid hjulpet andre communities, både danske og udenlandske, hvor det har været os muligt - vi ønsker at fremme scenerne og ikke begrænse dem ved smålige tanker om at køre andre ned.
Denne tankegang har set sig bemærket ved et af Verdens største eSport sider, Cadred.org, hvor vi har modtaget en personlig artikel fra deres editor, Ricard Lewis. Den indeholder nogle dejlige rosende ord mod os, men også et par spændende tanker omkring scenens udvikling. Artiklen fyldte godt to A4 sider og er på engelsk.
Tag tiden og læs den, da han som altid skriver særdeles fantastisk. Så en tak til Richard Lewis for sin personlige artikel og til Jer der med interesse læser den.
Why I love Gaming.dk
I wouldn't expect many of you to know who I am. Like most of us I achieved very little directly through gaming. Changing trends in games were a factor I think... How does someone brought up with turn-based strategy make that adjustment to real time? How do you go from mashing out high scores in Centipede to clicking heads in CS:S? I was already an old man in gaming terms by the time I started writing about them for a living but I was uniquely placed because most of the other guys that knew what I knew had long since left all this behind.
It's not like it's a unique story. Being one of the rank and file of gaming, barely making a scratch in a playing "career because you weren't really aware that anyone could, that's most of us anyway. We're involved with these games because we enjoy them and, more often than not, we enjoy playing them with certain people. From this simple premise friendships, groups and then whole communities form.
I'm now one of the few people lucky enough to make a living from what they do and even at times when it seems like I might be better off doing something else, I stick around and we probably can all figure out the reasons. There's not many other jobs that indulge my natural immaturity, allow me to travel across the world and meet like minded people and for the most part I get warm welcomes too. This year Denmark has been a regular destination and it's been great to accept the hospitality of the Danish people, which takes the edge off trying to get drunk in one of the most expensive countries in Europe.
The guys who run your website are a huge factor in why I look forward to coming back. At my first LAN in Denmark they not only took the time to give me a tour of the venue, with a history of the building, they also helped me, and by extension Cadred.org, throughout the weekend with things such as translation. Usually e-sports press websites are at each others throats, trying to beat each other to posting the big stories first. Here we were sitting around, playing "keepy ups" with a football and drinking beers in between stories. They even had the decency to let us use their wonderful photography from the event... They followed that up at the SteelSeries E-sports Challenge by coming all the way to the event simply to say hello and buy me a single beer. True gentlemen in a scene full of vagabonds, back-stabbers and thieves.
I don't know how many of you follow my work but lately you may have noticed that there has been a lot of doom and gloom surrounding CS:S. A lot of the players at the top say it's already dead. It's something they have been saying for years and it is something they generally do out of self interest. The game will never die but it could have a much brighter future and whether or not it does is down largely to "community spirit" - people putting aside differences of opinion, differences of background and differences of interests to help something flourish against the odds. In that sense the United Kingdom is in big trouble but there are plenty of those out there across Europe who understand this fact and are keen to put it right.
This is why Gaming.dk is such a special site, populated by special people. I was amazed to see at Copenhagen Games 2010 them running the "knife a celebrity" competition, something that provided a genuine reason for the lesser able teams to enjoy their games and still maybe win a prize for their efforts. It's a genius idea and one I wished I had thought of. The reason why I hadn't was probably down to the fact that such ideas generally get shot down or ridiculed. In the UK we only just started having a "losers tournament" at our big CS:S LAN, the i-series, because many were too egotistical or distrusting to want to take part.
Witnessing how much work The Gaming.dk team put into making the Danish community a better place was something that made me extremely pleased. Then I remembered back to when I started five years or so ago, helping a public community get off the ground and then writing for a Source focused news site called "Source Junky" - dead a long time. Everything we did seemed to have a direct impact on the scene, whether it was cups that we ran, shoutcasting events, writing articles about people at all levels of the game or sifting through the 128 teams signed up to a Multiplay event and doing their seedings. I'm no longer hands on with the community anymore and at times I wish that wasn't the case. There's large parts of those days I miss but equally there is so much negativity it is hard to want to stay involved.
Anyone expecting a sermon I hope to disappoint. In truth there is little reason behind it other than the fact I want to make one thing clear, something I'm sure most of the Gaming.dk readers know anyway - this site and everyone who uses it are playing their part in ensuring the scene has a future. It might sound dramatic, over-the-top or even implausible but what this site has over many others is the understanding that it's not just about a handful of people at the top - the scene, events both online and at LAN, they are for everybody who loves the game. The staff here go out of their way to cater to everybody.
I saw this first hand at Copenhagen Games 2010 when your beloved writers complained about the food. Everyone was disappointed on that first day with the standard of it, but they were the only ones doing anything about it. After a write-up and much debate with the "chefs" the next day saw a far better quality of meals for everybody. Still fucking expensive, but actually edible. It's the little things that go a long way.
I also know that some other people, perhaps even at other Danish websites, can be disgustingly elitist and rude. They don't see themselves there to serve the scene... They see the scene as something there to serve their own needs and massage away their own insecurities. Should anyone really care about e-fame? Should anyone want a degree of separation between them because of a completely imagined and fictitious status? These people actually drive outsiders away from the scene with their attitude... Gaming.dk welcome you into it.
I will be looking forward to returning the favour when they finally make it over to a British event, something we have talked about at length and I can't wait to match their hospitality. I am sure that together we will be able to bring something positive and entertaining to all of you. However, that is a long way off and I am sure to be back in Denmark before then with the latest SLAP LAN on the horizon. Hopefully I will get a chance to meet some of you at these events and have you explain to me why your coins have holes in them.
The point I'm making? Well, it's easy at times to take things for granted... We all use this site and probably don't think about what it all means. We interact on forums and don't think too much about what we belong to. But by supporting Gaming.dk you are actually supporting people that want to do as much as they can to promote and perfect Danish e-sports, not just for the money making few - although that too - but for everybody. In that sense you can be immensely proud of belonging to this particular community and I pride myself on being an honorary member, even if I'm supposed to be a rival.
See you on the road Richard Lewis
Editor of Cadred.org
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