AustralianGamer Comic Centenary

Feature from Yug - Wednesday, 18 June 2008 @ 12:11am

It’s taken over 3 years to reach our 100th comic/update. How so much has changed in that time.

Back when we started the site - we were lamenting the lack of a release date for the latest musical peripheral based game (DDR); we complained about the obscene prices of games on the Xbox; and we were frustrated by the censorship of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas in Australia due to the lack of an R rating.

Cut forward to present day and we are lamenting the lack of a release date for the latest musical peripheral based game (Rock Band); we are still complaining about the obscene prices of games on the latest consoles; and we are frustrated by the censorship of Grand Theft Auto IV in Australia due to the lack of an R rating.

Hmm … maybe not much has changed after all. Except that now the voice of the average Australian Gamer (that we feel we represent) reaches not only the people that are responsible for these issues, but also around 100,000 other regular readers every month.

Not bad for a site that makes buggar all money, is irregularly updated, and prides itself in its anti-establishment policies.

Myself (Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg) and Matt (Matt Burgess) had been friends for a long time when we decided to launch AustralianGamer.com in March 2005. Totally conflicting personalities and lifestyles, the one thing that brought us together more than anything else was a mutual love and respect for video games. With my skills as a graphic designer and cartoonist and Matt’s abilities as a programmer and creative writer, we decided to try and do an ‘Australian Penny Arcade’ with reviews and features.

I sometimes wish I had spent more time on the cartoon characters themselves, since I literally drew both caricatures of myself and Matt at 3am while unusually intoxicated. I cheated wherever I could, only drawing the characters from the shoulders up and using a Photoshop grass filter to create the hair effects. Although the cartoons might not look as similar to myself and Matt as they once did, I still feel they capture our personalities better than expected, even from the very first comic.



Initially finding it difficult to find any Australian specific gaming news and information, we wanted to create somewhere we could feely give our opinions, and inject a bit of personality into our writing. Initially we were even considering calling the site mattandyug.com, although I think you’ll all agree that AustralianGamer.com is more appropriate and catchy.

We launched the site on the 7th of March 2005, and after the first week we were excited to get almost 100 visitors – mostly friends that we had sent a link to mind you. I spent many late nights / early mornings joining other gaming community forums to keep involved in the latest topics affecting Aussie gamers, while at the same time hoping to let them know of our own little website.

The main thing to realise and remember with AustralianGamer is that at the end of the day it’s just run by a bunch of enthusiasts in their spare time. It’s not our full time job. It’s not even a part time job. Staying up until 3 in the morning is a regular occurrence, paying hundreds of dollars a month in hosting and postage fees comes along with the territory, when we travel for events we stay in the cheapest and dodgiest accommodation wotif can dredge up. We aren’t owned or run by some multi-national conglomerate, and although that means any revenue is usually a bonus instead of the norm, it also means we are free to say exactly what we want no matter what anyone else says.

We’ve been threatened with lawsuits, blackballed by distributors, abused by PR reps, belittled by industry veterans, criticised, lampooned, written off, and more. But we’re still here, and if I had to give a reason as to why we do it, I would have to say it’s a love of the Australian gaming community, an awesome sense of accomplishment when promoting the local industry, getting to play and preview the latest and greatest games, and most of all – when all is said and done – we get be a part of the video game industry. And that’s almost rewards in itself.