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'We reflect on SupaNova' Podcast
by Matt









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History


It all started with Dance Dance Revolution.

Matt Burgess and Guy (Yug) Blomberg, two friends who were living together in a small townhouse in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, found themselves in the winter of 2004 both wanting and waiting for Dance Dance Revolution on the original Xbox. Sure, many other fine titles were available and subsequently purchases for Microsoft's big black machine, but DDR was one they were particularly keeping an eye on. So it was frustrating as they noticed every month, the release date for the game slipping further and further away, until it finally dissapeared from the release schedules all-together. What happened? Why wasn't it released here in Australia? Who's fault was it and what could they, as the typical Australian gamers, do about it?

Matt being a web programmer and Yug a web designer, and having already colaborated on a few projects together already, they decided to go about making an independant website that could be used to voice their concerns, uncensored, in the hope of finding some answers.

11th of January 2005
Yug found and registered the domain name AustralianGamer.com, an interesting achievement considering that Matt had actually worked on an unsuccessful gaming website of the same name many years earlier. In order to stand out from the many other gaming websites on the market at the time, they decided to create a website that was totally Australian in content and tone, and had a layout that focused on their personalities through a weekly comic and update. Combining what they felt was the best parts of other gaming websites, such as Penny Arcade and IGN, they set to designing and coding the website from scratch.


07 March 2005
The site finally launches to very little fanfare, without very many visits apart from a few friends and family, although the system is in place and the challenge has been set.


31 March 2005
Matt adds a 'comments' system to the site, which allows people to leave comments on our updates or game reviews. This is a big step towards getting our readers and the community involved with the site, and giving us the kind of feedback that pushed the site in certain directions.


29 August 2005
After 22 successful updates, and a growing amount of website visitors, we had our server crash on us. With no backup system in place, and the hosted hard drive completely corrupted, we found half of our updates and content lost forever, never to be salvaged. This marked a do-or-die turning point in the project, as we had found maintaining the site to be a huge strain on our time and finances. We decided to keep going.


2 September 2005
Our friend Ben Maynard, who was helping us promote the site to publishers, organised through his contact Robert Cavallucci from SpectreWorld to get us access to a gaming event in Sydney run by Electronic Arts called 'EA Imagine', an event where they were showcasing all their upcoming games. We flew down to our first industry event, met people from other media outlets, networked with professionals in the gaming industry, and got exclusive coverage of upcoming EA Games. After loosing half our site to a server crash, having such a positive experience as this event did alot for our moral.


6 September 2005
We released our first podcast, pretty much exclusively talking about the previous EA Imaagine event. The intro music was originally written and performed by our mate Ben Maynard. We were strapped for time and in a hurry, and the podcast itself was fairly basic and simple. This set a precident for all our podcasts to come, as we got positive reactions not just from readers, but from other gaming sites and people in the gaming industry as well.


29 September 2005
We score an exclusive interview with Scod from the band Tripod, and get great response from him about all things gaming.


6 October 2005
The second site update was a collaborative effort between Matt, Yug and Ben. Featuring a brand new layout and design, and showcasing the new affiliation with the Spectre Network, it also included regular polls, content banner ads, and 'now playing' spaces.


20 April 2006
3 new members are added to the Australian Gamer team: Rowan 'Oracle' Beard in Sydney, Alan 'AJ' Downie in Melbourne, and Jessica 'Jess' Andersen in Brisbane. Cartoon versions of the new people are created, and new reviews, features and previews are provided by the new members, including coverage of local events. AustralianGamer.com becomes national.


1 May 2006
The user comments is replaced for a proper forum, hosted on the Gamers World network. This allows unprecedented community input on all things AustralianGamer.com, as well as providing a place for our readers to talk to each other and discuss gaming together.


3 June 2006
Matt and Yug visit local game developer Auran for a tour of their studios and interviews about their upcoming projects. This begins a successful series of feature articles where AustralianGamer.com visit and tour local game development studios.


11 October 2006
AustralianGamer.com becomes an official media partner of the gaming event GAME1. The Sydney and Melbourne shows are combined with the popular AutoSalon car show, to ensure maximum attendance.


2 November 2006
Matt and Yug fly to Melbourne to attend GAME1. This includes meeting up with our Melbourne corospondant AJ, and setting up our own booth at the event. Our booth consists of numerous AustralianGamer posters, 4 bean bags, an old TV, milk crate, bowl of lollies, a Super Nintendo and Mega Drive. We get exclusive coverage and hands on with the Nintendo Wii, network with game industry and game website operators, and hand out over 500 AustralianGamer.com flyers. Our booth is hailed by online media as the

"highlight of the afternoon" - (PALGN.com.au)


17 November 2006
Matt and Yug fly to Melbourne to attend the Electronic Games & Entertainment Expo. A booth similar to the one setup at GAME1 is setup. Matt and Yug become the MC's on the main stage on the Saturday and Sunday, introducing keynote presentations by Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, as well as providing entertainment between stage events. They also do a podcast live on stage, as well as handle the charity auction at the end of the Sunday, raising over $5000. Matt and Yugs performance is described as:

"providing moments of comic genius on stage and setting the tone for the presentations that followed" - (ATOMIC Magazine)


2 December 2006
Matt and Yug fly to Sydney to attend GAME1. This includes meeting up with our Sydney corospondant Oracle, and setting up our own booth at the event, similar to the one setup at GAME1 Melbourne and the eGames Expo.


18 December 2006
5 new members are added to the Australian Gamer team: Samo (Melbourne), Anna (Melbourne), Romi (Brisbane), Jessi (Adelaide), and Brett (Perth).


1 February 2007
Matt and Yug get an exclusive interview with video-game-to-movie director Uwe Boll over the phone. The interview reveals exclusives about Uwe Boll's upcoming projects, including a potential video game project based on one an upcoming movie.


2 February 2007
The first paid advertisment appears on AustralianGamer.com, for LudoGaming.com.au.


22 February 2007
Matt and Yug are flown to Sydney to attend the Playstation 3 Media Launch. During the presentation, the AustralianGamer.com podcast is used to showcast the Playstation 3's podcasting capabilities. Sony Australia's PR Manager Adrian Christie describes the AustralianGamer.com podcast as:

'influential' - (Sydney Morning Herald)


25 February 2007
The first of the Gamers Meets is held in Brisbane. The night involves multiplayer Wii on a projector, Singstar, a Ball Pit, and an ourdoor party area. The night is a success and many other Gamers Meets follow in other major cities.


12 March 2007
AustralianGamer.com celebrate their 2nd birthday!


31 March 2007
Matt and Yug fly to Perth to attend the GO3 Gaming Expo to help local game developer Auran promote their upcoming game Fury. This role involves commentating on the LAN games during the expo, and interviewing Auran staff on the main stage. We also meet up with our Perth team member Brett.


14 April 2007
Matt and Yug host 3 game industry panels on the main stage at local Pop Culture Expo SuperNova.


19 April 2007
Senior game designer Joseph Hewitt from Auran is asked a series of 10 questions for a featured article about the people involved in the local gaming industry. This begins a successful series of feature articles where AustralianGamer.com ask 10 questions of people in different areas of the gaming industry.


2 July 2007
Melbourne team member AJ questioned Bigpond about their Project Joystick competition, and got quite a bit of exposure from online and print media.


6 July 2007
Local Australian game industry news and resource website Sumea.com.au interviews Matt and Yug for their 5 year anniversary article. About the AustralianGamer.com podcast:

'they're the Roy and H.G of Australian gaming, and produce not only the best local gaming podcast around, but is up there with the best the rest of the world has to offer.' - (Sumea.com.au)


25 July 2007
The worlds first 3-D review of a 2-D game debuts as Brett reviews Super Stardust HD for the Playstation 3. 3-D glasses are required to read the review.


6 August 2007
The brand new third update to the look and layout is put live, along with the announcement of 5 new team members: Carl (Sydney), Cav (Melbourne), Jae (Sydney), Starks (Sydney), and Phil (Brisbane). New features include advanced RSS feeds, search features, web 2.0 CSS design.


30 September 2007
AustralianGamer gets its own WikiPedia page.



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