"Gamer Featured in Sacramento Newspaper" Topic

Neat! Where was the photo taken?

Sacramento?

Gotta admit, my first thought was "Why, did he rob a bank or something?"

Inside

Don't know about you guys, but I'm suspicious — this one didn't pass the Smelchak for me. :D

Hey, for once a gamer is portrayed in mass media with a rather positive image.

I mean they could have interviewed Sacramento's equivalent of Doug Doug from "Fear of Girls".

Thanks Maksim!

And they didn't pick a fat, bearded dude with long dishevelled hair wearing an old, dirty t-shirt with holes in it!

Max- Why you didn't do the interview wearing a Prussian helmet I'll never know. Oh well, opportunity missed.

p.s.-you playing on Sat. at GE?

Cheers!
~OD

I actually learned something from the intereview :)

I thought it was a positive piece…

ArrOOoo, Cattledog

Strange he does not even mention the game he has set up in the photograph. It is a great article that was written about him.

…………..Doug

not very work-safe though.

How many pictures of roly-goth-bisexual fat chicks will get you fired?

One, if the boss man sees it!

Very good article, with good concise explanations by the interviewee and a serious recitation of the facts by the interviewer. Plus some nice "shout-outs" of games…

Well done!

Later,
Markus

…no mention of TMP…?

w.

OMG Belkar!

Nice to put a face with the name.

I agree — good on you, Maksim!

Hi Max! Congratulations on your 15 minutes…well, 5 minutes…of local fame!

Very cool! Nice to see a positve spin on the hobby!

Nice article there, no "poke fun at the looney" questions in that interview. :)

Agreed. Very positive, and very nicely done. Ditto what cubeblue said about the subject not being fat, bearded, and disheveled. Nice to see a "normal hombre" portraying the hobby.

Bravo to all involved (and to the reporter for asking some topical questions about modern warfar simulations).

nice to see, and a blanced member of our group being well spoken and well balanced,

"top hole old chap" i have been lead to belive is an approptiate copmlement.

Very cool.

Yeah, it's nice to see wargames in a positive light. Whenever gamers have been mentioned in our local paper the article seems to me to be patronising or depicting the gamer as an oddball. This is a great hobby, full of clever, mature people who are far from being "strange".

Way to go,Maksim!

Very good article on the hobby.

MD

What the heck gang, when this request came up, I suggested "why not try to see if you can get a good, positive article?" A lot of folks thought it wasn't posible but oh mi gosh I was actually right for once. A world's record indeed.

Is the article missing a full stop from the end, or did I miss page 2 somehow?

Guildford Wargames club ran a Crossing the Medway Game at Fishbourne Roman place last summer and we got good, positive coverage spartanswab.blogspot.com
but it's nice to see. The historical aspect does help a lot to a public used to only seeing wargames in GW shops

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the compliments!

I didn't even know that news of the article reached TMP until about an hour ago when a friend called.

It's nice to be recognized in my E-digs here.

I was worried that the article might have been a set-up or "ambush journalism" and was very pleasantly surprised to find out that I wasn't given a hack job.

I wrote more about the experience on my blog, which can be found here:

6mm-minis.blogspot.com

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Lukash and Gang,

The photo was taken in a local restaurant. The photographer wanted it to be in a well-lit spot. They also requested that I bring a game or two to be featured in the photograph. I made the reporter play a game with me, but the photographer was less… well… game.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Commander Kiley,

[[[ Hey, for once a gamer is portrayed in mass media with a rather positive image.
I mean they could have interviewed Sacramento's equivalent of Doug Doug from "Fear of Girls".
Thanks Maksim! ]]]

You're welcome.

I spoke with the reporter before I gave the interview and told her that I wanted to present a good image of the gaming community.

She had originally wanted to do a piece related to the War on Iraq, but it mutated under my influence. I asked her to do an article about the gaming community and not politics. I was very pleasantly surprised to see it work out that way too.

And you're welcome. Just trying to do my part to show the positive aspects of the community.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Cube Blue,

[[[ And they didn't pick a fat, bearded dude with long dishevelled hair wearing an old, dirty t-shirt with holes in it! ]]]

I used to have a beard, but I'm not fat, I comb my hair & get hair cuts, and tend to wear serviceable clothes. Only ex-military folks tend to say "serviceable clothes."

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Doug AKA Inari-7,

[[[ Strange he does not even mention the game he has set up in the photograph. It is a great article that was written about him.
…………..Doug ]]]

We talked about alot more, but what appeared in the article was only the snippets she, the reporter, chose and quite a few of them are badly paraphrased.

I did mention the game in my blog entry that describes the experience. You can find it here:

6mm-minis.blogspot.com

And, I'm a big fan of your web site. If you don't mind, I'd appreaciate if you'd share a link to it here.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Wehrmacht,

[[[…no mention of TMP…?]]]

I did mention TMP and even have links to TMP off of my blog, which was mentioned in the article. She, the reporter, chose the three links she did.

I tried to give as many hat-tips as I could to gaming companies and organizations that I like.

I was happy to give a hat-tip to Firefly Games and Jon Tuffley of GZG for starters.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Captain Arexu and Gang,

[[[ I agree — good on you, Maksim!]]]

Thanks!

Andrew and I also turned in our game review entries for the Gladiator Game contest that Bill ran a while back here on TMP. I haven't seen those yet. I'm curious to see what everyone did for the contest.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi Everyone,

I tried to respond to everyone's posts and I appreciate all the positive sentiment.

Thanks, Everyone!

One of the odder things that came up was when the reporter asked about one of the gamers I met over the Internet who had a colorful personality.

*** Guess whose name came to mind first? ***

You probably didn't guess it, but the first name that popped into my head was…

Scurvy Bartella!

We chatted a little bit about him and the land "Down Under." I was sort of hoping that some of the nice things I said about him would have appeared in the article, but she didn't include them.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

"Are there any games focused on Iraq or Afghanistan or other current conflicts?"

"As far as Afghanistan, no. The general trend of gaming is that a very small fringe wants to do conflicts that are currently running. It usually takes about 10 years before they'll do a game. So, like, the current insurgency in Iraq or Afghanistan, you won't find anything on that. You might find a couple of miniature games, guys that make little pieces for mujahedeen … but for the most part, no."

Maksim,
Great article. I can only hope that more positive coverage will follow.

I noted the section of the article above. The Dogs of War game by Devil Dog Design does cover the current period of conflicts. They are not in your favorite scale of 6mm, falling into the Heroic 28mm scale of figures.

If interested there are free starter rules at my site.
link

Hi Bryan Shein,

Thanks!

I am aware of both Devil Dog Design and your Dogs of War game and even mentioned them by name, but she, the journalist, featured what she did. I haven't tried out your ruleset yet, but I do admire your figures and have a few friends who have bought some of your fine minis.

The last new ruleset that my gaming group tried out was Star Mogul from Alpha Forge. We liked the minis and background, but found some problems with the game mechanics. The guys are currently playing with Battleground WWII. Like many gaming groups, ours tends to have a short attnetion span. That's OK by me though… I just hold onto my favorite minis and rules and wait until my cycle comes around again or host private games with a set agenda.

I was just pointing out that the genral trend is that currently active conflicts tend to not have many games about them. It tends to take a few years before anyone is ready to game them.

There are plenty of exception though. Desert Storm had games about it very quickly. It wasn't even done yet while other conflicts take ages to come to the notice of game designers such as the Indo-Pakistani Wars.

Most of the attention put to modern games seems to come from groups like Spearhead, GHQ and Crossfire. I've seen those groups turn out all kinds of modern adaptations to currently running conflicts, but, for the most part, little to nothing seems to hit print until some time after a conflict has ended.

I've been a microarmor player since the 1980s and I've noticed that trend.

Thanks for writing and I wish you and your company the best of fortune.

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Glad to hear that BGWWII is taking off again. I used to swing through Sacramento every few months and would stop by the local game stores to promote the line.

"I'll see you on the battlefield!"