In response to the suicide of 15 year old Billy Lucas, a Greensburg, Indiana high school student who was the target of slurs and bullying, gay advice columnist Dan Savage has launched the It Gets Better Project.
If you're gay or lesbian or bi or trans, and you've ever read about a kid like Billy Lucas and thought, "Fuck, I wish I could've told him that it gets better," this is your chance. We can't help Billy, but there are lots of other Billys out there--other despairing LGBT kids who are being bullied and harassed, kids who don't think they have a future--and we can help them....We want to hear YOUR STORY of How It Got Better! Create your video, post it to YouTube, and send the URL to mail (at) savagelove.net. We'll review it and post to our FAVORITES section.
Keep an eye for some GayGamers to make an appearance soon.
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I'd like to wish my dear friend, Flynn DeMarco, a very happy birthday. I have known Flynn entirely too long but not nearly long enough. So please join me in wishing him many happy returns. Forget Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Yummy Mummy and Boo Berry, let's hear it for FRUIT BRUTE! (By the way, you can download the instructions for this cute papercraft Fruit Brute from MonkeyInADryer.com)]]>
I recently came across an article on Ars Technica talking about how Ad Blocking can cause the sites you like to visit to take a financial hit. While this is something that I have long recognized, Ken Fisher did such a great job explaining the issue that I decided that it is worth repeating here:
There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn't pay. In a way, that's what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources. The difference, of course, is that our visitors don't pay us directly but indirectly by viewing advertising.
Now GayGamer isn't the size of Ars, but we do have the same kinds of expenses to keep the site running. We have not yet implemented an ad free subscription feature, and we will give it serious consideration for those who wish to support our efforts. However, for the rest of you who do block ads, I'd like to suggest that doing so actually prevents us from being able to bring you more regular unique content. Remember that this site is not a huge money maker, it is a labor of love. We would like to expand our features and even begin video content, but the biggest restraint has been one of capital. So I am appealing to you to consider turning off your ad blockers, at least for GayGamer and any other sites that you love. We welcome your presence, but in order to exist, we require your presents (in the form of viewing ads).
Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love [ars technica]
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One of our readers has created a cute iPhone game called Pocket Oinko. He writes:
Need a friend in your pocket? :P ... and when I say 'friend in your pocket', I'm talking about a cute little pig of course. I mean, what else could I possibly be referring to? ;)
Although I was never taken with the Tamagotchi craze in the mid 90's, I was certainly aware of it. How could you not be, right? However, as I am currently developing an iPhone app for GayGamer, this caught my eye when it landed in my inbox, and I decided to check it out. Let me just say it's very cute.
Oinko is a cute little pig with a mind of his own, living inside your iPhone® or iPod touch®. Watch him as he eats, sleeps, bathes, plays and uses the restroom.Guide him through his daily routine by suggesting things to do. Keeping Oinko happy rewards you with bonus points. Use these to buy him more toys and snacks.
Pocket Oinko has dozens of unique animations and events, and plenty of items for him to interact with. Every major update will add more content for you and Oinko to enjoy together!
I have found myself checking in with my pocket friend from time to time. Thankfully he doesn't become emaciated when I don't check on him for a couple days. The game is well crafted and the animations are charming. The gameplay is very simple with menus of items to buy for your pig and clickable items in his room to give him instructions. I look forward to see what future updates will bring. Nothing like a little piggy sass to lighten your day.
Score: 7 out of 10
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Here at GayGamer Castle, we are beginning the celebration of our very own Tiny Dancer's birthday. We ordered him a Final Fantasy cake this year replete with Chocobos. The libations will be flowing from dawn to dusk, so please join us in toasting another year with Tiny and in wishing him the very best in the years to come.
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GayGamer.net experienced more server pain yesterday and today. The previous fix to the hard drive didn't last. We still are transitioning to a more robust scalable platform, but we aren't there yet. We promise to keep working on it until we have an industry standard, load balanced set of servers to better weather any storm.]]>
GayGamer.net experienced some server pain today. We are transitioning to a more robust scalable platform, but before we could complete the move, a disk failure brought us to our knees. Now not all gay men out there think of being on their knees as a bad thing, but in this case it has meant our service 
So this is my second day at thePyCon conference in Chicago. It's quite possible some of the things that I am learning about will turn into new feature or improvements around here. As Fruit Brute and I have both mentioned, we are having an official reader appreciation party. Fruit Brute is flying in today and should be here any time now! So all your Chi-town gamers, make sure to come out and meet us tomorrow night. Here are the details:
Friday 27 March 2009, 8:00 p.m., at Purgatory Pizza, at 3415 N. Clark St. (Brown line and Red line: Belmont)
GayGamer.net will be buying the pizza, and those of age are welcome to join us afterwards for some drinks. We've got door prizes and will have our DS/PSPs. So come meet the founders of GayGamer.net and have a good time as well.
]]>So I'm going to do my best up uphold my ÜberDork status by attending the PyCon conference in Chicago this month. So, I thought it would be appropriate to host a reader appreciation event for all our friends in Chicago while I'm there. So here are the details:
Friday 27 March 2009, 8:00 p.m., at Purgatory Pizza, at 3415 N. Clark St. (Brown line and Red line: Belmont)
Purgatory Pizza is suitable for all ages, and GayGamer.net will be buying the pizza. So, if you're in the greater Chicago area and haven't made it to a meet-up in awhile, come out and show me just how marvelous your city can be. I'll definitely have my DS and a pocket full of games. I should be able to bring a few things to give away as door prizes too. As far as I'm concerned we can start with pizza and move from there to additional Friday night activities.
So, mark your calenders and come out to help show me your fair city on my first trip beyond the doors of O'Hare. p.s. There is a rumor that Fruit Brute might be able to show up too, but only time will tell.
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In the past we've only publicized meet-ups that writers will be attending, but there are a healthy number of reader organized meet-ups that are coordinated in our forum. I've been intending to highlight some of these meet-ups for sometime now, but I'm going to finally take some time away from my work behind the scenes to do so.
I've been asked to relay information about two meet-ups coming up, one in Chicago and the other in San Jose.
From MuddBstrd:
The Video Games Live! concert is coming to San Jose on Aug 26. I was thinking this might make a great event to have a SF Bay Area meet-up.Tickets can be purchased here: http://www.nvision2008.com/Professionals/nvision-concert.cfm
The event is part of the Nvision 08 conference, but you don't need to attend the conference to buy a ticket. Also, seating is first-come, first-served, so if we meet up beforehand we can sit together as a group.
If you're interested, post a reply. I've already bought a ticket, so I'm going regardless.
Philippe writes:
I'm writing to say that we in Chicago are having our next monthly meetup, coinciding with Chicago Pride, on Sunday 29 June at 5:00 p.m. at Guthrie's Tavern, 1300 W. Addison St. It's our eighteenth meetup.
These notices and related discussion can be found on our forum. Click here for Chicago and San Jose.
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Name: StoneSeraph
Age: 22
Astrological sign: Sagittarius
Gay, Straight or Bi: Gay
Relationship Status: Taken -- almost a year!
Consoles/handhelds you own: NES, SNES, Gamecube, PSX, PS2, Gameboy (the original brick), Nintendo DS, PSP
Favorite console/handheld: PS2
Favorite game genre: Role Playing Games
Games currently being played: Jeanne D'Arc, Silent Hill Origins, World of Warcraft
Top 5 favorite games: Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy Tactics, Shadow Hearts, Silent Hill 3, Valkyrie Profile
Other stuff about you: Whenever I'm not playing video games, practicing circus moves at the trapeze studio, or playing around in the kitchen, I enjoy reading science fiction and teaching high schoolers about English literature.
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Name: Jason
Age: 38
Astrological sign: Leo
Gay, Straight or Bi: Gay
Relationship Status: Taken
Consoles/handhelds you own: PS3, XBox 360, Wii, DS, & PC games.
Favorite console/handheld: No favorite, they each have their strengths & weaknesses.
Favorite game genre: Platformer, but I like a variety, just never really tried MMORPG games.
Games currently being played: Mario Galaxy, Burnout Paradise, Assassin's Creed
Top 5 favorite games: Donkey Kong Jr, Tomb Raider, Ratchet & Clank FTOD, Dead Rising, Uncharted.
Other stuff about you: I've always loved video games since I was a kid, especially my first console, the Odyssey2, and my second system the Colecovision. I like programming dance music also. I had a remix I made that got played all summer of 2006. That was cool to hear my music in a club. Also love photography as a hobby, and I think I do a decent job for the most part. Gadgets rule my world. Oh, and Gaygamer is the first page I read when I get home from work.
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If you haven't yet visited our forum, you are missing out. Although we are currently working on a new design that will better integrate the forum with the main site, it is still a great place to make new friends and to discuss everything from the posts here to hot dating tips to exchanging SSB Brawl codes to chatting in our IRC chatroom. Since we have now passed 100,000 forum posts, I thought I would take a moment to encourage more of you to come join the conversation. We have been witnessing incredible growth recently. Who knows, maybe you could even meet the life long gamer of your dreams.]]>