It Rocks !!!!

Please let me know if you would like to receive a copy of Gold Rush, images or more information. Thanks!

I agree also about the Wii shoehorning itself between casual gamers and hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are getting dumbed-down motion controlled games, and many hardcore gamers are already begging for all games to get Gamecube controller support, while casual gamers find the games too difficult. They should have tried to appease both masses rather than split the middle and lose both. Regardless, their console sales will phenomenal because of this, but software will continue to falter throughout its lifespan.

Anyway, I applaud Nintendo for trying to broaden their target audience. It’s a shame that it was a rather naive move. Casual gamers are casual in the literal sense. They won’t buy that many games, and as a result, the hardcore gamers lose out by having less of the games they want. The XBox 360 provides what the gaming community needs. I used to have a lot of faith in Nintendo, but after the Gamecube, I’m not sure what to think. I think it’s safe to say that the XBox 360 still is the best of this generation.

It is an interesting perspective to consider internet message boards/forums as networks and not communities. As for my post, there was an assumption that a group of users that post on a website forum are a community, but perhaps that assumption is one that could and should be questioned by those of us in the media studies field. I’ll try to look up some information and research about the concept of networks vs community and perhaps post a follow-up here in the future.

Thank you again for your comments,
Wow

Internet forums and discussion lists are not communities, they are networks.

Members of networks interact at only one or a very limited number of levels. Members of internet forums and discussion groups rarely interact outside the forum or list (with the exception of those organized to serve the members of a previously existing group or community.

Communities are groups of people who interact with each at a variety of levels: home, neighborhood, school, work, play. Members of communities know each other in a variety of forums, where they share a diversity of values and interests. Members of communities develop a share ethos, based on their wider associations.

It is impossible for members of a network to develop and implement a shared ethos or set of norms that is activated, accepted and observed by all members, since the members of a network do not share any experience outside the network and therefore have no shared space within which groups sanctions can operate. How can rules be enforced when members are free to do whatever they want with no mechanism for public sanction?

Since there is no mechanism for the enforcement of group norms in a network, some individual must have the power to enforce basic rules of conduct and behavior, else the whole list would dissolve in chaos.

Anarchy requires community.

HUGELY ADMIRE.