Gaming Culture and how I'am a part of it.

Gaming cultures are what makes up the world around games, such as its influences on magazines, television and even toy sales.
Games have now become so much more than a few hours playing on a machine. It now requires a bit more, well lets say respect as it unfolds into more of a life style.
People now spend most of their time playing games or downloading ringtones of their favourite game theme. My favourite tune is the music from Final Fantasy 7. For those die hard FF fans my ring tone at the moment is The Jenova boss theme.
So I guess this brings me to elaborating on what forms of Gaming Culture I'am apart of then and well, where to start. Their is so much stuff surrounding the gaming industry it would be madness to try and be apart of it all.
In terms of things I get my knowledge from and news of events and releases I would have to say it was mainly taken from the internet for its easy accessability. But for detailed reveiws and insite I like to get hold of the unOfficial magazines for those juicy comments and sometimes hilarious pics of how they have found strange ways to exploit mistakes.
I think my most dominent place in gaming culture for the last couple of years has been socializing with other people. Thats with people I know really well and also with people I dont know at all.
I started to socially play games when I visited my local internet cafe, where tournaments online were played to win a £50 prize. For more info or just plain nozyness, you can visit thier website on www.SKEGZONE.com. Unfortunately I never did win but it was done by frag Loto where you get a Loto ticket for every kill you get and then a ticket is randomly selected.
Good fun though, mainly because of its social aspect. You can talk face to face with other people entering from where you are and have text conversations with others in the country who are entered as well.
Another part of social gaming is MMORPG's (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) a great invention for playing out a life of your custom built hero, while interacting with both real people playing as well and AI computer players. From playing them myself and having my own Guild on Guild Wars, I have had connections with people I have never met in my life before.
I still find myself using Xfire chat and having people from the game ask me for help with their computer or even find that play another game that I do. Where we would team up again on a different game entirely and so on. Before you know it you find yourself in front of your computer night after night playing a game with someone you may never actually meet. Quite scary really!
But the ultimate no no is The World of Warcraft known to the online gaming world as the stealer of souls. The reason for this is that it requires you to play so often that you never play any other game again, and that is a terrible thing indeed.
Another piece of gaming culture is events such as E3 where its a chance for you to go and try out all of the games companys latest ideas in action. And is a chance for the games companys to try bombard you with as much crap as possible. Like telling you that their the best and that this games has the best graphics ever or that it is the largest game ever made.... But you gotta love that enthusiasm! Ha ha ah. Priceless.
My favourite part of events such as E3 are the people you see dressed as their favourite characters. That mostly happens when its in Japan but I see a future that that may start to spread to other places. I think if I had to choose to dress as a character I would be Axel from Streets of Rage. Gloves and All!!!
Till next time cya.