What’s your name and how do you spend your time away from the Bungie community?
My name is Nathan Gibson and I am currently a student. Away from Bungie.net I play rugby, play video games, administrate Games in Action , hang out with my friends and of course "study."
How did your involvement with the Bungie community come about?
Ifirst got involved with the Bungie community in 2004. I had beenplaying Halo since it first came out for the Xbox and loved it. Then afew months before Halo 2 was released I noticed the site in theinstruction manual of Halo 1. I eagerly typed it in and ended up atBungie.net. Unfortunately in my haste to create an account for theforums I spelled my online name wrong, something which people stillpoint out to me today.
How did the Games in Action community spring up?
Well Goldhawk andI were discussing making a new group just after New Year in 2006. Wefelt a group all about video games would be a good idea. Goldhawk cameup with the name, after seeing a book on his desk entitled Maths in Action (soyeah, we stole our name from a math book). We had a small but activecommunity until you posted some of our news stories on Bungie.net. Theresult was our fan base more than tripled in size.
"If I focus really hard, I wonder if I can will myself to look more like Elijah Wood ."
What part of the Bungie community does GiA cater to?
Thegood thing about GiA in my opinion is we have something for everyone.The hardcore gamers can take part in our tournaments, the casual gamerscan hang out and discuss everything from tactics to their favoritegametypes. We have also ran art competitions in the past (like therecent Design a Weapon/Vehicle for Halo 3 contest) and forthose who just want to play some Xbox Live we have the Matchmakingforum where members can organize games and find people to play with.
What kinds of events does GiA run?
We tend to run tournaments but we have hosted other things, like the Halo 3 Weapon/Vehicle Design Competition. Our last major tournament was the Team SWAT tournament in Halo 2. But we recently announced a new Halo 3 tournament , which will start the day Halo 3 is released.
Speaking of which, what are you most looking forward to in Halo 3? Anything that you're worried about?
Tobe honest, I am looking forward to everything about the game. I amreally looking forward to seeing how the plot plays out; I am a big fanof the story and have read all four of the novels and the GraphicNovel. Another thing I am looking forward to is playing with the newvehicles and weapons. But what I am most looking forward to in Halo 3is playing it online with my friends. The first few months after Halo 2was released was the best time I have had on Xbox Live and I hope Halo3 will be even better.
I'm not really worried about much,my only real worry is how much the Legendary Edition is going to cost.=) I know Bungie are good at what they do and I trust them to make thebest game they possibly can.
Who helps you run Games in Action and what do they do?
There are many people who help out at Games in Action, but the five admins are Johhrap , Goldhawk, Armatik , Smutz and myself. Together we come up with new ideas, administrate the site and decide what goes on at GiA.
Towhat do you attribute the success of GiA thus far? What do you plan todo to continue and expand upon the success you’ve found thus far?
Oneof the main factors to our current success is the community input.Rather than leave the content to a group of people we encourage everymember to contribute. Most of our reviews and news stories have beenwritten by our members. Another major factor is bungie.net itself,which has published some of our stories and helped us reach the masses.
We plan on keeping up what we are doing right now and addingsome new stuff into the mix, like video reviews and more podcasts. Wealso have our own little game, Infinite Fantasies that will be online very soon as well as more tournaments and competitions.
