xbla fans Archive

5

XBLA Fans is looking for additional team members

By
John Laster
– Posted on February 22, 2013Posted in: Feature List

xbla crazyness

With quarter four and its associated deluge of AAA retail games behind us, XBLA Fans is looking to come out of hibernation. There are a lot of amazing things happening very soon and down the road, and we can’t wait to share them with our readers.

The team behind XBLA Fans has some pretty awesome projects in the works. We want to continue to be your source for XBLA news, previews, reviews, commentary and most importantly to me — discussion. Nothing makes me happier than seeing how the community has embraced us. I love having the ability to foster discussion and connect fans with developers. I love that we are able to help find unique and interesting stories. We aren’t focusing on analytics; we are focusing on cultivating interactivity.

So we are going to be delivering content through additional mediums this year. We are going to be interacting more on Facebook, more on Twitter, more on our Forums, and more through the XBLA Fans site itself.

At this time, we are looking to add 2-3 additional writers who can work on original news and features. You will need to be comfortable interviewing developers and asking questions, and must be 18 or older, as we use real names for our writers. Beyond that requirement, we can teach the rest. The position is entirely voluntary but provides you with a great resume builder. Feel free to talk to our team about what it’s like working at XBLA Fans; we think they’ll give it a pretty great recommendation. For these general writing positions you can live anywhere in the world, all you need is writing ability and an Xbox 360. Please let us know if you own a Kinect.

If the position interests you, please send an email with a resume and writing sample to John@XBLAFans.com with the Subject: Writing for XBLAFANS. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments or include them with your application email.

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11

XBLA Fans is looking for additional staff

By
John Laster
– Posted on September 19, 2012Posted in: Feature List, News

The team behind XBLA Fans has some pretty awesome projects in the works. We want to continue to be your source for XBLA news, previews, reviews, commentary and most importantly to me — discussion. Nothing makes me happier than seeing how the community has embraced us. I love having the ability to foster discussion and connect fans with developers. I love that we are able to help find unique and interesting stories. We aren’t focusing on analytics; we are focusing on cultivating interactivity.

So we are going to be delivering content through additional mediums this year. We are going to be interacting more on Facebook, more on Twitter, more on our Forums, and more through the XBLA Fans site itself.

At this time, we are looking to add 2-3 additional writers who can work on original news and features. You will need to be comfortable interviewing developers and asking questions, and must be 18 or older, as we use real names for our writers. Beyond that requirement, we can teach the rest. The position is entirely voluntary but provides you with a great resume builder. Feel free to talk to our team about what it’s like working at XBLA Fans; we think they’ll give it a pretty great recommendation. For these general writing positions you can live anywhere in the world, all you need is writing ability and an Xbox 360. Please let us know if you own a Kinect.

If the position interests you, please send an email with a resume and writing sample to John@XBLAFans.com. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments or include them with your application email.

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0

Announcement: Forums Launching!

By
Kyle Aufderheide
– Posted on September 10, 2012Posted in: Feature List, News

Hello guys. Today, here at XBLA Fans and across the Involved Fans network, we are proud to announce our forums are launching publicly!

Involved Fans has always been about community. After all, we too are fans. We embrace open discussion and value everyone’s thoughts and opinions. From favorite games to price disputes to improvement suggestions, we love listening to the ways gamers think and communicate today.

There are four major forums pertaining to our four sister sites within our Involved Fans network. In addition, we have a forum for retail discussion and a junkyard for anything and everything that floats your boat. There’s a neat little feature that tracks gamerscore for Xbox players, and as forum tradition, you rank up based on how often you post, what threads you create, etc. Also, because we all love each other, you can befriend each other and create groups.

Sign on up, chat with the community, and we’d appreciate any feedback you want to give. Enjoy!

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2

What it’s like working at XBLA Fans

By
John Laster
– Posted on April 16, 2012Posted in: News

So I might have totally downloaded Instagram just as an excuse to share this photo, but I promise to avoid all puns involving editing articles until they are purrfect. Ok, no more puns after that one. XBLA Fans has an incredible team behind it (including our deputy editor pictured above), but we are always interested in speaking with talented individuals about ways they can get involved with the website. If you have a talent, we want to see it. While we don’t have any vacant writing positions, we are always willing to look at creating new roles. If you have a passion for XBLA and a strong ability to communicate through any medium: web development, text, art, video, audio, etc. please reach out to us: John@XBLAFans.com.

Also, our parent company is actively looking for help on our sister sites: XboxKinectFans.com and PSNFans.com. If you’re interested in gaining valuable writing experience and honing your craft, we highly suggest reaching out to them: editor@PSNFans.com and Nick@XboxKinectFans.com. In the past we have successfully been able to work with universities to help students earn course credit for their work with us.

Please note that at this time all positions are on a volunteer basis. We have some amazing projects in the works that I can’t wait to tell you about. We are committed to the long haul and can’t wait to continue to cultivate the XBLA and greater gaming community.

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11

XBLA Fans turns two today

By
John Laster
– Posted on April 6, 2012Posted in: Breaking News, Feature List

When Ben Fisher and I started XBLA Fans we had no idea the idea would take off like it has. We’d begun planning the idea the fall of 2009 after the launch of Trials HD and Shadow Complex and begun casting nets out for writers. Initially we heard a lot of resistance. There were a lot of people who told us that XBLA couldn’t support a site yet. There were a lot of people who actually were asking “What is XBLA?” But for every person who wasn’t sold on the idea, we heard two voices of encouragement. We started the site with no budget and a staff of five people. The group of five quickly became six and so on and so forth, but it would have been hard for this site to be here today without the initial help of Tyler Cameron, John Carson, Kaitlyn Chantry and Vlad Micu.

Fast forward two years, and our team has grown almost exponentially. As much as I’d love to take sole credit for what has happened with this site it’s been the culmination of a true team effort. It would be impossible for the site to exist in the capacity it does without them. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with some many great, passionate, and talented individuals. Today is for them. I’d like to thank Andrew, Ben, Bishop, Christine, Craig, Damon, James, John C, John D, Mark, Matt, Nathan, Nick D, Nick S, Perry, Ross, Ryan, Shawn, Steve, Todd P, and Todd S for all their contributions to the site.

I’d honestly love to thank every single community member out there, but I don’t think I could list every name without forgetting someone. If it weren’t for our readers, and the awesome XBLA community we couldn’t exist. We are all truly grateful for how you have bonded to us and supported us. Let’s keep this going for another two years and beyond!

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0

XBLA Fans and GameSauce Form New Collaboration

By
John Laster
– Posted on January 24, 2011Posted in: Features, News

Here at XBLA Fans, we are all about getting our readers the best in XBLA news, reviews, interviews, and discussion. We consider ourselves to be experts in the field, having played nearly every game on the service in some form or another. But what you call yourself isn’t really as important as how others see you. That is why when we were approached by GameSauce to collaborate with them on XBLA Interviews we were thrilled.

Gamesauce is one of the leading game industry trade magazines and online news portals. Offering factual and in-depth behind-the-industry centered content, their focus is on the people behind the games concentrating on funny stories & anecdotes, wisdom & experience and/or tips & tricks that developers are prepared to share with the rest of the game industry. Their interviews and content try to go in-depth in an empathic way and also put the people behind companies in products in the spotlight they so often deserve.

The editorial staff at XBLA Fans will be delving into the development community that creates XBLA Games for GameSauce. Our unique perspectives and analysis as XBLA experts will allow us to help create content for Gamesauce that will showcase the development processes and developers themselves. We look forward to the coming months.

Head over to Gamesauce and check out the magazine in its online form. It is definitely worth a read. Their work is unmatched. Down the road you should see a few familiar names, including John Laster, John Carson, Kaitlyn Chantry, Tyler Cameron, Ross Adams and Andrew Crews.

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1

XBLA Fans Review Scores Explained

By
John Laster
– Posted on January 24, 2011Posted in: News

What’s in a score?  We here at XBLA Fans believe that it is mostly an arbitrarily defined number. If a friend asked you to tell them about the game how would you do it? Would you really sit back and say “8.5.” No of course not, no one would. The description of the game would develop into what was good and what was bad; hitting mostly on the highlights and lowlights. And in the end the question would be. Is it worth buying? Should I rent instead? Or should I just skip it?

That is what our Editorial Staff at XBLA Fans tries to accomplish with our reviews. XBLA Fans wants them to feel like a friend was writing them in a way that actually accomplishes giving the information XBLA Fans would want from a review. Unlike a lot of sites, XBLA Fans will answer questions in the comments; prompting the creation of a dialog about the game. At XBLA Fans, we do our reviews for our readers benefit, not for ours.

What does each score mean:

Buy: In general, everyone can find something to enjoy from this game. Unless you know ahead of time you absolutely hate the genre, you can pick this up without any concern for its quality or level of fun.

Try: In general, the game has enough wrong with it that it won’t appeal to everyone. If you enjoy the genre of the game or notice it still sounds interesting after we have detailed all the negative parts, you should definitely give it a look. Every XBLA Game comes with a demo, use them to your advantage.

Skip: Honestly, these are the games we play so that no one else has to waste their time or money. We highly recommend avoiding them.

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