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Steve and I would like to thank everyone for your support this year. It has been a year of huge growth... huge change... huge new features... but most of all huge opportunities to continue building great things for the community.
I hope you are all as excited about 2008 as we at 360voice are!
Cheers one and all!
Just a heads up since some folks are having a somewhat incosistent experience with Live, streaks are disabled tonight, and the updates will be delayed tomorrow for blogs and challenges.
Hope you all are having happy holidays, if you are celebrating. I got LOTS of Rock Band and Scene It in, both great games, so it was a good time all around.
Update: I forgot our presence service is also down, so we might not capture all your data for non-retail titles. I am working on getting this moved to a new server and make some tweaks.
I don't know if you have looked at the Games Played Leaderboard lately... but there are some people sitting on top of that list with quite a few games under their belt. Turns out most of these individuals are hard core collectors... I was curious about who they were, so I sent out a quick interview... Cold Justice, cc99999 x3h, Gary Leeds, and s1u5h13 answered the call!
Here is the man, the myth, the legend, Gary Leeds:
1. When did you start collecting the what got you into it?
Well I will give 2 answers here, I guess I started collecting games as such in about 1983 when I got a Vic-20. I went out of my way as a 12-13 year old to try to get every game released for it, saving money and getting games that were sold from someones front room with the photocopied inlays (no, not copies, but the old low produced home written software, walking for miles each weekend to my local computer game stockists seeing if they had anything new in, even trying the odd junk shop to see if they got anything I hadn't. Sadly I sold my Vic-20 collection when I upgraded to a C128 and in the last 10 years regretted it. I had tapes of stuff nobody has archived off for emulation that are now long gone.For the 360 its been about 18 months now. As for what got me into it, well I bought 3 360 games off eBay for about $15, the burger king games, to go with my fairly healthy at the time collection of PAL games. Of course they didn't work on my PAL set up, but they did work on my original XBOX (which I have modded to use as an emulation station, the side effects of which means it plays any region game) and thought they were not bad so set about getting a US 360, which after import and postage cost about $500, then came finding that the Americans had games not out in the UK so started importing them, and then thought why not complete the set and get a JAP 360, which I did around Christmas last year. Funny enough the JAP 360 was the one I had to travel least for, the seller on eBay was about 2 miles away from me and it cost me less for a premium JAP console than my Premium UK one. Also the Total Games Played Leaderboard on 360voice pushed me to buy titles I never would have just to get my numbers up.
2. Out of all the systems you have collected for which was the most fun?
Well the 360 has been the most expensive that's for sure. Probably the most fun was trying to get a collection of Commodore computers from the Vic 20 onwards. They had loads of prototypes never officially released but some escaped when they went bust. You try tracking down a C65 prototype, not a hope in hell. I have traveled quite a way to get some rate Commodore gear so I would say that was the most fun (and the challenge still goes on)3. What are some of the unique challenges collecting for the 360?
Two words, multi regions. How can it be that the same game released in the Asia regions (so only playing on the JAP 360) can have 2 different game titles? Well Everyparty does. Or Saints Row, that can appear 3 times on your GS but only twice on the 360voice blog (US/PAL & JAP Versions are called "Saints Row" so only appear once on 360voice and the German one is called "Saints Row BRD"). Anyone who wants the set will end up buying the wrong version at some point. What would be nice is if there was some way of accessing every game ID Microsoft have allocated along with the game title associated with it.4. What keeps you going?
Well as you all know, I'm never going to be the worlds greatest gamer but I do like to leave a mark for the right reasons in peoples mind. So I am the "git with all the games" :) Also since cc99999 has pushed for the top spot that has forced me to go out and get virtually everything available. Without him I could have saved about $3000 and still been top.5. Out of every game in your collection pick the one you are most proud of?
I can't really pick one, but there are 3 that I'm proud to have, Saints Row BRD, The Darkness (German) and Conan NG. Why? because cc99999 doesn't have them :) But as its a friendly rivalry between me and him I will help him get them on his card .
Do you think you qualify as a collector? Let me know and we can find out your story too!
Ever wonder how to get the Creator badge? You just have to create some 360voice content. Here are two recent examples:
So if you create anything cool, let us know! You might just get a badge for it!
Hey everyone... we have been watching the xbox live outage as reported on Major Nelson's Twitter. Right now we have inactivated the updates for tomorrow. We will check out the data when we receive it and do what we need to to protect the challenges and the streaks. Watch this space for updates!
Update 12/30/2007 8:21am CT
Just getting moving... looking at last night's data pull. I will do another update when we decide what is going to happen. We have to run some tests to see how much data we received for people due to the outage.
Update 12/30/2007 10:27am CT
We are still working on it... you might see some site issues as some of the queries we are running are huge and might lock the site momentarily.
Update 12/30/2007 11:18am CT
Challenge updates are complete and blogs are running... so things should be back on track. Blogs are running WITHOUT streak loss... So if your data is missed because of the Xbox Live issues last night, it won't destroy your streak.
We are now listing all the winners of a specific reward for the Old Spice Experience Challenge on the reward detail page. You can get to this page by going to the challenge reward calendar and clicking any reward title. On the page (if there are any winners) they will be listed out.
Check out the $20 gift card for Amazon as an example.
rwgriersr, creator of the iPhone360voice interface has also released a pretty cool gamerscore chart image! This will allow you to embed a chart of your gamerscore history captured by 360voice anywhere you can put an image. Here is mine:
http://iphone360voice.ryangrier.com/graph.php?gamertag=ChangeAgent
All you have to do is substitute your gamertag where mine is and you are all set. Give it a try!
Hey everyone, if you have noticed, the first Tier 4 Old Spice Experience Challenge rewards have become available today:
There are 40 of these subscriptions available. It takes 20 people to launch the challenge so round up a crew and get down to business!
Master Devwi was the first person to launch a tier 4 challenge with a total of 22 participants called GFSub, so that means as I write this there are 39 12-month subscriptions available for challenges.
2,396,299 points earned in challenges so far and rising!
It is officially the day after Christmas. Did everyone have a good time? Get any awesome games?
The site is pretty-much back to normal. If you notice anything wacky, be sure to send it in so we can get it all nice and fixed up for ya.
...and all through the site... not a gamer was stirring, except for those sending in support emails about missing blog entries!
But seriously, I am aware that we lost some data from the Xbox Live troubles on 12/23/2007. Fatty Chubs is out of town... he is the data guy... so we will get it corrected as soon as he is back in place where he can get internet coverage. I wish I had a better answer, but things are sort of shut down for the next few days.
Until then, Happy Holidays everyone! If you have left an email or a forum thread, you will receive a response when you have been fixed.
Update 12/25/2007 7:32am CT
Hey everyone. Until I have a chance to look at the data issues I am seeing, the blog and challenge updates are off. I will get it fixed up either late today or tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a good Christmas!
Update 12/25/2007 10:45pm CT
Challenge updates are complete. Still working on blogs. Fatty Chubs is using a SUPER LAME/SLOW satellite connection from the boondocks. I feel for him... but he is doing his best to correct the data! Even with the data corrected, it might be tomorrow until we get all the blogs back... or maybe we get lucky. I will let you know.
Update 12/25/2007 12:25am CT
Alrighty... 12/23 entries are there... 12/24 processing right now. Streaks are off for both entries. 12/25 will be the next entry were it counts towards your streak (or against if you didn't play on 12/24).
It has been a LONG time since I have done one of these 360voice link dumps from various mentions around the web... with the release of the Old Spice Experience Challenge there are honestly hundreds of links coming in (people posting challenge links, new users posting their blog links, etc). I can't possibly cover them all so I am picking out the ones I liked the most.
You might think on the surface that many of these links are about Old Spice. But what you will find is that our partnership with Old Spice is winning some accolades in the advertising industry. We are happy to be out there on the "edge" with them, pioneering a path that is a win/win for both them and gamers.
Adweek
"By enlisting this and using the grassroots appeal of 360Voice.com, which hosts the competition and will promote it on its site, the brand should be able to achieve authenticity with tough-to-impress gamers..."Common Sense PR
"The numbers look small compared to a TV ad campaign, but Old Spice is reaching intense people who are very motivated to participate and just happen to be the ideal demographic. A match made in heaven."Behind the Buzz
"The brand [Old Spice] is getting recognition in a key age group, where it faces stiff opposition from Axe, and doing it in a way that makes it mean something without it being intrusive advertising."Beneath The Brand
"Old Spice could have created an in-game advertising bit or some other uninspired mini game but instead created an environment where gamers develop an online challenge and reach out to friends to participate. In this respect the users have a chance to create a somewhat unique challenge as well as having the opportunity to improve their prize if more individuals engage in their challenge. It’s almost a gaming meets viral marketing approach."Gaming Nexus
"The fine folks at 360voice.com have partnered with Old Spice for a whole new kind of Gamerscore challenge. This time you'll be competing with your friends to see who can rack up the most points in certain period of time. Trapper Markelz and crew provide the coding, Old Spice provides the rewards."Gaygamer.net
"The crux of the site is simple. You register your Xbox Live gamertag with 360voice. "It" blogs. You read its blog via web or RSS feeds. I am always a bit cynical about some of the gimmicky value-add services that are around these days and didn't understand immediately how reading a daily account of my Xbox shenanigans could actually affect my gameplay habits. But thanks to the clever and amusing writing, I found myself feeling guilty for even being on turkey day vacation..."The JeepCruzer Chronicles
"If you felt like you were behind the times because you don't have a blog yet, hold on to your trousers cause now you're almost a dinosaur. My inanimate, non-sentient electronics now blog - on their own no less. My XBOX360, to be exact, has a voice of it's own..."Xbox 360 Fanboy
"The Old Spice Experience Challenge is coming back for a second helping with extra gravy, but this time they've got a new format and a new partner."Ryangrier.com
"I had just gotten my iPod Touch and wanted to develop something specific for it (Web-app based). I had also wanted to play around with the 360Voice API. I have been a member of their site for almost a year now. I have really enjoyed using their site and obsessively check my Xbox 360’s blog there everyday. I also try to make sure that I play every day so that my 360 doesn’t start to talk bad about me."Sargonas.com
"I want to take a moment to tout my buddies over at 360voice.com. Trapper and Steve (ChangeAgent and Fatty Chubbs) have been working hard on a new thing they rolled out, their new Gamerscore Challenge system."About.com
"ather than waiting around for the next Microsoft backed contest, the folks at 360voice.com (you know, the site where your Xbox 360 "blogs" and tells everyone what you played) decided to take matters into their own hands."IAM Blog Engine
"The site keeps track of your gamer score and I guess there are also challenges on the website that you can compete in for your own personal pleasure. I’ll check back with this later once I know exactly what the site is all about."
Since we have seen a ton of new members lately, if this is the first time you are seeing this link dump, know that if you blog about 360voice, send me the link and I will add it to this feature!
Hey everyone. I was putting up a web service for the viral badge and figured I would add a few more... so here are some new web services in the API for Challenges.
360voice.challenge.stats
Description: Displays the global challenge stats for 360voice.
Arguments: NONE
Sample:
http://www.360voice.com/api/challenge-stats.asp
360voice.challenge.viral
Description: Lists out the winners of the viral badge and who was responsible for the infection.
Arguments: tag (optional, shows how many users that gamertag has infected)
Sample:
http://www.360voice.com/api/challenge-viral.asp
http://www.360voice.com/api/challenge-viral.asp?tag=Fatty%20Chubs
360voice.challenge.vitals
Description: Lists out the stats of a gamertag and all of their challenge results.
Arguments: tag (required)
Sample:
http://www.360voice.com/api/challenge-vitals.asp?tag=ChangeAgent
I also added a link to the API documentation in the nav bar under the Dev Blog link. That should make it easier for those of you who use it a lot as well as new members who maybe aren't immediately aware of the web services!
Like always, if you make anything cool, put it in the community showcase so I can see it and award the API Samurai badge!
It has been reported that Xbox Live has been having issues. I have also received email from many of you asking for help if you lose your streaks. So as of now, I have disabled streaks and turned off the blog processor for tomorrow morning. When I get up, I will take a look at the state of the data and post an update about what we are going to do.
Thanks for everyone letting me know! I much prefer knowing in advance instead of waking up tomorrow to a torrent of broken streaks! :)
Update 12/23/2007 7:34am CT
Hey everyone... streaks are off today. It looks like MOST people captured correctly... but just to be safe, Live was messed up for almost the entire evening. So free day for everyone. I checked the challenge scores for people ending today and they all look updated. At least as far as who the winner would be. Let me know if there are issues.
I woke up this morning to a fun surprise that our 360voice job server rebooted right in the middle of today's update. So I am figuring out exactly where it crashed and getting everything fixed up. I have to wait for the blogs to finish before I repair anything, so if you see a blog entry related to challenges that doesn't seem right, don't worry... I am working on it.
It crashed in the middle of the challenge update... so no game/streak data will be affected... only the blog entries are a little tweaked at this time. It isn't a big deal to fix though, so that is good.
Steve is on Holiday (i.e. disconnected from the web). I will be around, but my wife has some family coming in from out of town so I will be hit and miss through the week. Happy Holidays everyone!
Hey folks, I just wanted to let you know that I am going to be traveling this week for the holiday and won't have much access to that new fangled internet. So you are going to see even less of me until the new year. ChangeAgent will be holding it down even more then usual, and I will check in where possible.
So since I won't be here, I want to share one of my new year's resolution for the site. Badges 2.0. One of the major themes and goals of our site, is to add a rich history to your gaming experience. Right now the badges don't really meet this goal as much as we like, so the plan is to add more of a history to badges, so you can point back and say, hey look when this happened, OMG that was awesome. But also refining all aspects of badges, how you view them, additional API's and even brand new ones.
This is going to be a long process though, and we want to be transparent as possible and involve the community in every step. Including all those great community sites, that have helped us drive and enrich the badge experience. So I will let you know how to get involved, but as always keep posting those suggestions in the forums.
It is Wednesday. You know that that means? A whole new set of rewards are available for the Old Spice Experience Challenge. Check out what is available this week on the rewards calendar:
Tier 1 - $20 Best Buy Gift Card - 250 Available!
Tier 2 - Xbox 360 Live Gold Membership Card (12-months) - 150 Available!
Tier 3 - 6-month Subscription to GameFly (1-game plan) - 62 Available!
That is a total of 462 opportunities to win! Get in on that!
Another big challenge you should check out? 56,000 gamerscore and climbing!
You people are crazy... just crazy with the gamerscore.
Head over to XboxPodcast.com and check out episode #39! Not only do they cover End War, COD 4 and MX vs. ATV Untamed, they interview Steve and I about the Old Spice Experience Challenge!
In episode 39 we bring back our good friends from 360Voice.com and discuss the new Old Spice Experience Challenge. We also cover the upcoming Call of Duty 4 patch and maps, Xbox Live gamers get arrested, and new Team Fortress 2 maps and fixes.
Kyle discusses IGN Hands on with End War, yes you can get COD 4 for $40, and this week’s feature game is MX vs. ATV Untamed.
Listen now! [mp3] or Watch now! [WMV]
Our interview starts at 32:30 in the WMV... I assume the mp3 timing is similar.
A special thanks to Mark, Kyle, and Brun for giving us another opportunity to come on the show again! We were originally on there in May 2007.
I don't know if you have looked at the Games Played Leaderboard lately... but there are some people sitting on top of that list with quite a few games under their belt. Turns out most of these individuals are hard core collectors... I was curious about who they were, so I sent out a quick interview... Cold Justice, cc99999 x3h, Gary Leeds, and s1u5h13 answered the call!
Cold Justice was last week... this week? cc99999 x3h is on the block:
1. When did you start collecting and what got you into it?
Well, I'm not a major collector of all things videogames, but gamerscore got me into buying all of the games... that and your leaderboard. I wanted to catch Gary Leeds. Now he and I sort of go back and forth, but we are good friends.2. Out of all the systems you have collected for, which was the most fun?
Definitely the 360. I started out the same way with the Dreamcast- but the system tanked and so did my career as a videogame journalist covering the system for segaweb.com.3. What are some of the unique challenges collecting for the Xbox 360?
The games are expensive, though the are readily available. The import scene is dicey because you have to know what you are doing or you'll buy the wrong versions.4. What keeps you going?
It's a toss up between addiction and stupidity.5.Out of every game in your collection... pick the one you are most proud of.
I'm most proud of Asian EveryParty because it is hard to find. The PAL games I got from my friend Joey Jeckel are the ones I like the most because it means something to me to have people go out of their way to find games for you.
Keep watching the blog for two more interviews.
Check out the points being put up by the gamers in this challenge:
Stallion got ran over by a reindeer - 30 day challenge - 53,653 points so far
That is some good stuff! If you have a super huge challenge you are hosting, let me know so I can feature it! If you are interested in more interesting challenges, check out this thread in the forum.
Some other sites doing challenges:
Your site doing a challenge? Email it in!
This was a nice little surprise today. Major Nelson is talking with Jesse Alexander, Co-executive producer ‘Heroes’, and he mentions us! I did my best to type out the quote... apologies if I didn't get it exact. Quote taken from around [2:05:25] in the podcast:
Jesse: There are ways with a game that your story experience could expand beyond the game. Something I was just screwing around with this morning that was so cool was...the uh... 360voice is that what it is?
Major: Yes
Jesse: The one where it makes a blog for your 360? Something like that is such an incredible tool if you applied it to be used for something like an in-world game experience.
Honestly, the auto-blogging concept could be applied to a myriad of applications... anywhere that conversational data might be more compelling to consume or where personification could be used to invoke a response. I actually think auto blogging is quite inevitable. I wrote about this previously in a dev blog post title Blog of the Future.
Question for Major... come on! No link in the show notes? ;)
The first week of challenges comes to a close and the first batch of reward codes have been sent out. Congrats to all the winners! Also the second batch of rewards have been available since Wednesday, so get to creating those challenges! Speaking of the rewards calendar, I have added some shading to the prizes that aren't yet active to make it easier to read what is available and what is not.
A few other small changes I haven't mentioned is that the LiveScore for all active challenges now shows the difference between the current score and the last updated score... and the Pending tab of the challenge board shows the tier of the challenge prize so that you can find a challenge that you are interested in.
Here are some other members from other sites getting into the mix:
This week there are over 800 rewards available. So get some friends and get down on that!
In the wee hours of the morning, we crossed the one millionth point of gamerscore earned in an Old Spice Experience Challenge! I hope everyone who is participating is having a good time! With the types of points you all are putting up, it sure looks like you are!
To check out the running Challenge stats, just go to the Challenge Board and look at the gadget in the right column.
Edit 12/11/2007 7:29am: Sorry everyone, I had the wrong name on this!
I don't know if you have looked at the Games Played Leaderboard lately... but there are some people sitting on top of that list with quite a few games under their belt. Turns out most of these individuals are hard core collectors... I was curious about who they were, so I sent out a quick interview... Cold Justice, cc99999, Gary Leeds, and s1u5h13 answered the call!
I will be running one of their interviews each week. First up, Cold Justice.
1. When did you start collecting and what got you into it?
I got into collecting Xbox titles in a rather sideways manner. Up until February 2002, I was strictly a PC gamer. I mainly played adventure games, strategy games and a few shooters. I had a decent number of games for the PC, but was never a collector. As a “mature gamer”, I’d always thought of consoles as being kids’ toys. I wasn’t aware of the changes that had happened in that market.All that changed when I bought a big-screen TV. The idea of sitting on the couch to play games instead of on a computer chair became very attractive. I’d heard that the Xbox was a platform for more adult titles, so I bought one. Obviously, I liked it – a lot.
I immediately got hooked into the Xbox scene and, like many people, read a lot of game reviews from a lot of sources. One thing that was missing from the reviews, though, was how well a game played in a home theater. Issues like the implementation of wide-screen, higher screen resolutions and surround-sound were normally not addressed. And a lot of games that implemented wide-screen, did so very badly back then.
I started writing my own reviews from the point of view of a home theater owner, partly to make people aware of home theater issues and partly to see if I could have some impact on improving the industry. The reviews were published on a smattering of websites, but I never got any real exposure from them.
So I came up with this crazy idea to create a website for reviewing Xbox games. I wanted to have a full review of every Xbox game published in North America. So I built a database and started buying every single title so that I could have them all available to review at my leisure. The website never came into being, but I ended up being rather OCD about collecting Xbox titles, tracking down obscure games, finding out which ones were vaporware, etc. It became a real sleuthing mission.
When the Xbox 360 came out, I continued the insanity – I’ve bought every Xbox 360 retail title released in North America since launch. I still buy original Xbox titles as long as they aren’t duplicated on the 360 – though there hasn’t been an original Xbox title published for some time. So I guess my original Xbox collection is technically incomplete – but I just couldn’t see buying the same game twice.
2. Out of all the systems you have collected for, which was the most fun?
That’s easy: The 360. It’s such a fun system and it has so much going for it. Xbox LIVE and the achievement system brings a lot to the table. (Well, when developers actually make proper use of the achievement system… but that’s a discussion for another time.) My collection is meant to be played – nothing stays in shrink wrap. So, in my case, it is the system that makes collecting fun.Collecting for the 360 is not as challenging as the original Xbox, though. Partly because I didn’t have to do any catch-up work on the 360. On the old Xbox, there were so many vaporware titles that got announced and never produced, it took a lot of research to figure out what games actually made it into a green box.
3. What are some of the unique challenges collecting for the Xbox 360?
Actually, other than having to juggle finances every September through November, the 360 has been a pretty easy system to collect for – at least if you are focused on North American releases like I am. Very few titles get canceled and the gaming retailers carry every title at release. (Except, of course, for special titles like the Burger King games.) I think the biggest issue for me has been identifying when a collector’s edition of a game is going to be restricted to online retailers. I will always get the collector/limited edition and I have to really watch for online-only sales. I just got bitten (again) by Mass Effect: Limited Edition, which is only being sold through online channels.4. What keeps you going?
OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.) And I’m somewhat serious about that. I think part of it is that stopping now would seem wrong. But another part is knowing that I can play any game on this system any time I want. And if a friend wants to know about a game, they know that they can come to me to find out about it. Also, it’s nice to know that if someone wants to play a game online that’s lost some popularity, I can still join in with them – I don’t trade in my games.And, weirdly, there’s a sense of pride in being able to say “I have every Xbox 360 game ever published in North America.” I know that, to many people, that doesn’t necessarily sound like something to be proud of, but it works for me.
5. Out of every game in your collection... pick the one you are most proud of.
That’s kind of tough. I think that’s hard in the case of the 360, because it’s been so easy, really. Again, I don’t collect import games, so that differentiates me from some other collector’s around here. On the old Xbox, though, it would probably be Kakuto Chojin or Frogger. Both of those games were extremely difficult to find and I paid something of a premium price for each when I found them. Oh, and Beyond Good and Evil. That game was not only difficult to find, but was a masterpiece of a game to play as well. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pay a ridiculous price on that one – so perhaps that would be the one I’m most proud of on the old platform.
Stay tuned for more collectors in the coming weeks! I know this is a dev blog and we aren't a news site... but I was honestly interested in who these people were with 300+ games played... weren't you?
This weekend we crossed the 100 active Old Spice Experience Challenges, 1,500 players... and almost 800,000 in gamerscore earned! At our current pace, there are LOTS of rewards available! Scrounge some people together and launch some challenges!
More great sites are getting involved!
Remember, if you have a website that is sponsoring a challenge for its members, let us know so we can post about it!
If you are watching the VGAs on Spike tonight, hop in the 360voice chat room. This is sort of last minute... but it is always fun to live chat these things... much more fun than just watching it alone. :)
Update 11:00pm CT
Thanks everyone who stopped by the chat room and hung out! Lots of people were popping in and out... but AJmon13, Pastbababooey and HouseMDfan were there until the end.
Overall, I was a bit disappointed by the Video Game Awards... not really with the games that won, but more the format. I guess a part of me wants to see our industry grow up a bit and not stoop to a fart joke, sex joke, or *beep* swear word during every event. Judging from the VGAs, we have a long way to go.
(click the title of this post to leave a comment about the Video Game Awards this year... and if you like fart jokes.)
In all of this excitement with the Old Spice Experience Challenge, we forgot to announce another important milestone for the site:
360voice.com crossed the 100,000 member mark! The 100K member was Madowx!
This is a really big milestone. I don't think we ever thought the site would grow into what it is today. Not only do we offer automatic Xbox blogs, but the site has become a full grown community and one of the largest for the Xbox 360 at that. The exciting part is there is still so much room to grow. We haven't done an ounce of advertising for this site. It has all been word of mouth, so there is a lot of fun left to be had!
It really isn't about the 100K members though... it is about the 10-12K of you hardcore people... the ones visiting your blogs every day and leaving comments and talking in the forum. It is you all that really make this place fun... it is for you that we continue to develop features and work on partnerships that will continue to grow and evolve the site, always bigger, always better.
So thank you everyone for your support. We hope you enjoy the things we have been working on, and always know the next big feature is just around the corner!
Hey everyone! If you didn't know, 360voice.com was nominated by Gamertag Radio for Community site of the years! Today is the last day to vote, so head over an take care of business! If you vote in all categories you are eligible for prizes too!
You have to be a registered member of Gamertag Radio to participate, but that is as quick and painless as all forum sign ups! So get on it!
Hi everyone! After sleeping for about two days, (ok not really) I thought I would check in with you on the status of the Old Spice Experience Challenge. Our site traffic has been up about 60% lately... registration totals day-to-day have quadrupled. Forum traffic is up significantly (ALL the invites!) and even blog comments are being used to pass around invite codes.
We doubled the entire participation of the beta in a single day... but the stats on challenges aren't a secret. You can see them in the challenge stats gadget on the challenge board!
Interestingly enough, it seems most people are waiting for the big tier 4 challenges to roll along. Gamefly is a popular hold out... as is the HD DVD drive at the end of the program. Honestly we never thought this would happen... but I guess it makes sense. That means for those of you not interested in the longer challenges, there are LOTS of rewards to earn at the lower levels! Someone asked this in the FAQ, but the prizes don't go away... so week to week... they all carry over!
The best thing we are seeing is other websites using the Old Spice Experience Challenge system as a platform for their own challenges. Here are some examples:
If you have a community site and are putting a challenge together, email us so we can feature it!
I think one of the best parts, is watching the trash talk of the various challenges... The funniest trash-talk comment I have read so far actually comes from AzShrapnel;
"Gamez-n-flix and Gamefly are probably having a record quarter."
I don't know if it is that big... yet. :)
After a great community night, the Old Spice Experience Challenge with Rewards is now under way! Things seem to be running pretty smooth... people are creating challenges, picking rewards, and launching them. It has been a fun couple of months putting this together, and we are glad to unleash it on the community for your enjoyment.
We will be featuring challenges as they progress. If you are an Xbox community site and sponsoring a challenge with your members, let us know so we can feature you on the homepage.
As always, we are open to any feedback, comments, concerns. Click the title of this post to leave them in the blog comments, or head over to the forum, or email us!
The Old Spice Experience Challenge Reward Calendar has been posted. Go check it out. We are giving away thousands of prizes worth over $130,000. All you have to do to get in on it is:
6. Create your own or join one!
7. Play games and have fun!
Tell your friends! Get them involved in some challenges for real rewards!
No purchase necessary. The Old Spice Experience Challenge is open to residents of the 50 US/DC, 13 or older at time of entry & who have a 360Voice Full membership & have an Xbox 360 Live Gold membership at time of entry. Void where prohibited. Begins 12:00:01 AM PST on 12/5/07; all challenges must be completed by 11:59:59 PM PST on 3/14/08. See Official Rules for details.
If you have nothing to do, jump in the 360voice Chat Room... we are hanging out... waiting for the launch of Rewards for the Old Spice Experience Challenge. We will unveil the Rewards Calendar, give away some T-shirts and give instructions on how to get the Plays Well with Others badge.
Wouldn't you know it! The day that we are all set to launch the Old Spice Experience Challenge rewards, xbox.com goes down which prevents a number of things:
That is what we are trying to figure out... once we come up with a solution for the above items... we will post about it... right now I will just sit hear and let my head explode. :) We thought it would be a nice smooth launch night... like every other night... but it is shaping up to not be.
We will still be in the chat room though and still giving out the T-shirts and laughing all this off. After all, that is the life of an Xbox Community site... we do the best with what we get.
Update 8:58pm CT
I don't want to jinx it... but hell I am going to jinx it and say that the feeds are back and they look fast.... meaning they are performing... meaning we might be ok!! E (manager of xbox live operations), if you are reading this, THANK YOU!
Update 10:28pm CT
It looks like the feeds are still solid. So updates should be fine... however since live was up and down almost all afternoon and into the evening, we will be disabling streaks tomorrow. So if you get a non-play day in your blog... you won't lose your streak.
December 5th at 00:00 midnight PST, the Old Spice Experience Challenge with Rewards launches at 360voice. To celebrate this launch and unveil the rewards calendar as well as unlock the sign up for challenges rewards, we will be hosting a community night in the 360voice live chat Tuesday, December 04, 2007 starting at 10:00pm PST.
We will be giving away three (3) 360voice T-shirts with your gamertag on them to lucky winners as well as the "Plays well with others" community event badge for everyone who attends.You have to be present to win the T-shirts and get the badge! Instructions for doing both will be provided periodically in the chat room during the community event.
PLEASE NOTE: In order to be eligible for the T-shirt drawing, you must have a FULL membership and have your Xbox blog comments enabled!
The primary reason for the community event is to keep Steve and I awake until we launch the rewards... we are running on very little sleep over here and the thought of blankly staring at a screen until 3am ET is harsh... not to mention we have to ensure that the code we wrote actually functions under stress and are there to rapidly repair any hiccups.
So come join us! December 4th, 2007, 10pm PST.
We want to congratulate both squidpunch and syndelin as our newest 3VCE's. Neither is a stranger to regular visitors. Squidpunch is one of the folks behind the awesome site LiveEye/360Friendspot, but has worked closely with us here. He can be seen in the forums and his personal blog and services he supports. The guy gets around!
Syndelin is well known around here and is always a welcome face in the forums and blog comments. I really don't know how she finds the time to play and maintain that streak and all those badges! Somehow she does, and still manages to engage in happy, friendly conversation with everyone!
So if you see these too, tell them congrats!
A few days back we announced the rewards that are coming to the Old Spice Experience Challenge on December 5th. If you want to get down on some of these fabulous prizes, you are going to need to play by a few rules. If you remember from the post... all the rewards belong to a certain tier. Each tier requires the challenge to run for a certain number of days, and requires a certain number of participants before you can launch it. If you haven't noticed, even the Open Challenges require at least three people.
Here are the requirements and a summary of the prizes at each tier:
Tier 1
Requirements: 7 day challenge, 5 gamers minimum
$20 Amazon.com gift card
1,600 Xbox Live Microsoft Points
$20 Best Buy gift cardTier 2
Requirements: 14 day challenge, 10 gamers minimum
$50 Best Buy gift card
4,000 Xbox Live Microsoft Points
Xbox Live Gold Membership (1 year)Tier 3
Requirements: 30 day challenge, 15 gamers minimum
$100 Best Buy gift card
8,000 Xbox Live Microsoft Points
6 month GameFly subscriptionTier 4
Requirements: 30 day challenge, 20 gamers minimum
Year long GameFly subscription
Xbox 360 HD DVD Player
All of this will be added to the official rules when they are published next week, but I wanted to give you a chance to see the requirements and start planning your teams early! Remember, there will be a limited number of rewards available, and you aren't guaranteed one until your challenge launches! So you have to put together your list of challenges, get them invited, and pull the trigger!
Next week will also be a calendar published showing the dates of availability so if you want to plan for a challenge well in advance, you will be able to.
(click the title of this post to leave a comment about prize tiers, we are listening)
Can you believe it? It is already December! Here are the top 20 most popular blogs for November 2007:
* means they have comments enabled. Go leave a comment!
You think you have what it takes to publicize your blog and get on this list? Comparing it to last month, there are a lot of familiar faces, but a few new ones!
