Gamebits Expands to Syndicomm Community

"I'm excited to see Gamebits expanding in the good company of Syndicomm," says Gagne, formerly a staff member for Syndicomm's Showbiz RoundTable on the GEnie online service. "Their years of experience with online communities, combined with my passion and Larry's for video games, are going to create some exciting opportunities."

The Gamebits forum opens just in time for coverage of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), held this week in Los Angeles and attended by Gagne. Live coverage will be posted to the forum's message board, with a follow-up conference held the night of Sunday the 20th at 9:00 PM EDT (6:00 PM PDT).

Both Gagne and Tipton either are or were sysops of video game forums on CompuServe, and are webmasters of their own video game review Internet sites. Between them, they have more than fifteen years of experience managing online gaming communities. Gagne has been writing a weekly review column, Gamebits, for MediaNews for the past four years, to which Tipton has contributed his own reviews. The new online forum is also entitled Gamebits.

"Syndicomm is thrilled to host the new Gamebits community," says Eric Shepherd, owner of Syndicomm. "Not only are video game players a large and enthusiastic group of people that will make for a lively and fun community, but they help to shape the entire technology sector through sheer buying power across an increasingly wide range of demographics. And, on a personal note, after spending two years in the trenches helping to write computer games a few years ago, it will be fun to hang out with the players for a change!"

The Gamebits Community consists of a message board, conference area, and file libraries with ASCII interface, in the classic tradition of CompuServe, GEnie, and Delphi. A web interface will be available within the coming months. The message board is structured to hold conversations on hundreds of different topics, while still being logically organized so you can read and post on what topics interest you. Areas exist for discussion of both classic and modern video game systems, as well as popular game series such as Final Fantasy, and other aspects of the industry, including business news, books, movies, and television shows.

The conference rooms will soon play host to a variety of live games, including not only proprietary Hangman and Mad Libs games, but also some classic console-based games.

The Gamebits Community will be the first place where you can read reviews later posted to http://www.gamebits.net and http://www.tiptonium.com.

Syndicomm.com is currently available by telnet only, and offers a free ten-day trial. Subscriptions are as little as $25/quarter ($8/month) for unlimited access. Subscribe with a credit card and get your first month free with no obligation. See http://www.syndicomm.com for more details. When subscribing, please use the signup code GAME.

For questions, please contact Ken Gagne.

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