Conservative times we’re living in nowadays, not only on a political-social level, but also economically. But thanks Allah that the gaming industry and community is an exception on all of the above mentioned levels :-) Every once in a while, a scientific study on games and online gaming gets widespread publicity in the media. And more often than not, what we all know to be stupid conclusions get send to the broad public, giving the whole gaming experience, industry and community a bad reputation.

But if you’re reading this article, you’re probably one of those people who know better… a gamer. And you know that the gaming industry is now one of the largest businesses in the world, globally generating larger annual revenue than the movie industry. Not only that, there are hardly any political and/or social motives that influence the gaming industry. We’re young, we’ve got a mind of our own and we’ll freely choose whatever we want to do … or play.

All gamers know that the gaming community is (mentally) young, ever changing, full of live and vibrant. Conservative old farts and tarts proclaim that gaming alienates youths… yet we all know that the opposite is true! Modern youths nowadays meet over the internet by playing games, chatting online and sending e-mails. And more often than not, gamers frequently get together to meet one another in real life. To talk, laugh, drink and share stories about their mutual interests.

It’s that kind of spirit that the Belgian Public Relations department of Electronic Arts wanted to endorse this weekend. Saturday saw the re-opening of the new Outpost gamingcenter, a spacious café (or bar, pub …) located in the very heart of downtown Antwerp. Outpost was founded in 1997 with the intention of being a rendezvous point for gamers. In its 5 years existence, they’ve built up a membership community of some 1500 gamers and sympathisers, who regularly meet up to have a drink, share stories… and game. Fragland was invited to meet & greet the people behind Outpost and the representatives of EA.

From their former and more humble dwellings, Outpost has now moved to a two storeys and combined 400m2 large space. On the ground floor they’ve got 24 brand new P4 2400mhz, GeForce4 powered PC’s, all with Sennheiser headphones and beautiful Iiyama 19” screens (I own one myself ;-). In the spacious underground floor, there’s room for over 120 gaming enthusiasts… be it card gamers, board gamers, role-play gamers or pc-gamers.

The PR-guys of EA took a kind heart to this enthusiastic gaming community and endorsed the re-opening of Outpost by organising and sponsoring a C&C: Generals tournament. Fifty gamers participated in an exciting and fun competition of Command and Conquer. To further enhance the event, EA gave any person who was brave enough to have his (or her) hair shaven off a brand new copy of C&C: Generals. Now who in his right mind would be so stupid to rid himself of his hair, just for a game? Well, don’t look too far… our very own NePhie couldn’t resist the temptation ... one of our other crewmembers peng chickened out at the last second :-)

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