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GaymerX2 will be final year for LGBTQ-focused con
A tweet from the official GaymerX Twitter account has announced that this year's GaymerX2, scheduled to take place in July of this year, will be the final year for the convention. The convention, which began just last year, was an event primarily focused on LGBTQ issues in gaming. "Based on feedback that we've gotten, the new focus towards diversity in the industry and budget, GaymerX2 will be the final year for the con," the GaymerX account posted. It appears that the latter of those may be one of the biggest contributing factors; the account also tweeted that, "the size of our event and the amount of money we were losing to put it on became too much of a burden to keep at this pace." Not all is dead and gone, however. The GaymerX account wrote, "we may one day do other, smaller events and we don't want to say gaymerX is forever gone." Joystiq has reached out to the GaymerX organizers for further comment and clarification. We will update if we hear back. [Image: GaymerX]
Do you con?
This past weekend I made a 5-hour drive to San Francisco for the inaugural run of GaymerX. If you're not familiar, the gay gaming convention made pretty big news in tech circles when it successfully Kickstarted itself into existence this year. And it's still making news after the fact thanks to the unbelievably rad live rendition of GLaDOS's Still Alive making the rounds on the Interwebs (above). I met up with a lot of awesome people there and helped moderate a panel on podcasting with the dudes from Horde House, WoW Insider regulars Spike and Slagkick of Game Buoy, and some other great folks from Qoopa Klub and Gayme Bar. I ran into nerd heartthrob Orkchop and his wife, played a killer game of Cards Against Humanity, and made a lot of gaming friends from around the country that I'll hang out with again. This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: "Huge success." It's hard to overstate my satisfaction. So, the question of the day is this: Do you guys love going to conventions as much as I do? Have you gone to any memorable ones lately? And are there any you're really looking forward to (*cough, cough* BlizzCon)?
Owner of 'Gaymer' trademark sends cease and desist to Reddit
In 2007, owner of Gaymer.org Chris Vizzini announced his intent to trademark the term "gaymer," sparking a community controversy: Even though not everyone affiliated with the word itself, it was a commonly used bit of jargon, similar to "pwn" or "noob." Did Vizzini have the right to trademark such a common word?Legally he did. In March 2008, Vizzini's trademark on "gaymer" passed registration and it is live today. The trademark applies to online communities, "hosting and maintaining an online website for others to discuss, receive and disseminate information concerning video games," specifically. In the interest of protecting his mark, Vizzini today sent a cease and desist letter to Reddit community /r/gaymers, which has more than 16,500 members, claiming infringement.Reddit admins don't plan to ban the subreddit, but it will need to rename or find a compromise with Vizzini. This is an "unprecedented" situation for Reddit, but it is a serious problem, admin spladug writes:"I informed the mod team of /r/gaymers that we'd received a cease and desist letter for infringement of the 'gaymer' trademark and that our legal counsel had informed us that the letter presents a real threat that they would sue reddit. I let them know so that they could start planning how to respond (including seeing if there's any way for them to work things out with the owner of the trademark)."Vizzini says he sent the cease and desist because, as a trademark holder, he has to defend his mark or risk losing it. He says he emailed Reddit twice asking for the community to change its name, but got no response. "I started Gaymer.org in 2003 and began to build Gaymer as a brand," Vizzini writes. "Thats why I trademarked and word marked the name. At that time, there was only one other site around dedicated to gay gamers. I have spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on Gaymer.org. I have done so gladly as it's brought happiness to many people."Vizzini isn't pursuing next year's GaymerCon gathering since his trademark applies only to online communities. The /r/gaymers community and other sites, such as GayGamer.net, are discussing the issue and the larger implications of trademarks and online forums. We raised the question of popular phrases being "owned" when Vizzini first announced the trademark, and it's no less relevant now.As of today, Gaymer.org itself is "suspended," though whether this is due to an unintentional DDOS attack or reasons unrelated to the Reddit attention is unclear.
New 'gaymer' survey explores sexual identity, interest in games
A new version of the gay gamer survey is making the rounds, years after the first-of-its-kind, academically approved study attempted to "quantify the existence of an invisible minority." The results of the original were interesting, with one the more surprising aspects being the large heterosexual sample who decided to participate.Now Paul Nowak, a student going for his masters at gaming school Full Sail, is seeking participants in a similar study (also academically approved), which focuses on "questions of content: such as plot, genre, customization and other in-game experiences."The survey takes about 20 minutes and none of the questions seemed offensive to us -- then again, we live on the internet. We also spoke with Nowak about what he hopes to learn and why he decided to do this survey. Check out our discussion after the break.Participate in the "New Gaymer Survey."
Gaymer.org looks to trademark 'Gaymer'
Can a man own the term "gaymer"? Chris Vizzini, owner of community site Gaymer.org, is looking to find out as he's applied to trademark the term. Now, before we lose people in a hail of righteous fury and legalese, it should be noted that Vizzini is only looking to trademark the word from online groups trying to use the term in another context. It's also worth noting that the controversial term "gaymer" had been used to describe the gay gaming community before Gaymer.org showed up on the scene. Also, as can be clearly seen in the photo, Gaymers original cider has been enjoyed since 1770 by the island of Britain.There is currently some heated debate about the issue on the Gaymer.org forums and the other large gay gamer community site Gamers.Experimentations.org. Although many don't identify with the term "gaymer," it's still interesting that the term has gotten to the point of needing trademark protection.GayGamer.net's site owner, who goes by the handle Fruit Brute, says, "I know there are many people that frequent our site who are members of both Gaymer.org and GamersExperimentations and I am all for that. I wish there was someway we could combine them all together in one big, happy, rainbow filled, pink glitter sprinkled family, but situations like this really seem to cause people to draw their lines in the sand."To bring the issue into wider focus, what if someone tried to trademark terms like noob, pwn and other commonly used words part of gamer speak? Should one man control a word's destiny online when it's tied to a group in our gamer community?
Gay gamer survey results with large hetero inclusion
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Gay_gamer_survey_results_with_large_hetero_inclusion'; In the summer of 2006, after receiving academic approval from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Jason Rockwood opened up the "Gaymer Survey" to the public. Rockwood expected 600 participants -- if he was lucky -- for the first-of-its-kind approved study exploring the social and behavioral demographic of gay video game players and the role of sexual orientation on gaming habits. The survey was discussed in some regional lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) publications and filtered out to the gaming press. The survey, with over 10,000 respondents, became a sexually inclusive survey of gamers -- gay, straight and bi.The study originally broke new ground for not only being the first study exploring LGBT gamers, but it was the first academic study of any gamer group. There is currently no academic studies of female gamers or gamers of color. In a 2006 interview, Rockwood said, "The main purpose of the survey was to be a census. Before we can ask more intelligent questions we need to know who we are dealing with. First, we need to prove that homosexual gamers even exist. Yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but that's where you have to start on something like this. This survey is an attempt to quantify the existence of an invisible minority."Continue after the break for some highlights from the survey
Joystiq interviews gay gamer survey's creator Jason Rockwood
Six months after the data for the "Gaymer Survey" was expected, we catch up with Jason Rockwood to find out what took so long, what he hopes the data is used for and what can various groups take away from the survey? What's the most surprising thing to you about the survey? The biggest surprise about the survey was the interest from the audience. I had over 10,000 people from over 35 countries take this survey -- in like a week! It was so much of an overwhelming response. That was the biggest surprise.What took so long for the results to be released? This was expected to be finished last fall, correct?It took a long time because I decided that my applications to graduate school would be strengthened by having brought the project to some level of completion, because of that, I was working on the project mostly independently, outside the context of the academic setting, even though I was under the supervision and association of UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). So, it took a long time because I was working on this alone. Most researchers doing this kind of work are in a PhD. program and have funding of some kind. I had neither.So, what do you hope happens with the data?I hope it sparks continued conversation between and among gamers and developers on the topic of gay and bi people in gaming. I hope that it forms a foundation for exploration in the academic community on the topics of gaming motivation and sexuality, and I hope more games end up being produced for a gay audience.
