Ever since joining twitter one and a half years ago, I’ve been very happy with the overall service and benefits it has provided me since. I was a twitter skeptic for a long time and I still have no facebook or G+ accounts, yet I am not looking back when it comes to my decision to join the twitterverse. I never really expected to write this but hey – you can’t always be right, can you?
As a blogger, there’s a multitude of things twitter can do for you, once you get over that initial only-140-characters?-eeew-I’m-a-writer!-cringe. Once you stop thinking of birdchat as an alternative/competition to blogging, which it absolutely isn’t, you’ll discover an endless stream of inspiration, information and entertainment casually on offer for the taking and completely customizable to your wishes. Whether twitter becomes an active asset to your writing, interacting and researching or whether it remains a passive tool, whether you use it to chat or just to promote, whether you’ll join a wider “community” (not formalized in any kind of circles) or only ever follow your five favorite people – it’s all up to you. Don’t be surprised if your list of follows keeps growing rapidly though; once you peeped down that rabbit hole, things may develop a life of their own.
Some bloggers use twitter for link exchange only, to post blog updates and keep track of launch news and developers. That’s a great way to start out and certainly good enough for some users. Every once in a blue moon, twitter will draw a bigger crowd of readers to your blog, although in retrospective you might wish it hadn’t. If you’re one of the players who are desperate for the latest news and updates, twitter is where developers and community services usually update first, which is especially handy during launch weekends and whenever the servers have gone offline. Again.
For me, that’s the tip of the iceberg. I love how twitter opens up direct channels between fans and creators, consumers and producers. Blog updates are nice too but if you have a functional blogroll, it’s not the most important thing in the world. What twitter really does for me as a niche blogger somewhere in the heart of Europe, is opening up channels of shared interest, discovery and communication with an ease you don’t usually find in other social media. There’s a world of like-minded geeks, gamers and MMO players (who don’t blog and never will) just one click away – all of them sharing the kind of info, interesting or hilarious content and special pearls it would otherwise take me years to come across just browsing the internet. As I’m sure is true for so many others, this is not the type of social environment I have access to in my everyday life (unfortunately).
As far as the MMO blogosphere is concerned, reading twitter has not just fueled and inspired many of my articles thanks to link or comment exchange (while waiting on the bus or filling the bathtub), it has in fact made my blogging much more personal. Fellow MMO bloggers can be talked to without formality and many will let a more private person shine through on twitter – someone who is tired at work (and playing games instead), burning dinner because of the latest Wildstar trailer, posting pictures of their cat with a Pikachu hat. Whatever other interests you bring to the table besides MMO blogging (just think VG music!), you’ll be able to build your own little neighborhood of secret agents keeping you informed at all times. You’ll be surprised to find how many other passions you share with people you’ve blogged alongside for years and oh, the laughs! There are no lonely geeks on twitter.
This brings me to the main point of this post which isn’t in fact twitter promotion (although I guess that kinda happened now) but sharing my daily twitter MMO resources for those still starting out, looking for news and community hubs, or those just generally interested in the topic. I’m always on the lookout myself too; some accounts keep eluding you for years so this is by no means a finished list.
Your MMO and general gaming news on twitter
As a preamble, I am not going to link any of the awesome private twitter accounts or MMO bloggers I follow on twitter (many of which can be found on my blogroll) at this time, nor any podcasts (separate post), single personalities or official accounts as in ArenaNet or ArenaNet’s affiliated accounts. If you’re looking for a specific gaming celebrity, company or game, you’ll have no problem finding them.
What I am going to link instead are generally bigger and therefore active MMO and gaming resources I personally follow and find useful. This means daily news and reviews, community websites/webrings and fan organizations all around the topic of video gaming and related geekery.
General MMO news / communities
- massively @massively
- MMORPG.com @MMORPGcom
- ZAM @ZAMofficial
- MMO Reporter @mmo_reporter
- MMO Attack @MMOAttack
- Ten Ton Hammer @TenTonHammer
- MMOHuts
@mmohut - The MMORPG Wall @AlexanderWei4
General Gaming
- The Escapist @TheEscapistMag
- Rock Paper Shotgun @rockpapershot
- Joystiq @joystiq
- GamesBeat @GamesBeat
- MCV @MCVonline
- Tap-Repeatedly @Taprepeatedly
Game design / criticism
- Gamasutra @gamasutra
- What Games Are @whatgamesare
- GamePolitics @GamePolitics
- Critical Distance @critdistance
- GamersAgainstBigotry @GAB648
Videogame Music
- Game Music Bundle @GameMusicBundle
- Game Music Fans @GameMusicFans
- OSV @OSVgamemusic
- MAGFest @MAGFest
- Loudr @loudr
- Game Music Connect @GameArtConnect
Indie Games
- Indie Royale @indieroyale
- IndieGameReviewer @IndieGameReview
- Indie Statik @IndieStatik
- Humble Bundle @humble
- IndieGala @IndieGala
- BundleStars @BundleStars
Retro gaming
- Retro Gamers @RetroRoundtable
- Retro Gamer @RetroGamer_Mag
- 1 More Castle @1MoreCastle
- Old School Junkie @0LDSCH00LJUNKIE
- Retro Gamers Unite @RetroUnite
- Retro Gaming Arsenal @Gaming_Arsenal1
- RetroFiends @RetroFiendsBlog
Geek Culture
- nerdbastards @nerdbastards
- Nerds-feather @nerds_feather
- The Mary Sue @TheMarySue
- thinkgeek @thinkgeek
- Elder-Geek.com @ElderGeekdotcom
- Geekosystem @Geekosystem
- Nerdjackers @Nerdjackers
As you can see, I am sadly light on VG music related accounts, so if you have any recommendations there (and elsewhere), let me know what I missed! (edit: some new links added!)
To all my fellow MMO bloggers still resisting the urge to tweet: I’d be happy to see you there! Of course that’s a choice everyone needs to make for themselves and whatever reason may keep you from more social media is to be respected. However, that doesn’t mean I won’t be nagging you again in the future for purely selfish reasons (I am looking at you Redbeard, Bhagpuss and Jeromai!). We are gonna get you yet!
I was also one that was skeptical about Twitter until I joined it. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting but, at least for me, it didn’t completely change my world too. It is a fine service, is what I am trying to say.
Anyway, my problem with it has been more one of noise. Even when being picky on who I follow it just seemed there was a lot of tweets going on all the time, some times with some pretty good discussions too, and it just drove me nuts trying to keep up with it all. So was I just being stupidly insane or is there a better way to keep up with it all? How do you keep up with all those tweets?
You can’t. One of the strengths of Twitter is that it’s in real-time, and if you have followers listing near 1000 (which I do), following all of them is impossible. So, mainly, I’ll go on and see posts that people have put up in the past 30-60 minutes. However, for those that are more topical and special, you can add them to “Lists”, and any good Twitter client will take advantage of these lists. … so for example, I have a list of personal irl friends so I never miss what they post, “favorites” (both of those lists and who is on them are private), one list for The Secret World (in-game characters, official game accounts, developers, community managers, writers, etc), and a list of Bloggers, which is a growing list of all the Bloggers I have found so far, and anyone can see it. – @BigMikeyOcho
Lists are one way, although I don’t use my own list anymore either. I think with twitter you gotta accept (and appreciate) that it’s all transient and situational, you will miss things but then that’s completely fine. there’s no commitment and that goes for everybody, which to me is very relaxing because I have enough other commitments such as blogging which is important to me.
Yeah, what he said. 🙂 If you follow more than a few people, there will always be a measure of noise. I don’t generally read or respond to stuff over an hour old, unless I’m “boosting signals.”
There is one reason why I’m not on Twitter. Too much real-time signals. I’ll spend all my time reading Tweets and posting, instead of reading blogs, writing blogs, and gaming. 🙂
Though I do actually have a bunch of Twitter accounts for playing Fallen London and not driving Massively’s strange comment log-in system nuts.
Yeah, I like how many blogs now let you comment with ease via twitter. I used to have WP commenting issues before that.
For some reason twitter doesn’t disturb my other activities as much. I can easily not check it for days and I mute or remove what seems to obtrusive. but you definitely can’t read it all, that’s for sure. 😉 I do appreciate direct messaging though, such an easy way to have a quick chat with other bloggers.
What Jeromai said almost to the word. Not only do I also already have a Twitter account now several years old but I too started it to play Fallen London (or Echo Bazaar as it was called back then). I’m also on G+, which Tipa was kind enough to invite me to long ago back when it was invite-only.
I’d actually love to use bit of them regularly but I quite literally don’t have time. I’m already struggling with juggling gaming, blogging, reading and commenting. I already use my lunch-hour to scan Feedly and the first hour or so after work to catch up on blogs and comment. Mobile devices are strictly banned where I work during actual work hours so I can’t Tweet in someone else’s time as so many do.
Long ago, when the social equivalent was Yahoo Groups, I had to go cold turkey in the end because it was taking up the first two or three hours of my evening night after night. I don’t want to get back into that again.
Maybe when I retire…
“Maybe when I retire…”
Don’t scare me! 😉
I completely understand the time issue, sometimes you just have to priotize. the thing with twitter is though, the direct interactivity is really lovely at times. that’s why for me it comes before other activities but nobody can cover everything.
Thumbs up for The Mary Sue!
You did see I mentioned you too in the last paragraph, ye? 😉
My mouth would get me in trouble with Twitter, which is why I never created an account.
I’m sort of with Rakuno with this one. As someone who’s a bit OCD about having to read (or at least skim) ALL THE THINGS, I quickly found myself frustrated with the whole concept. I’ve since accepted that I’ll never be able to keep up with everything on Twitter, but it’s still hard to filter the truly interesting signals out of all the noise sometimes. I had to unfollow a couple of otherwise perfectly nice people simply because they were posting so much that they completely drowned out all the less frequent posters on my feed.
For me it got better over time, the more people I followed and who followed me back. in a way your ‘closer’ peer group starts crystallizing more clearly, so you can tell them and their activities apart from the other ‘noise’. I really do like the direct mentions and it’s usually with fellow bloggers. but yes, it’s absolutely selective and reading everything doesn’t work. 🙂 then there’s also the different time zones, so you gotta learn who is around at which times if you wanna catch them. What I do too sometimes is reading personal streams of people I really wanna keep track of, rather than trying to read my own stream and filter them out. you can never catch it all though – and in a way I like that 🙂
Thanks everybody for the tips. I guess I will try Twitter again and try the list method.
Hmm… I think my earlier comment was eaten.
I have to make more lists on Tweetdeck I think so I can manage gaming blogger lists and local friend tweets. 🙂
That said, thank you for the post! Very helpful! 😀
You are welcome!
I’m on Twitter, but as Syl has found out, I’m not a very reliable user. I tend to go in fits and starts, where I’ll post on occasion a few weeks, then nothing. Most of it is that I’m too busy to comment. Another part is that I’m a listener, I like to listen and observe more than I like to shoot off my mouth. Not that I don’t get long-winded on occasion, but Twitter doesn’t allow that much. 😉
I tend to like the thoughtful pace of discussions on blogs more than Twitter. I also like Google+ a lot more because it trades the real-time mania of Twitter for a lot more thoughtful pace. You can also control visibility easier, although I happily post most stuff public on Google+. I have a a group of really great indie tabletop RPG developers on Google+ that I find fascinating. I find I spend a lot more time there than Twitter.
Still, blogs are the best. 🙂
“Still, blogs are the best. :)”
No doubt about that!