So bouncing around some ideas with some fellow industry peoples on twitter has seeded an idea.
What about some forums somewhere for people of all studios/publishers/etc to come together for an industry themed hang out? One thing I have learned over the years is that we are an AMAZINGLY social group of great people who have great ideas. These people are the very reason I use twitter as much as I do, its such a great way to stay in touch with everyone of the same mindet. Also, given the rough times the industry is going through, as a whole, it would be a fun resource for former people from shut down studios and mass layoffs to trade info on potential job opportunities with those of us still inside. There would be a few simple guidelines.
1: Industry only, this does not include media. The whole point is a place for us to talk with each other without all the background chatter and fanboyism to clutter things up. (NeoGaf is fun but I had wading through 50 posts to get to one from someone I care to discuss things with).
2: NOTHING nda breaking or even remotely close discussed, ever. Its a place for us to geek out over games. Talk shop about development. Bitch about that jerk reviewer on gamethatrockmysocks.com who rates every singe game under a 50 just to fuck up their meta critic score. And maybe trade free copies of game X for game Y under the table 
3: Self policed. Something like, you have to register with a work email address, and have your account manually approved by someone upon review. After that you get dumped into a user group assigned to your company, with a designated person from that company who manages the membership from there on out to handle folks who come and go as time goes on. Its not a perfect system, its not intended to be. Were not trying to make an iron clad secret order or anything, just a place with enough of a buffer zone so that we can chat without obnoxious interruptions. There is no intention for it to be secure enough to get away with talking about trade secrets. (might I remind you to read point 2 above?)
4: the whole thing administered by a random selection of folks from all over, to help make sure there is no feeling of “such and such company runs this site”
what do you guys think?
December 3rd, 2009 on 2:03 PM
I am in! I will shoot some ideas over tonight when i get off work. Quick thought, have a “caste less” group(sorry, way too much dragon age) for the people we know are in the industry but also are jobless for the time being.
December 3rd, 2009 on 2:05 PM
Agreed, we need to keep our fallen comrades in mind in these hard times. Thats ACTUALLY another key point i meant to bring up, this is a great resource to share who’s hiring for what with all these people out there hunting right now in these hard times.
December 4th, 2009 on 12:30 AM
For those that are jobless, we can have secret password to let them in. As for friends that go journo on us, they can stay but are restricted from the forum area that we use to bitch openly about media sites and personalities. Also, if one person is let go and the person that lets them go from their job have to stay cool on the forums else they have to meet in a neutral party’s home and have a 3 round fighting game match of our choosing. The loser leaves for 3 months. So like a fight club. Finally, I want to be president of calenders for the forum.