Year of the Gamer! (But what does that mean?)

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Year of the gamer is simply put, a celebration of the gamer. We want to use this year as an opportunity to celebrate all things gaming, specifically tabletop but including board games, video games, really anything that brings one to identify themselves as a gamer. Our hope is that other publishers jump on board with us, gaming communities, cons, stores, really anyone involved and get their fans excited about this as well and really make it an entirely gaming community based effort.

We want the Gamers to really enjoy this year and we have a number of projects designed to do just that.

This year isn’t going to be a big marketing campaign, it’s really going to be a project that we hope increases the size and energy level of the overall gaming community.  Activities will change and grow as other publishers get involved and we’re REALLY excited at the idea of it being a fluid and changing endeavor.

Some of the things we’ve put on our agenda are:

This is already up and running, a Pinterest board designed to show of your gamer pride! http://www.pinterest.com/sggames/year-of-the-gamer-2014/ Come take a look, ask to be a contributor so you can pin cool gaming related pics and videos or send me yours and we’ll get them added for you! Immortalize your gaming night with a fun snapshot that captures the moment!

Year of the Gamer Party Packs so you can game on with your group and celebrate the year of the gamer! We’re hoping to organize a Year of the Gamer Christmas in July party!

We’re going to have a question of the week to learn more about all of you! We already learned that most people started gaming between the ages of 8-15 than all the other ages combined! Lots of fun facts to be had.

Our“Flat” project.  More to come on this later, but we hope you enjoy this little surprise! This is a free community interactive event that we hope will really catch on!

A facebook event page that we’ll “reboot” once a month where we hope to list as many gaming events that are going on each month as we can. Cons, public game days, workshops, online events.

We’ll have some online gaming related workshops and online game nights. Some will be for experienced gamers, and some we really hope will be a springboard for those that have never given it a chance before to get started in the hobby.

There are a lot more projects in the works, but I don’t want to spoil the fun of the reveals, so I hope for now you’ll tell your friends, join us in our facebook group (and eventually our G+ community) and send us pictures to share!

Those of you who have asked how else you can help, you can help make this bigger by asking your local game store, your con organizers and your favorite publishers to make themselves a participant in Year of the Gamer! (All they have to do is send Kelly an email at [email protected]) There’s no cost to them at all.  We’ll have flyers and a badge they can display on their website as well.

If you’re on Twitter, we’ve been using #yearofthegamer to talk about things. Please push that! Share pics of you, your friends, family or even your gaming gear!

We’re looking for stories and video clips, anything you want to share that tells the world you are PROUD and EXCITED to be a gamer.

If you know of schools that have gaming groups, we are hoping to get some activities planned with those to really encourage new gamers, so let us know who to contact about that in your area.

Cons! We’re looking to create a master list of cons, we have a great start, but there are a lot out there that are smaller that we may never have heard of. Gamers, this is YOUR year, let’s make some noise! Tell us where you like to have fun!

This is about getting more people to celebrate gaming, bring new people into the hobby and fan interaction. The goal by the end of the year is simply that we’ve all had fun, that we’ve maybe tried a game we hadn’t before, that we got someone new to try gaming and that we let everyone know….

2014 is the Year of the Gamer!