Final Thoughts from Game Creators - A Bit of History
The ClubHouse: The Game - Discussion Room: General :
Final Thoughts from Game Creators - A Bit of History
Host | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 06:53 pm  Message from the Host: What can I say? The past 3 weeks, and 3 days have been a wild ride. I must admit I had NO idea what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to host the Game. I had a vision of how the Game would play out, and how much time it would take to run, but it really took on a life of its own. The craziness began on Day 1 when the 10 Players set up their crazy BB-like house, and a thread was started which read "BBFC Game Bigger Bust than BB". Not long after, everyone started demanding Red Room submissions (something we hadn't even thought of). On Day 6, Mantastic suddenly quit and I was stunned! On Friday the 13th, it was revealed that a Moderator had been placed into the Game undercover, and all hell broke loose. A re-vote was demanded, with the subsequent banishment of Talisker from the Game on Oct.16. Zebulon & Xenia were banished on Oct. 20, and I felt sad for them, even though Xenia had been quite vocal about wanting to be banished. When ArReal quit on Day 18, again I was thrown. The many topics and challenges used during the Game were thought up by the Moderators, some of you and myself. My favourite challenge was the Theme Song, which the Players did an amazing job composing. My favourite topic was the Death thread, started by the Players themselves. I cried my eyes out reading it. The Players did a fantastic job of playing the Game, especially the three that lasted until the end. Five group challenges were given to the Players over the past 3 weeks, and they only failed 1! This past week has been highly emotional. The five Players became unbelievably close, and to me, it was absofrikenLUKEly fascinating to watch them bond, and to watch everyone out here, literally posting their hearts out about the Players interaction within those flimsy walls. I began to realize how similar this Game was to the BB show, how the creators of BB must have felt at times, and also, how Julie Chen must have felt when she announced the banished guests. When I announced that Moondance and Luke had been banished from the Game on Saturday morning, I felt really sad for them both. As I said, it's been a wild ride. The speculation and paranoia regarding moles and cheating have run rampid throughout the past 3 weeks, and it's been a real rollercoaster ride. I've really appreciated the support that all of you have provided during the Game, even the hate mail that was sometimes received. It's been a true learning experience, and for us that have had no experience whatsoever running an online Game, I consider it a huge success. I would like to thank the 10 Players for taking part in the Game, and for letting us get to know you in a way I never could have imagined. I would also like to thank the spectators, especially those who became passionate about the Game and became so involved. I would especially like to thank those behind the scenes, who worked so hard to help pull this off. You know who you are - Thank you. As far as Game II goes, we are taking a break for now. The amount of hours, energy and emotion that goes into running the Game is paramount, and I for one can not commit to that right now. I'm not saying we won't do it again ever, or even not for a long while, but not right away. Our efforts will now go into what we can do to better the TV Clubhouse, to keep you guys around until Survivor and BBII starts early next year. We are considering a small contest on the board, that will likely begin soon... Stay tuned. Lisa/Enbwife/Host |
Tukuul | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:04 pm  Thanks again to both Neil and Lisa! I know how much time it takes to be IN the game, but I certainly can't imagine the time it takes to run the whole thing. I just wanted to say what a great idea The Game was. You both did an excellent job with it all...as well as all the moderators! Ok, now enough with all the mushy stuff. Back to the boards...  |
Wink | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:18 pm  To Lisa, Enb, moderators, and BGs: Congrats to you all on a job well done. In the immortal words of Vyk, "It's been a slice". |
Affinity | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:42 pm  thanks a bunch Neil and Lisa for giving me something to get over my BB withdrawal (now i'll have the game withdrawal, but its ok) i had the most fun participating on the outside of the game, even more than i had in participating in the BB discussion thanks again, and i'll stop nagging you two about The Game 2 heh your #1 fan JL |
Bamagirl | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:47 pm  Wonderful job you did, I really have enjoyed following the game! |
Zelda | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:49 pm  I have said it before... what a journey! Thank you for you time and hard work! Please take a breather... you deserve it. I encourage anyone who thinks it is easy to do this as a player... BE MY GUEST (parden the pun)... I know it was difficult on your end too... so thank you! Forever... Moondance |
Wcv63 | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:50 pm  Bless you Neil and Lisa even though you knew not what you were getting yourselves into!! Thank you! |
Dilligaf | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 07:57 pm  Neil and Lisa....you guys are awesome! This was everything I expected and more....one minute I was laughing the next minute I was in tears. Amazing the emotions that you feel on the inside. Thank you for choosing me and again I was honored to be in the final three. You guys deserve a hand! I'll never forget this experience!! |
Noslonna | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 08:30 pm  Clapping loud and long for Neil and Lisa. You two really do deserve a big hand! Thankyou so much. |
Misslibra | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 09:50 pm  You guys did a excellent job on the board game. Miss Libra standing up to give them all a standing ovation ! Bravo darlings ... bravo !! |
Katie | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 09:53 pm  You two did a great job. Now take it easy for a couple of months and catch your breath. You deserve it. |
Norwican | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 07:34 am  Thank you to everyone involved in creating and running the Game... it was a BLAST! |
Sugarlover | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 07:35 am  Lisa and Neil, you all did a hell of a job creating and running this game. I feel you all were very fair throughout the whole thing. You guys deserve a HUGE break so you can rest up for the sequel. HINT HINT No, really, just enjoy yourselves and know that you all should be proud of yourselves for doing the most fantastic job ever. And to the BeeGees, you guys ROCKED!! |
Gail | Tuesday, November 07, 2000 - 08:12 pm  Sorry I am so late in posting this . . . I had surgery on my hand 12 days ago and needed to keep from typing much (which is what caused my problem in the first place). I had the unique experience of being involved in The Game from a creator, player and viewer’s standpoint. I have to say that for the most part, we were successful at what we were trying to achieve. I just went back and looked at the first posts when Neil first came up with this idea. Enb Monday, September 18, 2000 - 06:52 pm Okay, I just thought of this: We hold a game of our own, right here in the Discussion board. Of course, us being us and Neil being Neil, we didn’t take him seriously at first. . . I won't repeat the jeering and kidding . . Enb Monday, September 18, 2000 - 07:21 pm No, NO ..I'm serious! I'm sitting here thinking 'how do I keep all these people coming to this site after BB ends?' Neil didn’t have enough money to pay everyone to stay at the site so he came up with this crazy idea. . if you check out the date . . . you can see that the Big Brother show was still going – with a few weeks left so we moderators were busy defending George and Jamie (remember them?) to all of the haters out there. It seems like a distant memory. Well, we kind of put The Game idea out of our heads for a while because the BB show took all of our energy. Then, out of the blue . . . Lisa Friday, September 29, 2000 - 08:43 pm Hi Guys - I know I don't ever post here, but thought it was time. Neil and I were just talking about how to generate interest in the site during the lull in TV shows and here's an idea for your comments: We invite everyone to enter the BBFC Big Brother challenge. Out of the people that enter, Neil and you guys choose 10 people to play the game. Neil sets up an area that only the 10 can post into. We come up with discussion topics as mentioned above (I like Max's suggestion about "IFS"). To which we got the reply: Enb Friday, September 29, 2000 - 10:00 pm Okay, This could work! Let's get this together. We need to figure out the EXACT details, or should we just wing it? I know we can make a special area with topic areas, that only these 8-10 people can post in. Do we want them to supply photos that I can post in there of them? Do I throw up a website with their pictures across the top like the BBFC? Do we just ask them questions or what? Do we have a 'Big Brother' who tells them to do stuff? Do we have a criteria for how much they have to post, or how long between votes or something? What if we get 10 people and they just don't do what we want them to do? Gail Friday, September 29, 2000 - 10:11 pm Sure, we can do pictures - and maybe everyone can have "fake" bios too. I want to play!! Admin Friday, September 29, 2000 - 10:19 pm You can't play!!! You'll have an unfair advantage. Or maybe we stick you in there as yourself? What if people banished you with a really high percentage....could you deal with it? Gail Friday, September 29, 2000 - 10:48 pm Nooooo! You can't throw me out there as myself!! Man - those guys would have me banished the first round! And, the rest as they say is history! Basically after Big Brother ended, we here at the BBFC/TVCH knew we had a really special group of people posting at the board but knew we needed to find something to keep people talking here until the next great show or Big Brother came along. Lisa started getting everything organized, Max started coming up with discussion topics and the rest of us tossed ideas out there as we thought of things . . . like having voting polls, the redroom, finding someone to be the “Interrogator”, different challenges, etc. The advertising began and we had an overwhelming number of people sign up to play. Neil and Lisa came up with the players for the game . From this point on . . I was pretty much out of the planning . . “Don’t Look” was posted on certain folders and I respected that. . . . . Now I was a player. On the first night in the game, it was kind of a scary feeling. Do any of you remember the first night of Big Brother when they showed Jordan wondering around the house peeking into the rooms wondering what was going to happen? That was exactly how I felt! I knew LanceCrossFire, Zelda, Kearie, Tukuul, Kino123, Snave, Dilligaf, Wendy, Optics, but I didn’t know who all these strangers were. It really was like being in a house with 9 strangers!! It was strange to see how we all got used to using these new names (to this day, I still think of LanceCrossFire as Roger). Next came the hiring of the Interrogator . . . I really liked the whole idea of this. It was a way to talk about some things that you couldn’t really talk about in the playing area. Strange how uplifting it felt to get some things off your chest. It was even more fun to get out of the game and see the creative editing of our posts. I still can’t get over the realism of the whole game. Both from a player’s perspective and from the viewer’s perspective. I was surprised after I was banished at how passionate people were for their favorite players. It was so much like the BB show that it was freaky. I think the entire Game Player’s area and Game Discussion area would be excellent for a psychology class. The banners, the live feeds, the praise, the . . . negative comments, the speculation, the indepth analysis . . . it was all there and more. Now, I confess . . . to date, I have not read most of the posts in the Game Discussion area. I read through some threads, read the banner suggestions, the live feeds and my favorite . . . the Red Room posts. I am not one for wanting to see negative shit – whether it is about me or about others that I know (or don't know for that matter). I struggled with it during the BB show, I struggled with it for The Game. For those who were players in The Game I am sure they will agree with me that it definitely was an interesting experience and unless you were a player, you can’t know what it was like. There was a very real feel of isolation and this nagging feeling that you had to post, post, post your ass off. I can certainly sympathize with HiMay10Ns being in the wrong time zone. While I was still in the game, being in Mountain time was killing me. It was so hard to try to stay up with the Pacific Zone people. I actually set my alarm clock a couple of nights so I could wake up and talk for a bit in the wee hours. For the most part, I was getting by on 4 – 5 hours sleep a night. All in all, I would say it was a success. We did something that no one had done before and it was fun, interesting, unusual, etc. It took an incredible amount of energy from the Board Guests and the people behind the scenes and the frequent posters in the discussion area. All in all, I give a lot of credit to Lisa and Neil and Max and the Interrogator (Flint) for the parts they played in keeping things going. I also give a lot of credit to the viewers for their interest (both good and bad) in keeping all this going so strong to the end of the game and beyond. But the real credit goes to the Game Players. Take a few minutes and read back through some of their posts. Check out the death thread, check out some of the discussion topics dealing with online relationships, sexual experiences, etc . . . those were honest, heartfelt posts from people on this board . . people you post with all the time. Those were real feelings from real people and I thought it was incredible how much of themselves the game players gave of themselves for our entertainment. I really loved reading about the different views the game players had on the different discussion topics. You really felt like you knew them. Would I want to see a Game 2? Yeah, I do believe it or not . . . I have posted my ideas and suggestions in other places weeks ago . . . but, I definitely feel like we all need a bit of a break to regroup. The Game took an incredible amount of energy for the people behind the scenes. Neil has a few things he wants to work on and it would be nice to analyze a few things to make some improvements. Thanks again to everyone who played, who watched, who helped, and who supported The Game See you around the board!!  |
Lancecrossfire | Tuesday, November 07, 2000 - 08:49 pm  Gail--I sent Neil and Lisa a message about some thoughts/feelings concerning the game. I don't know if they have shared it with you. Did you have an interest in seeing it? If so, I can forward by mail of you'd like. If not, that's no problem. Write when you get a chance. |
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