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CommunitySpotlight:
TriXie Interviews GeezerGamers
The guys at GeezerGamers.com wanted to create a safe oasis for the 30 and over crowd to meet, play, and build their Friends Lists. With membership hovering around 2,000, it's a big damn oasis.
In the words of founding geezer Jamey T, "We don’t have time to memorize all the special sniper positions on every map. We don’t spend hours attempting to perfect glitches for an upcoming clan match. We generally play to have fun. Given a choice between playing with others like us and playing against a screaming, voice-masked kid who clearly has missed his Ritalin dose, we choose the older crowd every time."
Founded by a group of guys that started playing during and soon after the Xbox Live Beta, a group of around 16 original members met online every Friday to shoot the breeze … and shoot each other. After a year they decided to finally meet face to face. So, on March 9, 2004, the gang flew to Orlando (MoneyBabyMoney's family has a house there) and spent five days playing Halo®: Combat Evolved and paintball. They're going back next month to do it again.
Old people always end up in Florida.
The oldsters eventually built a Web site to attract like-mind Geezers to join up and play. Not long after the launch of Halo® 2, the community swelled from around 25 to more than 150. Then, a Bungie.net article came out, and they added 1000 people in 48 hours. The story was also picked up by 15 or 20 bloggers. According to Jamey, "The response to the geezer community has basically been, 'Thank God.'"
Since the Geezers' recent Hump Day Challenge against Bungie (they lost), membership has grown to around 2000. Geezers include women with attitude, a Finn, some Aussies, Brits, a couple of folks from Holland, four genuine rocket scientists, some Microsoft® geeks, a couple of lawyers, various forms of IT life forms, and more.
What can GeezerGamers.com do for you?
Use the scheduling tool to see what times folks plan on playing during the coming week, who is playing at that time, and what they plan on playing.
Use the game search engine. You can list all the games you have and even trade games with other people.
Fill your Friends List with like-minded Gen-Xers.
Explore the forums, which are set up by locale and occupation.
Meet the Geezers
Commanchero7 Commanchero7 was Jamey T's neighbor, who moved away right before Xbox Live came out. Xbox Live helped them stay in touch.
TriXie: How many hours do you spend playing on Xbox Live?
Commanchero7: I would have to say that I spend about 20 hours a week playing online. Since we started Geezer Gamers.com, my Friends List is full. I can find people from all over the world to play with on either Halo 2 orTom Clancy's Ghost Recon™ 2 almost any time of the day.
TriXie: Best album of all time?
Commanchero7:Bob Seger's Greatest Hits.
TriXie: If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?
Commanchero7: I suppose that, if he was still alive, I would like to go on tour with Queen. I have liked that band's music since I was a kid. Although, I would be very careful around Freddie Mercury.
TriXie: Who is your Xbox Live arch enemy?
Commanchero7:Reaper1. He is notorious in the Geezer circle. He is a gamer so sinister that I dare not imagine what would happen if someone was to meet up with him in a dark alley. I really enjoy capping him on XboxLive because you see in real life that he is a really short lawyer. It may sound sort of strange, but every time I pull the trigger on him, I feel like I am somehow contributing to society.
TriXie: What's your greatest Xbox Livemoment so far?
Commanchero7: The Friday night that the Founding Geezers and I were all playing Last Man Standing on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon™: Island Thunder™ . It was 8-on-8, I think, and everyone on my team was killed accept me. This happened a lot. I hid in a little spot I found, in the prone, waiting for them to find me. If memory serves me right, I think that I killed just about everyone left accept the one, and well, he shot me. I think the bastard that shot me might have been my arch enemyReaper1 come to think of it. Now, you can see where the rivalry all began.
MoneyBabyMoney The president of the Geezer Board of Directors, he is also the host of the annual Geezer Paintball-o-Rama in Florida.
TriXie: What's the best game of all time?
MoneyBabyMoney:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
TriXie: If they made a movie about your life, who should play you?
MoneyBabyMoney: John Favreau.
TriXie: Ah, the Gamertag makes sense to me now. You're money, and you don't even know it. Now, I command you to reveal your arch enemy!
MoneyBabyMoney:Hawk 75. Actually, he is a friend of mine. However, he is the only one of my "regular" Xbox Live friends that consistently beats me. So, I am always gunning for him in any game we play.
TriXie: Greatest Xbox Live moment?
MoneyBabyMoney: It came one evening in a game of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® 3 with the Geezers. My team had lost a game of Last Man Standing, so when the next game launched, I told my teammates that I was angry and that I was going after the other team very aggressively. We were on a small map (Training), and I ended up taking out the entire opposing team by myself before they even knew what was happening.
Jamey T The grand-daddy Geezer.
TriXie: How many Xbox Live hours are you logging?
Jamey T: Let me go ask the wife. She said I’m allowed to come out and play on Fridays. So, that means I squeeze six hours in on Friday nights.
TriXie: What do you think is the best game of all time?
Jamey T: I’m currently on a nostalgia trip, so I’m torn between Yar’s Revenge on the Atari 2600 and Halo 2. I was on the Beta for Halo 2, and all that time playing it in virtual secrecy made it feel like I had a mysterious, hot girlfriend (that the wife let me see because it was “for work”). So, Halo 2 will always have a special place in my heart.
TriXie: Best film?
Jamey T: I’m torn between The Seven Samurai, Citizen Kane, and The Blues Brothers. So, combining them into a story about the rise and fall of a Samurai bluesman named Rosebud would be the ideal movie—starring Master Chief, of course.
TriXie: Natch. Arch enemy?
Jamey T:Reaper1. Something about trash-talking lawyers who are short in stature and long-winded makes them perfect targets for across-the-map sniper shots. Coming right behind is this nameless, voice-masked 12 year old who said not-so-nice things about my mommy [sniffle, holding back the tears]. Come to think about it, there are a whole lot of knee-biting griefers like that in this category …
TriXie: Greatest Xbox Live moment?
Jamey T: Those few, rare games where I beatMoneyBabyMoney and beat him badly. That and the time someone thanked me for the GeezerGamers.com site when he recognized my Gamertag.
Reaper1 Jamey T's best friend from eighth grade and a district attorney in North Carolina.
TriXie: Quick, name the best game of all time!
Reaper1:Halo 2. Twenty-five years ago, I would have said Defender. Funny how good games get when you add a dimension.
TriXie: If they made a movie about your life, who should play you?
Reaper1: If a pissed-off Joe Pesci and a drunk Danny DeVito had a son, and you dressed him up funny, you'd have it right.
TriXie: Sexy. If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?
Reaper1: The Beatles. They were surrounded by women. Even I would be able to get lucky around the Beatles.
TriXie: Best Xbox Live moment?
Reaper1: One well-placed claymore on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® 3 Black Arrow™ sent my nemesis out the doorway and into the ocean on the cruise ship map. That was pretty cool.
DstrucTIonS Jamey T's brother. He's an IT geek in North Carolina and the GeezerGamer.com code monkey.
TriXie: Favorite Xbox Live-enabled game?
DstrucTIonS:Ghost Recon (old school).
TriXie: What do you think is the best game of all time?
DstrucTIonS:Castle Wolfenstein (real old school).
TriXie: Best album?
DstrucTIonS: Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy.
TriXie: If they made a movie about your life, who should play you?
DstrucTIonS: The kid from A Christmas Story. "You'll shoot your eye out kid … "
TriXie: Put on the bunny suit, Ralphie! If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?
DstrucTIonS: Stevie Ray Vaughan after he got sober, but before he died. Any white man that can sport a pimp hat like he did must be cool to hang out with.
TriXie: Name your Xbox Live arch enemy.
DstrucTIonS: I have two: Reaper1and Commanchero7. All in good fun.
TriXie: Suuuure it is. What's your greatest XboxLive moment so far?
DstrucTIonS: One time, at Halo camp … uh … what was the question again?
