2011 brought us a truck load of other fantastic games though, and since we are going to do a Game Of The Year podcast episode (we will have some games to giveaway on the podcast too so don’t forget to listen) and GOTY post I won’t mention them all here, however I’ll mention some anyway. Of course there was Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 which both had critical acclaim; Saints Row The Third came out to keep pushing the boundaries of awesomeness; and the latest chapter of the Elder Scrolls series Skyrim blew everyone away. Unfortunately we didn’t get our hands on Mortal Kombat here in Australia since it was banned… that is unless we imported it which a massive number of people did, including me, and that was a fantastic game too.
Speaking of games getting banned in Australia, 2011 included a number of great steps towards our country (finally) getting an R18+ adult classification for video games. With legislation being worked on right now (figuratively speaking since politicians like to have extra long Christmas breaks) we should see the introduction of the new classification some time next year.
Now on to some of the great moments from 2011 for us here at Drop Bear Gaming. We had a number of people begin contributing to the site (and we always welcome more) including our great new permanent staff member Chloe (Lamb_Chop) who has been really great especially with her Dev Diary series with tips for developers. We also had Jammy and Susie writing for us and co hosting on the podcast, and of course our new permanent podcast co host Tim. I think a major highlight for Lucas would have been when he interviewed Eso from the Aussie hip hop group Bliss n Eso for episode 11 of the podcast. Turns out they love video games, who would have guessed?
As for myself there were a number of milestones in 2011 that made me extremely grateful and excited to be running this site. First and foremost was the Extra Life 24-hour gaming marathon charity event in October which raised money for Children’s hospitals around the world. As a team we raised money for the Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney and we raised over $950, so I want to thank everyone who donated for that. I personally spent 22 of my 24 hours playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood to completion which was definitely an experience haha. We will of course be participating again in 2012 and I encourage you all to get on board, join our team and help us raise money for sick kids.
Another big event for us and for Australian gaming in general was the EB Expo which also happened in October. While it was important for Australian gamers as it was our first official gaming expo in the country, it was massively important for us as a site because we got to meet other game journalists and bloggers from around the country, as well as PR representatives from many of the big game companies. That was an important stepping stone for us in growing the site and I want to thank the people from EA in particular, as well as from THQ and Sony for all the help and support they have given us since then.
Most importantly of all I want to acknowledge you ladies and gentlemen. We know we haven’t updated the website as much and as often as we should have so I’d like to say thank you to everyone for sticking with us anyway. We appreciate all your comments on here and on our Facebook page, your tweets, and your emails, and we hope you stick with us for 2012 because it’s going to be even bigger. Thank you.
If you have any games, events or just moments from 2011 that I missed go ahead and share them in the comments below! Thanks again for a great year and we wish you all the best for 2012!
