What is OXCGN about?

Come & meet ‘The Team’ behind the site.

Forward by Grant Smythe, founder:

Please scroll down for the staff Bio’s links

“`OXCGN started out life solely as a vehicle for me to host a listing that I had started back in 2005 and a way to get it out into the Xbox Community.

But now, it has now evolved and grown into a great ‘Multiplatform site‘ to better represent the team as a whole who are behind this great site.

Some history on OXCGN: it was once just originally aimed at all the Up-Coming Games scheduled for release on the new the X360 and looking at all further releases that had come to light since the consoles announcement.

It was suitably named XboxOZ360Gamer.com, but things have changed, and changed dramatically.

Back then I even managed to secure the XboxOZ360.com name well before the launch of the 360 and the announcement of its name, which was treat, and I also managed to snap up XboxOZ.com, which is why you find my handle (gamertag), XboxOZ360.

Now – in order to make things vitally clear to all and sundry, my handle, XboxOZ360, is NOT the site, nor does it indicate that the site is a Xbox only site. It simply means that it’s MY gaming tag, nothing more – nothing less.

What was the name your mother gave you? Do you like it – sometimes? Probably not all the time, but you’re stuck with it. However, I like the name I chose for my gaming life, and while I do play Xbox games, it’s not WHO I AM as a person. So back to the site, not me.

The Xbox 360 Games Listing first started its life in the Xbox.com.au forums back in early 2005 as a pinned thread, but grew considerably over a very short time frame.

However, it has now taken a definite change of direction over the last year and a half.

The site has now changed its name to something more befitting gaming as a whole, and one that is aimed at bringing a ‘breath of life’ into the Australian Gaming Community – OXCGN (pronounced oxygen).

We at OXCGN believe that the main aim of the site is to bring gamers closer to games and to the platforms they chose to support. We are not Fanboys of ‘any’ particular platform, but ‘Gamers’ first and foremost.

OXCGN is now home to 8 individuals who not only prefer the Xbox 360 as their ‘primary’ platform of choice, but alos own and play all other platforms. Some just play the PS3, or have a pasion for the PC and Nintendo’s huge range opf gaming platforms – so it’s really now a multiplatform site in the truest sense of the word.

And rather than being just a simple “Blog site”, which for some reason, carries a less than favourable feeling amongst some gamers, it is now aimed at supplying a diverse array of information, news, diverse articles and reviews on the Xbox 360, PC, PS3, Wii, and of course, the various Mobile gaming titles continiously bombarding the market every day.

And something more important than anything else is that OXCGN also provides the team with an outlet from which they can express their views on many subjects and provide reviews and articles related to the games and various genre’s they love and play, not to forget other gaming related topics and interviews.

Things have changed a great deal since those earlier days. This is no longer a one-man-blog, and is a joint effort of several members of the Gaming Community.

Plus, as many see ‘blogs’ as some sort of evil on the net, with some regarding blogs as just ill-informed web spaces where one person blows their own horn – so to speak, is also one of the reasons we decided to rename the site OXCGN. Breathing life into gaming, into the gamer, into the families involved with gaming.

Yet unfortunately, many gamers still seem to forget that 80% of gaming news sites and “Official” insider sites are in fact – Weblogs or Blogs of one sort, or the other. Such as Joystiq, Mercury News and Destructoid to name but a few.

The site is now aimed at supplying supporters of the various platforms reviews, previews, news and thought provoking articles on not only the Xbox 360, but also items on gaming in general covering all platforms, but with the emphasis firmly locked towards the gaming in general.

We have been accepted as a Featured Site on the brilliant new LagTV.com’s TV site as well as their sister site, XboxLiveNations. Both of which were members of the Xbox Community Network, which we still are part of, but now as a ‘multiplatform based site’. Both those sites have also grown to become multiplatform sites, so that they can best represent their readers as well as gamers worldwide.

OXCGN also supports several other gaming sites through its friends affiliates links, which you will find on the left-hand side of the pages. Simply click one of the site icons, and head over and check their sites out. By supporting other sites, you help move gaming further forward in general acceptance both on the net, and in the real world.

You will however notice that there’s an oddity on a so-called MS supportive site, the inclusion of Apple Mac products. Like myself, many other Xboxers, (incl staff at even Xbox.com.au) we also have and use Apple products, everything from the iPod, the new iPhone, the great new iPod Touch and of course the excellent iMacs and PowerMacs and let’s not forget those MacBooks.

Once bitten by the Apple-Mac bug, it’s hard to shake, and many find it very similar to the 360, insofar that the two are battling against a giant in their respective industries . . . Apple against the MS Corp giant, and Xbox 360 against the equally as large Sony and Nintendo gaming giants.

As mentioned, the site now has 8 staff which come from a variety of backgrounds and ranging in age from 15 yrs to 58 yrs, comprising both genders. Some are parents with even their kids writing for the site from time to time, which gives the site a well balanced feel and representation of gaming styles and generations.

One this we do here at OXCGN is not re-hashing the news which just migrate from site to site on the net, many with little or no personal attachment. Or simply place two small paragraphs of rubbish text, and a large pic, then a link to the ‘real news sources’ That is NOT what journalism is about.

We prefer to find news items, look at them differently and compile an article based around that news or item. Adding a fresh view to it, one we hope our readership will enjoy. Or we will create our own articles, features, get interviews, attend events and then write about those in a unique way. A way which seems to have garnered us a decent, loyal readership over the years.

We trust that you’ll become one of those readers.

So please do have a read through the various staff’s bio’s below, as I’m sure you’ll find them very interesting and a diverse bunch of people that you can relate to, on one level or another. Hopefully giving you an insight into why we are all here.

And please remember, this is not one mans Blog, but a WebLog of enthusiast dedicated to gaming as a whole and prefer to be known as “gamers”, not fanbois (or otherwise known as Xbots). Yes, we all have an X360, and we do do many of our reviews based on that platform, but we are ‘gamers’, pure and simple.

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OXCGN Administration

Breathing Life Into Gaming

Grant Smythe

Editor In Chief -Site Manager
They say you’re only as young as you feel, well there’s days I feel 108 or more, but there are many where I feel much younger than the 57 have on the clock so far.

My son, who turns 34 this Christmas eve (’11) is also a great gamer, in his own right.

Both my son and I frequented the old “Palours” of old back in the late 70’s and early ’80’s while he was still just a toddler, and was amazed at all the big machines and fun games most palours had at the time.

David Hilton

2IC – Editor

My first video gaming experiences were back in the early ’80s with the little portable Pac Man and Frogger sets and the Apple IIe games Castle Wolfenstein and Choplifter.

I lost interest in gaming until the early ’90s when I enjoyed the 486 PC games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Heretic, and Tie Fighter.

I got sick of needing to know too much about computers to get the games to work properly, so I abandoned the PC as a gaming platform.

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OXCGN Staff

Ben Cadwallader
Where to begin… I’m 19 years old, out of school now and taking a year off from everything.  Even if it does get boring… it will be worth it.

Besides of course playing the occasional video game, I do many other things, such as hanging out with mates, working out at the gym, modifying and working on my car, watching movies and TV shows (I prefer a great TV show over a movie!), buying and selling on eBay, breeding birds, looking after my many pets and many other things.

But as this is a video game website I will focus most of this about that.

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Arthur Kotsopoulos

Where to begin well I am currently 17 years old (18 on August the 18th), and I’m currently in my last year in high school so I’m doing my HSC and all the important stuff that will help me in the future.

I love gaming it’s my passion, and the only real thing I can do that will release my stress, tension and make me free from the troubles of my life.

Where to being with my gaming, well it started when I was a young kid, all chirpy happy primary school no worries free of troubles. My brother owned an Amiga 3000 which is sort of a consol in a computer form; back then floppy disks were the entire craze.

The Amiga 3000 had it all, from the Blues Brothers, Terminator, Aliens, Ninja Turtles, Robocop, Robocop 2, S.W.A.T and many more old favourites.

• Notice:

OXCGN is updating it’s staff bios, so stay tuned and we’ll fill you all in with several new members of the great OXCGN team….