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MMO Guild Gets Corporate Sponsorship?
Thanks to Warcry for its report revealing what's claimed to be the first corporate sponsorship for a massively multiplayer game guild. The press release explains: "The Syndicate is one of the oldest and largest guilds in online gaming... [and] has become the first guild in online gaming to obtain corporate sponsorship [from a custom PC manufacturer]." Although sponsorship of FPS teams are common, sponsoring a larger gathering of MMO players, currently playing on titles such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, is much less normal - though it's unclear exactly how 'sponsorship' will work with so many members and no FPS-style showcase competitions.
And hats.
I have been pwned because my
..Because after reading their web page which betrays more than a few personality disorders in whoever wrote that pseudo-prose-documentary-crap one must wonder: Who the hell wants to be associated with that bullshit? Furthermore i am hard pressed to see how a brand/company would benefit from having Griffin running around in a game. Also i imagine their law #1 "We are a secretive guild and a very close team" would cause some trouble, marketing wise.
So let me get this straight. A guild, in games that thrive of male ego and boasting, is getting blasted on slashdot. How ironic.
I am not in this guild, but I have played in a number of games that they circulate in. They are very well organized, also float to the top, and on average are nice guys.
I think it is funny and ironic that some of you would look at a website, which I looked at, and realize it is a spoof of sorts.
Anyway, good on them. They just got sponsered to play games. Hell, most people can't get sponsered to work....just look at a large portion of slashdot.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Back when I was actually playing EverQuest 'The Syndicate' was in fact probably the largest guild on our server. However, bloated might be the better term. 'The Syndicate' rarely turned anyone away, their tactics tended to be the 'zerg rush' style of sending as many bodies at a target as possible. This was a few years ago however, so they may have possibly changed their ways since then.
What I don't understand however, is what does the guild get out of the corporate sponsorship? Last time I checked there wasn't much in the way of a financial cost of running a guild aside from the cost of hosting a website and forums.
They will get some publicity for simply being the 'first' sponsors of an MMOPG guild. If all it cost them is some hosting and a few hats 'n t-shirts then i'm sure the cost will be worth it.
For the oldest and largest guild in mmorpg'dom, the 15 random MMORPGers I asked had never heard of em.
Vermifax
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this looks like some sort of blatant advertisement..someone from slashdot must be a buddy.
anyway, never heard of them , and I played EQ since before it was released.
looks like your average gang of tools judging from their website. one of them probably is the owner and sole employee of the sponsor company.
I spent some time over a couple of months about a year ago, researching The Syndicate for an article i was doing for my news site. I read their claims of size, success and other things and being the skeptic I am, I put alot of time into researching them. I will have to admit I had hoped I could shoot alot of holes in their claims as that would have made for a very interesting story. I ended up not being able to shoot holes in it but I did end up with a really cool story. I learned a whole bunch in my research of talking to gamers, developers, pks, anti-pks, reading boards and even trying to join a char to the guild to see it from the inside. It is real easy to sit back and slam someone who has something you dont or write words about someone to put them down. Its fun. Ive done it alot myself. But in this case, its not justified. It isnt my job to defend that group but you should at least get some facts right. The host a huge conference with well over a hundred people each year which is the largest one any gaming group has ever done. They must be doing something right if they can do that. They are very large but they only seem to accept people they know. I couldnt get in no matter how great I faked the application because they didnt know me or the app wasnt written to indicate I was the kind of person they wanted. They are courted by many developers as I soon learned and invited to tons of betas and given accts and other free stuff. The gaming world is several million people large so even though you may not have heard of them, their claims are true and correct and if you were as successful as they were, youd be bragging too. They have their stuff together and deserve the kudos they get.