I've been an Xbox gamer pretty much since the service was released back in 2003. I missed the 5 year deal, but I distinctly remember getting my Xbox from my wife while on a road trip up to Alabama and thinking how great she was.

The box came with a separate copy of NFL Fever 2003. I was incredibly excited to play online. So when we got back from our trip, I hooked everything up, threw the game in, and kept getting whalloped. It didnt bother me that I was losing (I dont try to deceive myself and think that I'm some kind of competitive gamer), but I was losing to glitchers and cheaters. If I was winning, I'd get the "plug pull" - my opponent would disconnect his modem and he wouldnt get credit for the loss (I wouldnt get the win either). Or there was the old punt kick glitch that almost always worked like a backwards onsides kick (and it would be done to me with the score already 42-3 or something in their favor). In short, online stunk.

I don't remember how, but I stumbled across Grownup Gamers and dove in head-first into what was billed as an online adult gaming community. I met people, made a couple of connections, even managed to serve in an admin capacity for a little while, before politics and in-fighting disrupted what they called "The Council" back then. I admit, I have pretty strong opinions about what I perceive to be things being done to hurt people, and I am not afraid to speak my mind. I dont think that went over well with the rest of the group, who I (and I mean no disrespect by this at all, GuG) affectionately refer to as the "Rated PG" crowd. My biggest problem was that I felt everything was pretty isolated. Not enough was done to welcome people who were new, or embrace them after they hung around for a while. There were a lot of people but only a "core group" that always hung out together.

In any case, my differences led me to part ways with them (for the most part, no love lost or bridges burned), and I found Geezer Gamers. At they time, they had just exploded in memberships due to some Humpday Challenge exposure over at Bungie (if you look me up there, I think I'm member 21). Its a site I visit still to this day, but it's died down a lot, and has again become a "core group" with others hanging out on the periphery.

Next, it was 2Old2Play, and here is where I thought I had finally landed in a place to hang my hat. The site's got an enormous membership base, everyone must be over 25 to participate, and I was greeted pretty warmly there. But eventually, again, my online presence diminished and it has become a "core group" of people, further compounded by the fact that its heavily broken up with separate clan forums. You could potentially be talking to the same 5 people while 200 others would be online talking to their own 5 people. It was an incredibly "cliquish" experience. I drifted away after the site became more adult-oriented in terms of non-gaming content (honestly, I think we can be adult gamers without having to deal with dodging NSFW posts and videos), and the final straw was a sad slap on the wrist by the admins because a member openly flaunted the fact that he was under 25 (surprisingly he was not banned). But that's another issue. The bottom line is I felt like it disintegrated into yet another place where most people were on the periphery.

Finally, I have found a place as of late at Seasoned Gamers. I've been a member now for just over 8 months. And while I was warmly greeted when I first arrived, I see yet again that the same people hang out with one another, and many new folks just cannot penetrate this inner circle and meet other people. Now, this is not a complaint. But I feel there is a decided strike against new community members when they join groups like this (and really forums in general, but I am writing within the context of gaming websites).

For one, gaming as a social activity means that you probably hang out with the same set of people, especially if you are even semi-competitive and want to learn and work with other play styles. Eventually you try to get to know other people on your team - what they do, how long have they been married, etc. New people who come in later in the game are at a disadvantage right off the bat. There is little incentive to let others into their social circle, and too often new users end up not being very active because they dont share the same kind of relationships that the older members do. Clans fall into this category to a lesser extent - typically clan membership is open provided you are good enough to participate (especially if its a competitive clan).

These kinds of relationships take time to build, and this is where I think for the large part of the gaming population (and online gaming in general) that these sites will never meet their full potential. I am a married guy with a full time management position, attending school, with a variety of other interests, responsibilities, and hobbies. It is difficult for me to spend the kind of time that is expected if I am going to get comfortable hanging out with people that I newly meet in these forums. I've had numerous invites rejected because usually people who know others more are given precedence in rooms. If I'm accepted, more than likely its to fill another person's spot - and this is when it usually works out well. But getting your foot in the door is notoriously difficult. So many people within these communities get tunnel vision when it comes to people they know and hang out with, and newer people just cannot crack the proverbial nut. So they wander elsewhere usually. I have 90 people on my friends list and I have never played with 70 of them. No one knows me, and I dont know them.

Geezer Gamers has a terrific ambassador type program where new folks are taken under the wing of veteran members and introduced in game. I think that goes a really long way towards making people feel comfortable. I have not seen another site do this, and I think this act alone would make 99% of the outer circle feel better, more comfortable, and become productive site members. No other site I know (and Xbox adopted this practice) does this.

So what's an "adult gamer" to do? If gaming is a social activity, you'd want to do it with people you are comfortable with (and the pipes on XBL are filled with GIFWs, thank you Penny Arcade). People will not get comfortable with you unless you play more with them. You cannot play more with them because you have higher priority responsibilities most likely, because, well, you're an adult. Since you cannot play very often, you can't get comfortable with the people you've just met.

And there's the problem that I like to call The Endless Loop. I fit into this, and I think most of us do. Are we doomed then to the GIFWs? I'm not sure. There's a difference between an "adult gamer" and "an adult who games". To me the former is able to invest a large majority of their time in it. The latter treats it as just another hobby. I don't know if there's some kind of middle ground. Its exclusively an online problem (obviously single player games don't share this type of issue).

All this is really stream of consciousness, but its something that I've chewed on for about a week, since I lost my 360Voice streak. Obviously, I need to do whats best for my family. But its this kind of priority switching that makes me evaluate just how useful online gaming is to the average adult who games.