SeasonedGamers.com We are not a community, we are a family.

I first wanted to write this specific blog on the 7 year anniversary of when Seasoned Gamers started but that day came and went without me even cluing in that it was near. I did get an email from SG saying happy anniversary, you've been here 7 years, or something like that and that didn't even click in and I signed up on the first day. I'm actually the 2nd longest active member of the site. The only one there longer is JAMO who created the website.

What is SG all about? Well, like the title of this blog states, we are a family, not a community. That is actually partially true. Yes we are a community. We have currently 1,016 members. But the heart and soul of SG is in the group of Moderators, Administrators and overly active members of the site. We are what makes SG what it is, a family like atmosphere. If you look in any family, your own, your friends or whoever, you see a close, loving relationship that is full of helpful hands, great conversations, great friends and the occasional insults we joke about with each other.

I have not had the opportunity...sorry, let me re-phrase that. I have not had the privilege to meet anyone in person who is a member of SG but I have talked with them on the forums, XBL, text messages and on one occasion, on the phone. We do have a yearly meet up called the Spring Fling that many of us "SG Family" members go but all have been in the USofA and me living in Canada and without a passport, I cannot go. I do check out what other SGer's who go have to say after the event and I look at all the pictures and I can tell that it's a blast.

The site started initially in the XBox forums specifically in the Halo sub-forum when a couple people started talking about finding a forum we can all go to that is for adults. No kids allowed. So after a month or two of discussion, and the nice moderators at the XBox forums for not deleting an off topic thread in the Halo forum, JAMO posted about him getting started with making a forum we can all go to.

I made sure to check the link he provided almost every 2-5 minutes. Finally it worked and I signed in as member 04. Member 01 was the initial SG account, 02 was JAMO, 03 was some person who never posted and ended up getting his account deleted, then myself. Since then, there have been over a thousand people sign up and hundreds of accounts being deleted due to inactivity of finding out they are under the minimum age requirement.

In the past 7 years, SGers have helped with giving stuff to other SGers in need such as, XBox 360's, games, plane tickets, gifts, and the list goes on. I have not been part of this helpful side of things due to financial situations but if the opportunity ever arises again, and I am able to help, I'll be jumping in with both feet.

We have yearly leagues in Halo, CoD, Racing, Golf, L4D and others. We also hold our own Olympics every 2 years. We have many online meetups throughout the week that you can find any member of SG in. You will find someone to help you out with anything from gaming problems, network problems or any and everyday stuff.

So many things have went on in SG that there was always someone there to lend some kind words of advice, have someone pray for others, and even give best wishes to many things. We have dealt with at least one death of a member, RIP NextLevel360, we have been there when a member, Dadflash and his wife went to China to pick up their new baby girl, we've helped people with getting threw divorces, helped with giving advice on raising children and even shared funny stories that has happened to us and our own family. We've also had members of SG meet up in Afghanistan, and Iraq for a quick meet up when they had down time.

I am proud to say that I am a member of the best online community I have found online. There are not many people or places I can call my family or even a home but SG is one of those places. I will forever be a member of this community no matter how old I get.

And like the Seasoned Gamers tag line says; "Fun. Friends. Family. HOME." No words can be truer.

~ JB