by Joe - jgand@pcfootball.net

5/25/03 

That’s right folks, it’s true.

PCFootball.net has been sold to me. Joe Gandolfo. BigDaddyCool.

So now that Bret has handed over the keys and we are now under new management, what does this mean for the site and the forums?

It means that a lot of things are going to stay the same.

For now.

Ok, breathe, breathe, this does not mean that I am going to be making wholesale changes in how things are done here. Right now I am going to be leaving things as they are in terms of site design, mods, content, etc. Eventually I can envision some of the forum rules being amended to safeguard us against certain situations. That’s common sense, right?

To that end maybe this would be a good time to tell you that I was not exactly alone in funding the bid for this site. You see, with my employment situation as it is, I would have had to have some partners in this venture. Soon after the site went on the auction block, some individuals, who prefer to remain nameless, who care very deeply about this site, contacted me. They wanted to see the site go to someone who would keep it going, make it grow, and not link it to another site and otherwise put a stake in its heart and kill it.

To that end they were able to front me some of the money needed to bring that dream to fruition. But I didn’t just want to be the guy running this site without having a stake in its purchase. So I did some math, gathered up some of my own funds, and made the bid. As far as I know, there is a possibility that I may be the majority owner of this site. There were three or four other people involved on the other end as far as money goes. So if you divide what they gave me three or four ways, then that possibility should be true.

Now, all that being said my partners would probably have some ideas on what we should do to make this site better. Their input is more than welcome, as is the input of all of the members of this site. I welcome all opinions, ideas, notions and schemes you can dream up to make this site a force in not only PC Football games, but in PC Gaming in general. Having said that, I have a couple of ideas on what we can do:

• Promote us and establish a relationship with PC Gamer magazine. I think that they would be a big help in getting our name out there among PC Gamers who may either not know about us, or think that we are a joke. We can always use some positive publicity and I think PC Gamer might be able to help.
• Establish some kind of relationship with the G4 TV Network, particularly with G4TV.com co-host Scott Rubin. I’ve seen the man on the air and I think he would be a major ally for us. The man is a self-confessed Madden nut! True, he has played mostly the PS2 version, but I think it’s time we showed him just how good the PC version really could be.
• Merchandising: I had this idea a while ago and I would like to try to make this happen to raise some money for the site. MaddenPlanet has already capitalized on this idea of selling T-Shirts, Mugs, and yes even thongs with their logo on it. I had the idea a while back of selling Instigator mini-helmets, both the original TotalMadden Throwback version, and the modern PCFootball version. I’m going to see what I can do to get them to look good before putting them on the site. If anyone has any other ides on how we can raise money to cover our costs let me know.

Now I know that in the past few weeks there has been some controversy on this site. Allow me to put my two cents in on some of these topics. True, in the past I have tried to stay clear of them and not get caught in the crossfire, but now since I’m occupying the Captain’s Chair of the Starship U.S.S. PC Football my opinion should be heard:

• Invisibility Mode: I can understand some people wanting the option to browse the boards without anybody seeing that they are online. However, I can also understand Bret’s take that someone can come onto the site with the intention of starting trouble, and using invisibility to keep people from seeing that they are online.

My take is this – if they are here to start trouble and not make a contribution to the forums, we will be able to view their posts anyway. We will already know who they are and we can vote them off the island. Seriously, we can take a vote among the board members to decide if so-and-so should be sent packing. And no, you can’t nominate someone for banishment if you are having an argument with them, or if they beat you in the championship game of your league, or if you don’t like their signature. Whomever we vote on should have a long history of acting like an ass on this board without any sign that he/she/it was going to change their ways. Perfect examples of this would be SammytheBull attacking and threatening people he disagreed with, JohnnyEcstasy’s vendetta against JaquelineStrapp and GoChiefs’ incessant spamming of the boards.

• Speaking of GoChiefs: He has been banned once again from the boards. Bret finally had enough and slipped in the shower, hitting the keyboard with the soap once again. The question is out there among some of you I’m sure: will BigDaddyCool lift the ban on GoChiefs?

Answer: nah. Honestly, I’m not going to miss the spam. I still haven’t forgotten about the sonogram he altered making fun of Phenom’s baby. I can’t tell you how many of his threads I have to dig through every single day that has to do with nothing at all. Who cares if his sister is having sex in the other room? Who cares how long it takes for a pizza to be delivered to his house? Who cares about his inability to ask a girl out? I don’t! Do any of you?

• Members who have left: If they want to come back to the boards, the door is open for them. Concussion, Jstrappe, et al. If they want to come back, they will be welcome.

• David Branda: No-brainer there. I don’t like David as an administrator; I don’t like him as a person. I think it’s safe to say that many of you feel the same way. I can also imagine that you do not want him here polluting our forums. If that is the case, then good – neither do I. I really don’t feel like introducing that cancer to our community.

• Various other members of Maddenmania.com: if they wish to come over to this site and make a positive contribution, then they are welcome. If they wish to come over here to start up the site wars once again, then I say don’t even bother showing up. We want this board to be a positive experience for all. We don’t want it to turn into a free-for-all where a couple of punks come in here, start insulting people, and then go back to wherever and say that all we do is flame. We don’t need that or want that and neither does any other quality site.

• Bret: Whether you like him at the moment or not, whether you are pissed at him right now or not we can all agree on the same thing, we all owe a debt of gratitude to this man for starting this site. That being said there might be some of you wondering if he is going to be around or not. That is entirely up to him. It will be his decision as to weather he sticks around or not. I know he is planning on taking a sabbatical from this site for an indeterminate period of time. So with Bret, I think we should take a wait and see attitude.

Now I can imagine that there are some of you out there who might be concerned that this site will abandon or scale back the free-speech principles that this site was based on. I am here to tell you to put your concerns aside, because as long as I hold the pink slip those same principles that this site was founded on will be in place.

However, if there is one thing that we have learned in the past few months it is this: free speech is not really free, it comes with a price tag. No, that does not mean I am going to start charging subscriptions to get on the boards. It means that you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to the 1st Amendment.

To quote a line from the movie "The American President": "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who is standing center stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

There has been a lot of debate on this site about whether free speech is really valued here. I can assure you that it is. But free for one has to mean free for all, otherwise you have a select group of people who can say anything about anyone or any subject they want. While everybody else has to stay in line and not say anything that might get them banned. That is what David does at MaddenMania, and needless to say we strive to be better than that.

Yes, we welcome debate here. Yes, we welcome the free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas are not exactly popular with everybody. All we ask is that everyone on this board acts like adults and not allow what should be a civilized debate degenerate into a shouting match where feelings get hurt. There has been too much of that happening on these boards in the past, and I don’t want to see that happening now that I’m in the driver’s seat. I imagine that most if not all of you share those feelings.

This website is devoted to gaming. This is supposed to be about having fun and sharing our experiences with our fellow gamers. We can’t afford to put ourselves into separate camps because we may disagree with somebody else on certain issues. My chief task will be to raise the quality of this site so that not only our peers on the net may respect us, but so that our voices may be heard as a valuable consumer base. That was another goal that Bret had – to raise the awareness of the software companies of the untapped market that PC Gamers have recently become when it comes to football gaming. That is something that we must return to, and we must return to it now.

This is a site that has many functions, and it is my hope that we may fulfill all of the goals that we set forth to make this one of the better gaming communities on the Internet. And if your intention is to come here to try to destroy what we are attempting to do than your presence will not be welcome here. Many have come here before to smear this site and we are still standing. This is our time to take center stage, and David, your 15 minutes are up.

My name is Joe Gandolfo, and I am the Manager of the General Partnership.

Until next time…