Blog Herding: Community Edition 01/01/15

Happy New Year! Here's hoping each of you has a bright and prosperous 2015. May all your games be good, your extra lives plentiful, and your checkpoints frequent.

After 3.3 years, 14,479 blogs (1,884 of them being featured here), and 175 consecutive weekly episodes, it's with a heavy heart that I announce I'm stepping down as the curator of Blog Herding. I'd like to thank everyone for all of your support and contributions to making the G.I. community what it is, and to Jeff Marchiafava for being awesome.

Fair winds and following seas.

Blog Herding Stats:

Period Reviewed:  December 22 – December 28, 2014

Number of User Blogs: 46
Number of User Bloggers: 27
Number of User Blogs Herded: 10

Community Blogs:

The Gamer's Commitment
LetMeGetToACheckpoint touches on a few different subjects in this blog, including the pressure of holiday sales, linking progress between games, and whether she should buy the Telltale Collection.

Looking Ahead: The Gaming Industry In 5-6 Years
TheAnimeGamer has some interesting thoughts about the future on the video game industry, including a breakdown by each of the consoles and a look at the industry as a whole.

Looking Ahead: Star Wars Battlefront
With 2014 behind us, lots of gamers are already looking to 2015 and the games we might be playing in the New Year. Alto1st discusses his excitement for the Star Wars Battlefront game from DICE.

Winter Wonderland: Memories Of Phendrana
Jack Frost must've been nipping at tstitan, GIO King of Smash's nose, as he reflects on Phendrana Drifts, one of his favorite snow-themed levels found in Metroid Prime.

The Forgotten – Games I Didn't Finish In 2014
While many others are talking about the games they played in 2014 and their picks for Game of the Year, Katzenbalger takes a different approach and discusses the games he hasn't quite finished yet.

The Difference Between Story And Lore
TheDarkestLink considers the differences between story and lore, the overall impact they have on the game and how they can complement each other when they exist together.

GIO Member Herding: Part 71 Of XX
Member Herding is a periodic feature spotlighting random members of the community. In this installment, thegodofwine7 picks a long overdue member. You'll have to click the link to discover who it is.

Final Thoughts 36: Saints Row IV
It's been a few weeks since Eric Watson updated us on the next episode of his Final Thoughts series, but he's back this week having finished off Saints Row IV. Read his thoughts about the game here.

Notable Gaming Industry People Of 2014
The Destroyer recognizes a handful of influential personalities from the video game industry with a brief summary explaining why these people had such an impact on him.

Interview With Dark Souls Fan Artist Gibbs Rainock
Although he left for a while to pursue other opportunities, born4this stops by long enough to republish an interview with Gibbs Rainock, a Hasbro product designer and Dark Souls fan artist.

Community Reviews:

Sunset Overdrive Review – Slaying With Style
Raging Searchers thinks Sunset Overdrive is spectacular and awards the game an impressive score of 9.6 out of 10, but also mentions a few minor annoyances that kept the game from being perfect.

Happy Blogging!

[Editor's Note: It's been my great pleasure to edit Rich's work on Blog Herding for the past three-plus years. His hard work and dedication has made Blog Herding what it is today: an invaluable opportunity for us to promote and celebrate the exceptional writing that our community produces each and every week. While all of us at Game Informer are sad to see Rich move on, we're excited for him and his future ventures. We're also happy to note that Blog Herding will return in one form or another a little later this year, so keep on blogging, and please take a moment to thank Rich for all his efforts over the years in the comments section below. Congrats, Rich!]

Your friendly neighborhood blogging community (12/22/14 – 12/28/14):
Ace236; Allen; Alto1st; born4this; Caudex; cerpintaxman; CodeNameCrono (2); Enuo; Eric Watson (2); happydude633; Katzenbalger; Kflame210; LetMeGetToACheckpoint; MightyMagikarp; Raging Searchers (2); rebekah; Shady Missionary (2); SWAD42; The Destroyer (7); TheAnimeGamer (4); thebassclef626; TheDarkestLink; thegodofwine7; tstitan, GIO King of Smash; Uesugi-dono; xl9; and yours truly...Saint.

"Blogging is not writing. It's just graffiti with punctuation." Dr. Ian Sussman, Contagion