We’re happy to introduce our first official GCNZ community feature; an interview with AvT’s (Adversity Gaming) founder, Sami Shanley. We caught up with Sami during her busy schedule juggling work, Uni and AvT organisation for a Q&A with us where we discover how AvT got started, Sami’s personal interest in gaming and what AvT is doing for the community:

Who: Sami Shanley

What: Founder of AvT Gaming Xbox 360 Community

Where: Auckland, New Zealand

Web: www.adversitygaming.com

GC: What made you decide to start AvT Gaming?

Sami: [pullquote]I started AvT in 2009, simply because there was a need for a place to bring together the New Zealand Halo community.[/pullquote] Friends that I was playing with at the time, had been a part of different communities for Halo 2 (that had since died out or shut down), and wanted something similar for Halo 3. Prior to AvT, the closest that New Zealand Halo gamers had was an Australian based site, that only ran Australian based LAN events.

GC: AvT is based in Auckland. Do you organise events in other cities and if so, do you charge money for people to attend?

Sami: Definitely! In January this year, we hosted our first Wellington-based LAN event at Capital E in Wellington Central. We picked Wellington because there are a huge number of gamers there, and the location was centralised for people to travel. Because of events requiring equipment for power, internet, and the venue itself costing money, we do charge for players to attend. We try to keep it as minimal as possible and run the events at break-even rather thanmaking a profit from it.

GC: What does AvT do?

Sami: AvT provides a hub for New Zealand Xbox360 gamers to communicate, compete, and network with other gamers. We provide both online and LAN events, as well as projects such as our soon-to-launch ‘GamerTips’ project, which will see top gamers giving tips for others to improve their game.

GC: There seems to be a serious lack of active communities like AvT in New Zealand. Why do you think this is?

Sami: Generally running communities takes a fair amount of effort, time and money. With New Zealand being quite a small country (in comparison to USA where they have huge gaming communities), it makes it hard to build a solid base to keep going with.

GC: How do you get support (like sponsorship) for your events?

Sami: I try to get in touch with anyone and everyone who would be able to help us out, prior to the event, and see if they’d be willing. [pullquote]Sponsorship is not so easily obtained for a small gaming community, but we’ve had some awesome companies come to the party and give us some promotional goods for our events.[/pullquote]

GC: AvT supports Xbox 360 gamers. Do you have plans to expand this to other platforms or will AvT continue to be solely focused on Xbox 360 gamers?

Sami: Right now, we don’t have any intentions to move to other platforms. AvT was started for the New Zealand Halo community in particular, but has since welcomed gamers from various other Xbox titles. Other platforms seem to have their respective communities fairly solidly in place at the moment, so I don’t intend to take away from any of those communities.

GC: How often does AvT run events for gamers?

Sami: We aim to run online events at least once a month through Xbox Live, with major LAN events happening around 3 times a year. There are smaller LAN events that we also do, such as running small competitions at midnight game launches, and over easter we had a small LAN event where the proceeds were donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Relief Fund.

GC: As a gaming community leader, what concerns do you have for the future of game culture in New Zealand?

Sami: I’m hoping that the development of new games, and the increasing exposure of games and gaming related products will bring more people into gaming, but at the same time, [pullquote]I have concerns that the more recently developed games are losing their competitive edge, and that games are more suited now for social gamers[/pullquote], or gamers who would rather play at home with friends, than attend an event to claim their bragging rights as the best.

GC: It’s great to see a female gamer getting out there and doing something for gamers in New Zealand. Do you see yourself as a role model for female gamers in general? Why or why not?

Sami: I don’t tend to separate myself out as a female gamer as such, I’ve always been one to hang out with the boys, and I am generally accepted as one of them within my friends’ groups. [pullquote]I would love to see more girls getting involved in the competitive side of xbox gaming [/pullquote]however. Most that I either meet through xbox live, or that join up to AvT tend to be more social in nature, and I’d love to see that competitive side come out from them. I do hope that I can motivate more girls to come over to the competitive side, especially in Halo:Reach which brings the biggest numbers to LAN events.

GC: What do you play when you have time?

Sami: Most recently, I’ve been playing quite a bit of the Guitar Hero series (Warriors of Rock and GH5 mainly). Typically I am an FPS kind of girl, so I get right into the Halo and Call of Duty series.

GC: What events does AvT have coming up in the near future?

Sami: July 23/24th will be our next event, run through On3Network. xLAN is the biggest gaming LAN event in the country, although this year due to school holiday clashes, the console and PC events will be run separately. We’re still working on confirming a venue, however it will be in Auckland, and it will be over the weekend of July 23rd and 24th. We will be running competitions for Halo:Reach, Guitar Hero:Warriors of Rock, Tekken 6, Super Street Fighter IV, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Game Culture is also excited to announce that AvT Gaming and Game Culture are now community partners so expect to see more content from the AvT community in the very near future!

Editor’s note: The venue for the Xbox 360 xLAN competition that AvT Gaming are organising has yet to be confirmed but as soon as we’re updated, we’ll let you know.