With the launch of Evolve upon us there seems to be an issue that players run into; hunters without mics. In a game like Evolve communication is key. Gamers may have an issue finding other people to play with and in the same conditions, not just in Evolve maybe Destiny, Grand Theft Auto, or even Don’t Starve. There is a new site that can now help you do just that; Gridom.com. Joining me is Gridom’s own Eric Mayet.
ERIC NICOLAI (EN): Eric thanks for joining me. Tell us a little bit more about Gridom, what are you about and what would you like to see happen from here?
ERIC MAYET (EM): Hi and thanks for having me! I´m not alone, actually Gridom is the work of me and my friend Lau.
I´ve had this idea on paper for the last two and a half years, but not having any programmer skills I had to meet the right person to work with, the funny thing is that Lau and I known each other since Halo 3 but only as a gamer buddies and only online we actually never met in real-life, he´s from Denmark and i´m from Sweden. We hooked up last year for the first time and oops I realize he´s this really tight programmer working in Drupal and make a living as a web designer.I pitched him my idea the same day and he didn´t even let me finish my presentation, he just said let´s do it!
That was in September -14 we worked day and night for 3 months and got everything up and running (he worked ;).
Then the hard part started how do you spread the word that you exist? you go on Reddit and they will massacre you because your self promoting your project, Twitter you have no followers and so on. I knew from the beginning that the only chance of getting it of the ground would be to get one of the bigger Studios with an upcoming game releases to dig our idea. Destiny was already in safe hands and the only other game coming out with those kind of LFG mechanics where you really need to play with friends was Evolve.
Beyond amazing was that Turtle Rock studios really liked our concept and their Community Manager Jess Damerst been the most helpful and passionate about Gridom, she invited us to launch our own beta during their January beta. Response was overwhelming and we did gathered information from that 5 day period. And the 10th of February we launched Gridom with Evolve as our main game!
So the Idea is to build one game at a time, even though we have more that 30 games today online, it will spread slowly so we need a really strong foundation and Evolve and its community is precisely that!
EN: It seems as though players can interact with and without creating an account; what is the benefit of creating the account?
EM: We have had a pretty clear idea that we wanted Gridom to be a cool place for every type of gamer, casual, dad gamer, night working gamer, girl gamer E-sport hardcore gamer, but we also knew that we didn´t want the, and I hate this word ”Toxic”, But the toxic gamers, we´re not interested! That ´s also why we don´t have a forum, we think there already are so many good places to talk, so instead Gridom is more like this train station in Barcelona in summer where everyone is on their way to somewhere but at the station it´s this amazing a party going on, no time to argue! 🙂
Honestly gaming is our hobby, we think that a lot of us gamers are feed up with being insulted, bullied for nothing, some of us have limited gaming time, a family, we don´t have time anymore to lose a multiplayer session because of an a-hole with no manners!
So giving the gamers an option to create an account is so that we more easily can control a chat that´s gone sour, know what I mean? Someone starts to argue, just pre-screen the conversation case closed. We are no Polis we re just two guys that love to have a laugh and meet other gamers!
Another reason for the Account thing is that we have a really cool friend to us, he´s a graphic designer in Copenhagen and we talked to him about Gridom and he actually did 12 icons that you get to choose from when you create an account as a bonus. Then when you create a game lobby you can see the icons beside your IGN in the chat. The icons are all hand drawn and 4 are Limited edition ones 😉 those are his vision of iconic gaming logos, like the Counter-Strike or The Master Chief helmet, Links, the classic PS3´s Game God of War. If the site takes off we have a couple of neat ideas in our bucket list for our members!
EN: Will you be adding game as they are launched or prior to game launches to allow players to find session groups and plan before launch?
EM: We will add as many games as we can, problem is how to get the message out that they exists as LFG. We are working hard, actually I´m working hard to get in contact with other game studios so that we can build the community before an official release. Lau has enough work ironing out bugs 😉
EN: What games have you seen the most success with on the site and why do you think that they are?
EM: We are building everything on Evolve at the moment, not only is the game great but it really needs this LFG place as it´s a cool game by itself but once you´ve been with a fun team of Hunters there is no turning back and then ending up in a team where no one communicates is a downer. I would love to get Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate to be our next game, it´s so out there seeing that it´s a Nintendo 3DS Game but the 4 player co-op is amazing and also a real hustle for players to exchange IGN Nintendo style 🙂 Also we´re getting ready for the Heists to get released for GTA V that´s gonna be insane!
EN: Financially if players want to support this project where can they do so?
EM: Support us by spreading the word, come and create lobbies, tell us that you hare having fun! For cash we´ll just sell it to Facebook in 5 years time LOL, haha!
EN: Is there anything else you would like to add any closing comments?
EM: Yeah, whats your gamertag?
EN: Thanks again for your time Eric. It has been wonderful talking with you. I wish you the best of luck on the coming months of Gridom. To answer your question Xbox Live is FlubbedPython and PSN is ranDUMB_panDUH.
Closing Thoughts
Players one thing is for certain and that is that if you are in need of one player or multiple players for a gaming session this may be your new source. Gridom seems to be helpful for finding players on Evolve at the moment, but with the right support it can be a key community for gaming sessions. Feel free to check out the full library of games they have covered here.
