Choc-Salties becomes Gamesmaster at MWEB

So Reinhard we’ve recently heard that you’ve gone to MWEB Gaming (GameZone), having left Webafrica's WAGE. You’ve got a fulltime job that most gamers would love to have, that most only dream of.

Q: What made you leave Web Africa?

A: Well Web Africa is a wonderful company to work for with an excellent set of co-workers and a wonderful team of public admins to help in the day-to-day operations, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with the direction, or rather lack of direction, that the company had in mind for the gaming department. While providing a community service was a great function of the department, I wanted to do more. With MWEB, I now have the ability, tools and support to carry out that idea. Plus the dark side offered me cookies.

Q: Was your departure a happy or sad event? Give us the raw details...

A: I will. For the most part, I miss my former co-workers who helped and supported me during my tenure there. Stephen, Shahid, Brendon, Colin, Jeff and Simon, in particular. I will miss their dedication to their work and their enthusiasm for mine. That being said, there is one person in particular who I am sad to say I won’t miss. He in particular spent more time trying to make sure he looked good in his superiors’ eyes and did more brown-nosing than anything else. If there was anyone who could be described as a PHB (Pointy-Haired Boss), its him.  

Q: Having seen both environments, who’s better... Who takes gaming more seriously?

A: MWEB, hands down. I'm now part of a dedicated team who is going to be propelling online gaming forward with rocket boosters attached! I'm working with Brad, a.k.a shotgunschmoe, the original legendary Gamesmaster for MWEB as well as Desmond, a.k.a. Bosbvok, who already has extensive experience in online gaming and other online entertainment fields as well. We’ve got some interesting and every exciting plans being rolled out over the immediate future, to make the online gamers’ experience more complete and even more entertaining!

Q: You punted Web Africa’s servers pretty hard, the Freezone and their FTP. Does MWEB have similar services you are aware of?

A: Web Africa pioneered various concepts such as Freezone in South Africa and from a product standpoint, it is very good. The game servers setup and configuration along with lessons learnt initially from Big League Gaming and OC is what puts WAGE ahead of the competition. But all of those things, while awesome in themselves, are nothing without the gaming community to get feedback and input from to refine and further improve them. I intend to bring that same zeal to MWEB, and once again, with ongoing community feedback and participation, as well as the formidable backup I now have, develop a large, strong and devoted community of gamers, by gamers.

Q: Any major plans that you mind mentioning to keep the gamers amped?

A: Our Battlefield 3 rollout is on schedule and along with other initiatives to make the acquisition of titles via online methods easier and more accessible to gamers. There isn’t much I can say at the moment. It must remain a secret for a little longer. Oh, by the way, console gamers: we have a special surprise coming for you guys...

Q: So what is your actual title? What do you do from day to day and is it true that you play games for a living?

A: I don’t have a particular title but Gamesmaster is close enough. I fulfil much of the same roles as I used to. As to what I do from day-to-day, includes preparation and maintenance of game servers and services (voice comms, FTP, etc), monitoring game server performance (think of the Matrix movies when those guys look at computer screens – I see similar things) as well as respond to gamer queries via various communication methods. That would be an outline of my role but it gets quite involved from there. As to playing games for a living: Short answer is: YES!!