August 14, 2010: Someone Else Noticed The Future

Around the office, we have a fair number of technophiles. A common statement overheard is "I love living in the future." Author John Scalzi (if you haven't read Old Man's War, go do it now!) had a similar thought on his blog, pointing out that when his smartphone isn't as smart as him, he's actually annoyed. I experienced a similar reaction when, on vacation, my Droid would give me a Google Map of my destination, but couldn't make a GPS connection to give me voice guidance.

Except for flying cars, the future seems to be not so much "almost here" as "standing right behind you." Take communicating with your favorite game publisher, for instance. Sure, there's e-mail; everyone has had access to an e-mail address for over a decade. We've got addresses for general inquires, plus all the staffers have their own.

But then we've got forums. Just here at Steve Jackson Games, we've got a forum for questions about Munchkin, one for GURPS, a place to talk about boardgames in general, and even one to just talk about us!

We're on Twitter -- follow @sjgames for RPG hooks, project updates, and random silliness -- as well as Facebook. We even do uStream chats . . . and by "we" I mean "we stick Andrew in front of the camera and giggle at him."

Of course, for all the technology, we still love talking to fans of our games face-to-face at conventions and game stores. Stop by one of the events we'll be attending, and say "hi!"

-- Paul Chapman