{"id":34,"date":"2006-09-17T22:39:38","date_gmt":"2006-09-18T05:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=34"},"modified":"2006-09-17T22:41:24","modified_gmt":"2006-09-18T05:41:24","slug":"dan-amrich-card-carrying-geek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=34","title":{"rendered":"Dan Amrich, card-carrying geek"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We can agree that nobody &#8220;gets&#8221; community the way that Microsoft gets it, right? PS2&#8217;s online venture was a failure and Nintendo didn&#8217;t even try. Microsoft had a good idea for its online gaming network, ran with it, made it significantly better for 360, and now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/live\/?WT.svl=nav\">Xbox Live membership<\/a> is automatic if you&#8217;re an Xbox gamer; you get it just by plugging your console into an Internet connection. &#8220;What&#8217;s your Gamertag?&#8221; is a common question to new people I meet. So allow me to squeal with girlish glee at the fact that my Gamertag is on a physical membership card.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/xbldiamond.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Microsoft quietly launched the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xboxlivediamond.com\">Xbox Live Diamond<\/a> card this past year as a weird but logical extension of that concept of community. Sign up for free and, as a card-carrying member of Xbox Live, get discounts at places both obvious ($10 off a $75 order at Gamestop.com; $10 arcade credit at Dave &#038; Busters; buy-a-dozen-get-a-dozen-free at Krispy Kreme) and head-scratching (free wine glasses with the purchase of a wine subscription at Cellars; 50% off your Golden Gate Yacht Club membership). And I&#8217;m shameless, I&#8217;ll use the card and get bargains. But really, I am unabashedly, stupidly happy that my virtual life now comes with physical evidence. There&#8217;s something about seeing my Gamertag embossed in a plastic card that I find&#8230;thrilling.<\/p>\n<p>Look, they&#8217;ve already got all my demographic information and they are going to sell it to the highest bidder; why not get something back?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We can agree that nobody &#8220;gets&#8221; community the way that Microsoft gets it, right? PS2&#8217;s online venture was a failure and Nintendo didn&#8217;t even try. Microsoft had a good idea for its online gaming network, ran with it, made it &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/?p=34\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bunnyears.net\/dan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}