A Tale of a Winged Grafoman or a Conversation Lasting Half a Year
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Good day, friends!

I don't know about you, but for me, one of the best blog posts on Gamer.ru has always been the numerous interviews with the creators of the portal, prominent gamers from the top lists, and simply the heroes of the day. Warm conversations over a cup of coffee... though, what coffee – I've always been happy with games and creativity instead. From these talks, one could learn what lies behind the username and avatar of a well-known user, get to know them a bit better, and even peek a little into their soul. I think many of you, just like me, enjoyed such corners of revelations. However, lately, the number of such works has decreased a bit. Whether the reason is the lack of heroes or perhaps the laziness of journalists is unknown. What is known, however, is that today I will try to conduct a similar interview (read: interrogation) with a person about whom, without a doubt, every pioneer on GРU has at least heard of once. Who doesn't know Pegasus (Pegazs), a guy who, like the hero of his nickname, on the mighty wings of his talent brings us joyful news, interesting projects, wonderful reviews and guides. But our knowledge about him is superficial; we see only what he allows us to see while hiding behind a winged avatar in the vastness of GРU. Today, he will open up a little more and tell you a lot. Do you want to listen? Well then – let's go!

Brief Biographical Reference:

Name: Mikhail

Date of Birth: 27.10.1995

Place of Residence: Russia

Character: Chaotically Neutral

Gamer.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

"Part of the clan switched to Perfect World, and I, purely out of curiosity, decided to take a look... need I say that I woke up only about six months later? =) The first MMO – it’s the scariest one."

So, Mikhail, we all know that Pegasus exists on GРU. But surely we would like to know more about the real person, about the one hiding behind the image of a winged horse from mythology. Tell us a bit about yourself: where do you live, what are you currently doing?

I live in the outskirts of the city. You won’t believe it, but there is life here too. Like almost anyone my age, I mainly suffer from idleness. This is that amusing age when you can work purely 'for the idea', for yourself, without thinking about finances =)

Since you brought up the topic of age: there are two versions on GРU that say you are either 15 or 21 years old. Which one is true?

I choose the audience's help The first version.

Well then, that is indeed the age when you can indulge in frivolities )

Exactly. For example, registering at gamer.ru.

And how did you actually register on this 'frivolous' site?

I simply registered by clicking the 'registration' button. Usually, that’s how it goes, right? ;)

Indeed. But what led you to this act, where did you learn about the portal, how did you stumble upon it?

The first time I stumbled upon it was during the beta test, and I even got inside, albeit on the second try (pegasus, hi!). I poked around, didn’t understand anything (the 'Help' section still terrifies me) and left because I had a deadline for another project. The second time I found the site through Yandex. If my memory serves me right, I was looking for information about Zombie Mode (or something like that) for Oblivion.

The first attempt was unsuccessful. But still, on the second try, you ended up staying on GРU. Why? What caught your attention?

THERE IS A BLOG ABOUT OBLIVION!!! AAAAH!!!! Okay, if I’m being a bit serious,

I was just bored as usual (“It’s not hard work that makes a monkey into a human, but laziness and the thirst for freebies”), and a couple of days after that, I parted ways with that team because creating mods is clearly not my thing, but I still wanted to find a place to put the accumulated information. Fortunately, the gamer 'just got lucky' to end up in the wrong search result =) Overall, I tend to participate in adventures.

Without a doubt, gamer.ru is lucky that you stayed here. But let's now shift away from the GРU topic and talk about something else. You often mention mod-making. How are you connected to it?

Not at all =)

And programming?

Even less.

But I have information that before GРU, you were actively involved in the development of several internet projects. Is that true?

Um... can HTML be considered a programming language? o_ O Or are you subtly trying to request my internet biography? =)

Aha, so you do know HTML. What else? And what was Pegas doing on the internet before that happy day when the search engine led him to Gamer?

Well, do you want the beginning or what?

Let's start from the beginning while I go grab a lunch )))

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Oops, not from here. In December 2007, not far from the city outskirts, we actually had a dedicated line installed....

As a long-time reader of the magazine LKI, my first step was to register on the forum of that magazine. At that time, I really enjoyed playing Call of Duty 4 (Modern Warfare 2 pales in comparison, in my opinion) and quite accidentally contacted someone named Idalgos about the problem with his PunkBuster. I already had an unhealthy craving for likes, it should be noted. As we chatted, I found out that he had a clan in Battlefield 2142, but didn’t have a website. I don’t remember hitting my head anywhere, but I decided to help. Consider the absurdity of the situation: not knowing HTML at all, never having heard of CSS, having played only the very first part of Battlefield, and not knowing anyone from the clan, I decided to create a website and forum. Madness. And by the way, I immediately sent Ucoz to the far woods, as the worst system in the world. My choice back then fell on the hosting vdelo.ru, which used Joomla. In the last days of the clan, we were even planning to move the site to [normal hosting](http://ult1mate2142.vdelo.ru/). It took about two weeks to make this mess. Yes, I redesigned the template, yes, I didn’t manage to finish everything so that it worked properly (a random image remained unfinished), but I was 12 years old at that time and my sense of beauty didn’t seem to be offended at first glance. Although I still find it naive that I called myself the 'chief programmer of the site' =D Somewhere in the middle of the process of learning HTML and CSS, I decided to distract myself a bit. Quite an unusual way: I began to investigate Wiki markup. From fire to flame, they say. There was actually a project on the LKI forums called Wiki-LKI that at the time was in a state of 'one foot in the grave'. That’s where I wrote my first 'article'. This nonsense looked something like this: [First article](http://forum.lki.ru/wiki/index.php?title=Call_of_Duty_4_-_Modern_Warfare&oldid=883) (if any Wikipedians are reading this interview, I think they already grabbed their heads). My involvement in the development of this project is generally described like this: 'Thank you very much for the encyclopedia. Without you, it would have remained a dead idea.' Objectively speaking, the project was originally unlikely to have any prospects, but regardless of whether my contribution was that significant, Wiki-LKI is still alive today. I hope it develops into something actually decent. In the next six months, I figured out what TeamSpeak was, figured out wiki markup, on a low level still learned HTML (although I still don’t know how to read it correctly =)) Somewhere in July 2008, the clan Ult1m@TE finally disbanded. By the way, I eventually did buy Battlefield 2142, but only about a year after that event =) Part of the clan switched to Perfect World, and out of curiosity, I looked at it... need I say that I woke up only about six months later? =) The first MMO – it’s the scariest one. Around this time, I was struck by two insane ideas: 1) creating a clan of artists, writers, etc. with the working title Creators 2) creating a magazine called Perfect News. For example, here’s the first issue: [Perfect News](http://pegazs.ru/pn/newpn1). The first idea, as I can now analyze with relative calmness from the future, was doomed to fail. The second, on the other hand, even lived through four issues. My main mistake was that the idea of creating a magazine came to me when interest in the game itself had already started to fade. By the way, when I said that my first attempt to settle on Gamer.ru was 'hindered by a deadline,' I meant the third issue, I think, of PN. Then, up until my arrival at this site, nothing at all interesting happened. I still lazily pushed Wiki-LKI, got my humble hosting for experiments... Along the way, my nickname had undergone a bit of transformation =)

An excellent story, worthy of admiration and imitation. You mentioned the transformation of the nickname. I think everyone will be curious to know where this hard-to-pronounce nickname Pegazs came from.

My nickname is the result of a mistake by Wikipedians...

Intriguing.

Originally, I was just Pegas. It came about in roughly the same way that the number 42 came to Douglas Adams: 'I was sitting at my desk, staring at the garden, and thought: '42 works'. And wrote it down. That's the whole story. It was funny later to discover that Pegasus is also in a certain sense 'the muse' of all creative people, but I learned about that much later. So in general: yes, it 'just fit'. Moderately unique, moderately symbolic.

But still, Pegasus is a beloved character from myths, right?

Today, probably so. But back then, I was just going through options and from all that my subconscious gave me, I chose this one.

I see. Now tell us about that mistake made by the Wikipedians that turned Pegasus into Pegazs, which leads every second user on GРU to write your nickname incorrectly.

This transformation happened on the day when I once again decided to plunge into EVE Online. I didn’t want to use numbers, so I just went to Wikipedia, opened the article about Pegasus, and began to browse through various languages. After some searching and a lot of clicks on 'check name availability', I finally stumbled upon Pegazs. This is Latvian. So it's not exactly a mistake, yes.

Alright, we’ve sorted out your nickname. Now let's talk about your hobbies. It's clear that one of them is gaming. Tell us about your gaming career.

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful thing called the ZX Spectrum. That’s where it all started. Sea battle, fighters, Dizzy, and of course, Elite. Although I mainly observed the latter from the sidelines. It was at that time that the analyst in me woke up: on average, watching a game is even more interesting to me than participating. For example, regarding League of Legends, I can write a review and even think I could manage a couple of guides (modest, but still), but personally, I've only played two matches (well, it just happened that I really had to watch a lot of other people play :) Then the great and terrible Pentium arrived. The third one, if memory serves me right. The first game there turned out to be the first Call of Duty. 'Call of Duty' practically became my favorite series – I remember the campaign of the second part almost by heart, and I sometimes log into the first part's multiplayer game too. As for the multiplayer mode of MW2, as I've already mentioned in passing, it's an outright failure (they brought back dedicated servers in Black Ops, but there were issues there too). And from there, it slowly progressed. Morrowind, Blitzkriegs, Starcraft, fully completed Warcraft II, and Warcraft III that I never finished. There are just so many to mention. In the end, my favorite genres today are shooter and indie. I would list Call of Duty and The Elder Scrolls as my favorite series.

But Elder Scrolls doesn’t fit into either the shooter or indie genres. Is RPG another favorite genre of yours?

I haven’t yet thought about completing DAO, and I finished Witcher and Mass Effect a couple of months ago. What kind of RPG lover does that make me? =)

You’re a promising RPG enthusiast. No matter how you put it, Elder Scrolls is essentially an icon of the RPG genre today.

So that's the only icon I have at the moment.

What do you value most in games?

The world. I'm a maniac, reading the plot in even casual games.

What is the ideal game for you? Is there one at the moment, and if not, what qualities should games acquire to be considered ideal?

An ideal game is a myth, %gamername%. But I consider a good game to be one that I don’t want to tear myself away from =) An ideal game is a game that you like. I rarely finish games completely, I should note.

What do games represent for you? And how much time do you spend playing them?

In a sense, they are an object of study.

But not an object of worship?

In exceptional cases, maybe, but generally, I’m most interested in seeing what developers have come up with =)

So you’re evaluating games rather than enjoying them? Or are there occasions when a game is technically weak, there’s nothing new in it, but you’re still willing to sit there for hours on end?

There aren’t any games that are that weak. There’s always some, even if minor, feature. So I evaluate the game, but find joy in those little things =) Variety is our everything.

So it's better to dabble in many rather than focus on one but constantly?

Well, generally speaking – yes.

Now it’s clear why you rarely complete games ))) Tell me, does describing games, creating reviews and guides motivate you to play games? Does the desire to create a review of a game spur you on to finish it?

Rather it motivates me to finish the playthrough :D Recently, I often review retro games. I do this to 'pay homage' to what I once enjoyed. And I generally enjoy exploring older games – the ideas don’t age.

Moreover, there is a belief that in retro games, ideas and plots were the predominant factors, while nowadays, games are renowned only for their graphics, lacking 'soul'. Do you agree with this?

In pursuit of polygons, people indeed tend to forget about plots and others, but the difference isn’t that vast. The problem today isn’t graphics but financial issues. Moreover, it's sometimes easier to create a 'dream game' by yourself. That's why I love indie – you need to be able to pull the whole game on one idea.

And the last question about games: do you consider yourself a gamer? And what does being a gamer mean to you?

Strange question. Yes, I consider myself one, because a gamer is just a word that means a person who plays games.

Well, that’s technically speaking. But let’s say a person who plays 'Durak' at work out of boredom. Are they a gamer?

Magistrum, hi! =) But 'Durak' is not a computer game.

No, seriously. I think a real gamer should love games, maybe not play them (due to lack of time or other personal reasons), but still love them and relish every moment spent on games.

How can one love what one doesn’t know?

Love in advance))

Nope, unfortunately, that’s impossible.

Activity on the Portal

"I can be a good copier and can even get pluses for that, no matter what anyone says"

A few more questions that should unveil you as a person :) We figured out that games are one of your passions. But probably not the only one. What else? What are your interests, what are your hobbies, what does Pegas enjoy in ordinary, real life?

Nothing is more unstable than my hobbies =) There was a period of about a year when I couldn’t be pulled away from books, and sometimes I can't even bear to look at them. At different times, I was into astronomy, astrology, various legends, I’m quite into furry culture, I like watching movies... a relatively standard set, overall. In this regard, I don’t stand out much =)

And writing? Is it a hobby or work?

Work? No, it’s just a hobby. Sometimes a way of self-expression, sometimes a chance to assert myself, but in any case, I just enjoy it. This is also why I can spend weeks without producing anything, or I can produce four reviews in four days.

What prompted you to write your first review in your life? Or to jot down a few lines of text? Or did you just start writing?

I just wanted to learn about wiki markup. Or to participate in a somewhat significant project. Or simply because I was uncomfortable seeing such a promising project perish so dishonorably. Maybe I just wanted to try myself in a new area... But I do think it was all of this at once. Wiki-LKI was a fun experiment. I had few readers, and I could, let’s say, practice without bothering anyone with the weakness of my articles.

And the first pancake, judging by the text of that review, was far from a blunder )

No, that was a huge blunder that horrifies me, ignoring all the rules of encyclopedicity, markup, and even just style. 'Every artist will tell you that his first works should not be seen by anyone', as they say.

You’re too self-critical. At your age, few manage even to piece together two lines.

That's quite strange, actually.

But that's just the way it is...

I think the problem lies in the education system. It is morally outdated. And no one really keeps an eye on what little there is.

Let’s move on. So one fine day, Pegas the writer, on his second attempt, creates a permanent profile on the young but promising portal Gamer.ru. Did you start writing right away, or did you first look around and level up a bit with comments?

Oh, yes, the story of the creation of my first post is quite amusing.

Tell us about it.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to leave some of my research on the world of The Elder Scrolls, particularly regarding beast races. I didn’t waste time writing comments; I just took, and wrote it all down, which took me about an hour and a half. Admiring the result in the preview, I unexpectedly wanted to check if links open in the same or new tab... need I say that they opened in the same tab?..

And you had to rewrite everything from scratch. Another hour and a half down the drain...

Actually, it took about forty minutes. Fortunately, I remembered the text, and all the images had already been uploaded.

Thus, you had your first encounter with the usability of the site )))

Oh, yes. Never before or since have I wanted so badly to kill some Martian, preferably an evil one. That very post.

Despite the challenges in creating it, your first post received a lot of positive feedback. Was this unexpected for you, or did you anticipate such a reaction to your work?

It would be overly modest to say, 'I didn’t even hope for a positive reaction.' At that moment, I had already characterized my writing as 'decent.' It really was something that could be shown to people.

People evaluated it as 'very decent' given that the work soon received silver, which rarely happens with the posts of newcomers. After your first post, you began to write others with zeal, which also garnered more and more attention from the audience. When did you realize you were becoming popular?

I don’t think I will ever surpass the likes of Vikolyada in terms of popularity on this portal. But overall, I realized that some progress was being made when I came in second in the 'promising newcomers' nomination in КБНиВТ. By the way, greetings to Kxandr; he overtook me in that nomination. ;)

So the awareness of popularity came during КБНиВТ. From that point on, the star of Pegasus began to rise on the portal. But initially, when your level was rather modest, did you have idols on GРU? People you looked up to? And do they remain so even now, when you are in the top 10?

Rather the opposite. It’s quite obvious that initially, I had no idols. But I want to send another greeting to Beholder, whom I was very happy to see as the representative of the Oblivion blog.

Did they emerge later?

Later, there were Akvariti, Kxandr, a good half of the Crusaders' crew, Verat, who partially influenced the rise of my love for indie and flash games... I can’t help but mention sofcase, whose plugins I still use today; the crazy editor sliph, the greatest editor of all time and people NoFate, and many, many more. You need to take the best from everyone and give the best back – only then can you achieve any kind of success.

You spent several weeks on the portal, familiarizing yourself with its mechanics, getting to know the people, and gaining popularity. What goals related to ГРУ did you have at that moment? Did you achieve them, and if not, do you still dream of them?

I didn’t have any specific goals. I just had a very broad stream of clever plans™.

Did you just want to write? And that’s all?

Not just to write. I experimented. Moreover, most of the topics I wrote about at the beginning of my stay here were interesting to me. I didn’t want to forget everything I learned, but I also didn’t want to just jot it down in a notebook – maybe it would be useful for someone? Moreover, I was interested in the reactions, criticism, and advice from those 'in the know'. They’re still interesting to me today, so a thought-provoking comment might be worth more than dozens of likes. I would even say that they are more interesting to me now than before.

Why?

I’m approaching the point where I can no longer objectively critique myself. Or perhaps I’ve already passed it – it’s like crossing the event horizon, I guess.

But agree that at the same time, you are less criticized and users of the portal do too. Many writers, to check their talent, start writing under another name and try to promote themselves once again. For instance, Stephen King began publishing books under the name Richard Bachman right at the peak of his career. Have you ever wanted to create a twink and start posting under its name?

Can you be sure I never did that in the past? ;)

There are rumors that one of the leaders of the portal has a twink in the top 50. Is it not yours?

No. But I’ll think about it. Although, of course, gathering the necessary three thousand experience won't be too easy.

Nothing is impossible for a creative person ) Can you say that Pegasus doesn’t aspire to be the top 1 on the portal and Magnistrum can sleep soundly?

Magnistrum will never sleep easily – he'll be tormented for many years by the souls of the materials he has ruthlessly copied.

Since we touched upon the topic of Magnistrum, how do you feel about copy-pasting on the portal in general?

As a necessary evil. I can be a good copier and can even get pluses for that, no matter what anyone says.

Is a poor author's review better than good copy-pasting?

Objectively speaking – no. Subjectively – sometimes yes, as it’s still experience, useful experience. It should be encouraged. The main thing is to avoid fanaticism, as happened with Magnistrum in one of the КБНиВТ.

I agree with you. Overall ГРУ is created by personalities. Each participant in the top contributes to the development of the portal. For example, ГРУ before Pegasus and ГРУ after Pegasus are completely different portals ) Do you agree with this statement?

No. The disappearance or appearance of one person is hardly noticed by most. And if it is noticed, it is quickly forgotten. Though if we view this question from the perspective of 'you cannot step into the same river twice', then yes, of course, these will be different portals :D

However, there is an important point here. Any substance, any being is made up of tiny molecules. If a thousand of them disappear – it is nothing. But what if five thousand? Twenty? A hundred?..

But today, Pegasus is practically the mouthpiece of the portal, its mind, honor, and conscience. You have created many useful posts dedicated to the mechanics of ГРУ, without which ГРУ is no longer a cake.

These are trifles, believe me. They have a weak impact on the overall picture. If, say, the entire top 20 were to disappear at once, it would be noticeable. But not for long and not much. And it will be noticed only subjectively. In objective (statistical) terms, top 20 is also nothing.

However, personalities are the foundation of this site. And as sad as it is to observe, they slowly leave it. What do you think is the main reason for such departures?

Some leave, others come.

But agree, the newcomers are not as strong characters. Right now, many in the top 50, 40, 30 have gained popularity thanks to mutual pluses in the chat.

If you look at the statistics, you can see that the site in terms of traffic is stagnant.

What do you think is the main problem? Is it the lack of updates, advertisements, or something else?

Well, advertisements are a given, of course. You can survive without updates too. But with motivation, we are finished.

Is the problem with that legendary RPG system of the portal?

We don’t have an RPG system, as sad as it may be. Its antidote was once dealt with, which I am only glad for – better to have no system than the one we had. Today's system also disappoints me. All attacking spells are today doomed to fail: almost the entire 'upper echelon' of the site has made friends. There’s no uniqueness in the system. I don't want to condemn or mask – these are just useless spells right from the start. Fortunately, the administration has finally come to terms with this. As for competition... it’s not serious at all. GB is very hard to take seriously, and Kanobu... well, it’s just... 'different'.

What do you think, is there any simple solution to the problem with the RPG system, or does it need to be completely scrapped and rebuilt from scratch?

We should just ignore RPG, to be honest. For the 'bait' role, what we currently have is enough. Personally, I would take a look at clans, co-authorship, and renovations of the main page.

Co-authorship is relatively clear. But what needs to be done with clans?

We need to add meaning to the rivalry between them. But how to do that is a much finer question. In general, most of the problems of the site arise because I position it as a social network. While Gamer is not and never has been.

Right now, we have what we have – a wild mix of UGC-model and social network. That's not bad. But it needs to be utilized not in the usual way. Just a year ago, the old administration said: 'This is the first project of its kind; we need to experiment a lot.' Now the course is going somewhere else. I wouldn’t dare judge the statistics. However, I see the consequences of the psychological factor – Gamer is changing. Only time can tell whether this is good or bad.

Clever Plans

"It started about the same way as half of the similar projects on the site. Sergy knocked on my door :D And it continued much the same way as in half of the projects where I was – 'No, guys, this is not done that way...' — I accidentally seized power :)"

A bit earlier in the text, you mentioned clever plans. Can you divulge even a little of them to us?

When it's done.

But they exist and are in development?

'In the morning, I make plans, and in the afternoon, I foolishness,' as Voltaire once said.

Let’s say if you don’t want to reveal your clever plans, can you tell us about the non-clever ones. In almost a year and a half of life on the portal, you managed to do a lot: write a bunch of talented reviews, create a great number of useful posts, become one of the main faces of GРU. What else does Pegas plan to do? What are his future plans?

Well, first of all, I should get banned... It's undignified to be in the top 10 and not once be banned.

Completely undignified.

In general, I’d like to finish already launched ideas: the history of The Elder Scrolls series, Chronicles...

Are you working on everything at once, or are you focused on one specific project?

I can only work on something in one of two cases: if it's interesting to me or I'm clearly pressed for time. Since the second condition mainly occurs during contests, if the interest wanes – that's it, you can pour water. A project can be in a freeze for weeks and months... For example, Chronicles, (their first part), was originally supposed to describe events until the end of August. But when I was finishing July, I realized that further descriptions would come through force, so I postponed them until better times. A couple of months later, I decided to publish what I had at the time of the 'freeze'.

So all these projects are currently 'frozen'? Don’t you feel interest in them?

I devised the briefing in the morning, and it was published that very evening. I struggle a lot with long series of posts. Ideas are great, but complete realization is where it's lacking. So recently, I've been trying to artificially provide myself with 'deadlines'.

How do you feel about appointing moderators on ГРУ? And would you become a moderator yourself?

You know, six months ago I would have said 'Yes, definitely! It’s essential for us.' But today, I can say that moderators in the usual sense won’t help here. It's more reasonable to develop — reasonably develop — the capabilities of users. But not like this.

Let’s speculate: you become the chief editor of GРU, the person who decides everything on the portal. What would you write in a post, what would you do first?

Kill All Humans.

And if seriously?

I would start demanding the impossible from the programmers – and everyone else, I think. I might be good at convincing, but leading something? Ugh. Being The Most Important is contraindicated for me.

What should happen (or not happen) for you to lose interest in the portal and leave it?

For that to occur, I must completely and utterly become disillusioned with games, I suppose. Or if almost all the portal's population changes. I certainly don’t want to see people like GamerBlog here.

Or if a more interesting website dedicated to games appears?

I find it hard to develop habits, but once one appears, it isn’t easy to get rid of it.

Mikhail, does your activity on ГРУ align with your personal life? Does one interfere with the other, or do they live in harmony?

Rarely interferes.

Life in social networks is wonderful because everyone can play a certain role there, and often, it differs from the one that a person plays in real life. Say, are you a different person in reality than you are virtually? Or is it the same person?

It’s all The Matrix, Neo. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Mikhail, for a year now, you have been the representative of the game Portal. What does the post of representative mean to you?

Free energy regeneration A chance to 'share' my relationship with the game, probably. I’m a poor representative in this respect.

Are you satisfied with the opportunities that representatives currently have? And if not, what levers of control would you want to have first as a representative?

Here, the phrase 'Kill All Humans' fits perfectly :) It costs dearly to kick undesirables from your blog. But of course, it would require the supervision of Big Brother, as there would be abuses. It’s also essential to finally introduce paths of power and justice. This is also a mechanism of competition, as are clans. Unfortunately, their realization is currently seen as impractical.

Perhaps that's true, but again – the opportunities for the users need to be increased. Otherwise, self-regulation won’t exist. De-facto, it does not exist at all: the enduring reminders will be Grizzly and Magnistrum, currently atop the leaderboard. When there are no rules, or they are not strictly enforced or (at least!) equivalently to everyone, we can merely enjoy anarchy. Roger_Wilco, for instance, was stuck for two weeks. This is no longer just mere caprice. This is an exploit in the portal's system, outright. I have always been against this specific spell. If the others 'merely' impede commenting, these block posts.

Do representatives need deputy assistants?

Why? We should introduce the path of power, and the problem will resolve itself.

Well, what if they need to watch the blog during the representative's absence?

If a good representative – they will pass the post. Bad? Refer to the path of power above. In the worst case, one can nudge someone on the administration, but from my perspective, if they’re so desperately desiring self-regulation, this would come across as crutches.

Understood ) Why are you a representative of the game Portal? Is it your favorite game, or do you like its blog? Given your productivity, you could capture any blog on ГРУ.

Do I need it? :)

Correctly I understood that the role of a representative of the blog is not attractive to you?

No, why not. It’s just, really – 'why'? A true Representative™ should be associated with the blog. For that, it needs to be selected for a specific blog and stop there. But I don’t like stopping.

So your position is clear. Now, let’s talk a bit about GamerTimes. How did it all start, and how did it all end?

It started out much like half of such projects on the site. Sergy knocked on my door :D Well, it progressed about as it did in half of the projects where I was – 'No, guys, that’s not how this is done...' – I accidentally seized power :) It indeed almost happened by chance – suddenly it became evident that I was in charge. Although later, of course, the hierarchy got adjusted – for example, Sergy completely took on leadership of Site Edition.

And it ended... it ended banal by 'not shooting.' Of course, I could get all dramatic and lament that 'real press is not needed by anyone; diamonds yield to pink press' (and although that’s somewhat true), but the reason is simpler – the dreadful word 'non-format.' And also the lack of motivation. They tried to create it, but it was evident that short-term working 'for yourself' was more profitable, while thinking about the long-term, especially with an unstable site community, was somewhat pointless.

The first issue of GT was released, then the second, third... everything developed fairly well. Were there any long-term plans for the more or less extended period? For example, a year?

Of course, there were plans. Roughly about four months in total.

What exactly? What should GT have grown into?

For example, a collective review in the style of 'trial of the game.' A duel club, perhaps. Video format. An almanac too, as you, the director of that direction should know, also came to us.

Those are excellent and promising plans. Do you hope to resurrect GT? And what else, apart from participants' motivation, is important for the long-term survival of such a project?

Normal leadership :D Well, honestly, nothing else is needed. I still can’t lead anything for a long time.

I don’t agree with that statement. You’re a great leader. But even if that’s the case, GT had Sergi, there were others. To me, it seems that the leadership problem exhausted this project.

In fact, I added 'leadership' to motivation. Almost a year of nearly-you-know-who came out at icebreaker capacities. GT's payback would begin the very moment it started getting recognized. This could have been done then and it can still be done now, but in a certain sense, everything got stuck in the laziness of the leadership. If we had continued negotiations with the administration, maybe we could have made the project become conditionally profitable much faster, but... do we need all that fuss?..

Alright, let’s hope that GT returns to the pages of ГРУ, and that all the planned things get realized ) Soon ГРУ will be turning 2 years old. How has the portal changed over the last year? In which direction?

Definitely downhill. If we take it in percentage terms, arguing is futile – the percentage of low-quality material has increased. By the way, I don't fully understand the administration's policy in this regard, but this interview is not about that. In absolute terms, it’s complicated. It seems that good materials have become more abundant, but it’s all such subjectivity... The one thing I definitely dislike in rational reflection is the shift toward sociality. In my opinion, for any site, this is like a cancerous tumor.

But theoretically, the site was supposed to become a social network for gamers?

That’s precisely what I don’t like :D Yes, it truly was the goal, but still, today we have what we have (oh, I think I’m starting to repeat myself :) – we have no sociality instruments. We don’t even have an RPG, if you think about it. What we definitely have is a blogging system and, as a consequence, a UGC system. Normally, it indeed worked effectively and stands alone. But we also have a million and one ways to apply the tentacles of RPG systems as well as social networks! The attempts that have been made to master them, in my opinion, look unserious.

Following DAP, the administration finally solidified its stance on this. Unfortunately, hoping for them is useless. A foolish decision, in my opinion, but alas, let history be the judge.

So don’t you think that everything was going the right way, and the decline started after the Martians left?

Not exactly. After the Martians left, development just stalled. This isn’t terrifying, generally speaking, if it lasts a reasonable time. Roughly speaking, one can live through half a year without updates without significant issues, as long as the standard UGC structure remains. One could even endure a year if the 'minimum program' was fulfilled by that time. But then degradation began... from my perspective again. De-facto the shift toward social networks is more profitable, of course. I personally consider the first pop-six-pantry to be the beginning of this era.

How well I remember, how well! ) After that, many finally left GРU.

For me, this moment turned out to be a pattern-breaking episode far greater than even 'New Gamer' and 'September 1, 2009' combined. At that moment, I just hoped it was a bad joke, but as I already mentioned, it’s like a cancerous tumor – once it starts, stopping the process is nearly impossible.

So the 3rd anniversary of GРU may not happen? Or it will simply be a 100% different portal than when it first existed?

'May not happen'? I guess I need to emphasize again – objectively the shift toward social networks is more profitable. And we will be celebrating the third anniversary as we seem to be heading toward gamer.com. However, subjectively all this is displeasing to me. Simply because I'm not here for that.

Then, will GРU no longer be interesting for you?

This isn’t the case where something can be completely extinguished 'by accident'. Overall, the system seems to have settled at a lower (upper?) point, and without updates, I think it'll remain here.

And still, in any dark kingdom there should be a ray of light. Is there one at GРU, and if so, what is it?

People. They have always been that light and will remain forever. Hold onto each other, and everything will be fine.

That’s nice to hear. I have run out of questions. Well, for a finale – the traditional wishes to the readers.

Reproduce, multiply and have a more positive outlook towards the world – that’s probably it :)

On behalf of everyone, I want to express great gratitude to Mikhail for this interview and for his activities on the gamer.ru portal. We are looking forward to your new projects, engaging posts, and great ideas. Thank you.