Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Issue: 146   Editor: Shaktoolik


The BootCast Axed! TheTsjMustGoOn

Finally the recession has made it to Bootleggers. Saturday morning, the bootleggers community woke up to find that the familiar BootCast link had been taken down from its former place in the “main” menu.

As to the reasons for this, people could only guess, until a topic was made by former Head DJ Mags. The gist of this topic was that an executive decision had been made, due to disappointing performance the BootCast was removed as a feature. In this thread, Mags wrote, “Lack of activity, lack of listeners and my horrid way of dealing with people are the main contributing factors.”

When this topic hit the forum, a storm of activity was seen both in the game forum and the Off Topic Forum. The general consensus was that players were sad and angry that the BootCast was cancelled. The call for an official statement grew louder and louder. Sadly though, at the time of writing, no official statement has been released by any member of staff. Reactions that could be read on the forums by Moderators included, “No clue. I would assume it was due to lack of interest and lack of professionalism of the DJs and their head DJ, but that’s just opinion” by Nyxxie. Players wrote things like: “Mags, you could be an ass, but you made the BootCast fun,” “Seriously Mags, you did awesome,” and “great idea lets get rid of features instead of adding them. That'll help BL's expansion”.

The Bootleggers Buzz asked for the opinion of a few former DJ’s. After all, these are the people that lived and breathed the BootCast, they made it as regular players, for regular players. By the words of former DJ, FireCrackah, “To be honest, the only person that is not to blame is Mags, he was a great Head DJ. As for the reason the BC shut down, I think it’s about the money. Call-ins and BootCast are paid by BSF, and if it costs money but isn’t used, it’s time to shut it down. The only thing I think is strange, is all the people in the forum who demand the BootCast back. Most of you guys didn’t tune in anyway. And don’t act like you guys didn’t see this one coming, as I and some other DJ's could have told you this would happen." Another DJ, TheRagingFist, wrote: “No DJ's were informed that the BootCast was going to be dropped, so we didn't have the chance to appeal the decision. It has frustrated many listeners and obviously us DJ's.”

What will happen now? Only time can tell. Will the BootCast be replaced by another spiffy feature, or will it stay down forever? The most telling fact in this whole story might be the fact that not 12 hours after the announcement of the demise of the BootCast, a group of at least 3 former BootCast DJ’s returned the BC back to its roots. An offsite pirate radio station, now named BootBlast.