Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Issue: 69   Editor: NyxxiPoo


A Dying Breed NyxxiPoo
A dying breed in Bootleggers, a rather endangered species; The Picture Maker.

I remember, "back in the day," when Pic-making was a rather lucrative business that skilled (and sadly, the UNSKILLED) players took part in as a means to make money in the game. Now a days, it seems that breed is slowly becoming extinct.

We used to have popular and amazing pic-makers, such as LukkyB (yes, we believe in "INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILY" act and we still haven't heard his side of the entire scandoulus story), Cut, Spidah, Nyxxie (I toot my own horn for the LULZ) and NotoriousTaker. Although their pictures (or graphics) were very expensive, it was well worth it in the end for a one-of-a-kind amazing piece of art work to display on your profile.

The way a profile looked used to be a status symbol. The "noobs" of the game either had an empty profile, a picture-bombarded profile with no real order, or a profile filled with text and just text! The players with lots of money, tons of casinos and in a high-statued crew had amazing pieces of art work to embellish an originally boring profile.

Having a LukkyB or Cut-made profile meant millions (or billions depending on the inflation) of dollars for a profile, or a hefty amount of points. I admit that I myself wished I could have a profile made by LukkyB and only wished for the day to come.

Pic-makers had tons of business. There were marriage pictures, protection pictures, "friend of" pictures, profile pictures, 300x300 pictures, counter pictures, crew-appreciation pictures; the list was endless in the plethora of pictures that could be made for pictures. Now-a-days, in my opinion, players with "protected by" photos are either extremely old school or a "noob." Players who partake in in-game mafia families are few and far between. No one cares who you are friends with or who protected you and hence the reason why those pictures are rarely made and placed on profiles. Correct me if I'm wrong, actions speak louder than pictures do. If you protect someone, you'll prove it when they die.

Now-a-days, however, it seems that the GOOD pic-maker is a dying breed. We have decent picture makers come up once in a while, but slowly die down after a couple weeks. No one will ever dare pay a good thousand points for a picture like in the past. New picture makers, who either use paint or just, for the first time, opened Adobe Photoshop, call themselves "professional" all in hopes of getting a bite from a scouting customer. Since when is that a word we throw around?

We all know the game has changed very much from when it first began, but pic-making will always be around. Has pic-making lost its status in the game, or has the game lost is pic-makers? Whose to blame, what's to blame? It may be a good "Buzz Sound Off" question to get everyone's opinions.