Well, if we're doing stories... how about going OLD SCHOOL!
- I was always a Nintendo junkie and saw this really cool site while I was early on in college called N64HQ run by Scott McCall. One day he had a posting up looking for staff so I wrote some stuff and got on.
- Wrote some reviews and extremely long-winded editorials for the HQ for a while and then Scott decided to close to doors. OH NOES!
- At the very end of the HQ I decided I'd try to start up my own site and within a month or two from it closing The 64 Source was born. I'd managed to cobble together some great former N64HQ staff as well as nuts like Max Lake and Rob Stevens as well. Also picked up people like Jonathan Lindemann and some others who've come and gone.
- At its peak with 64 Source I think I was managing a staff of over 20 people. We had specific people dedicated to pretty much all major areas including news, codes, previews, release dates, etc. On top of that we had female staff, people from Europe, someone in Japan, and I think even a person in Australia. It was nutty.
- When news of Nintendo thinking about a new system was starting to form I decided to move into the business of thinking about that system... I was bored of 64 Source by then anyway. So right around the same time Billy was starting up Planet N2000 I was starting up OperatioN2000. I had more of a skeleton crew on OpN2k since it was all speculative but had much more fun trying to sift through the news and rumors as well as post things like "Dream Games" where we'd think like designers. Much more fun.
- My wife and I knew we were having a baby in a few months so I decided I couldn't be running sites anymore so we shuttered up OpN2k. Since Billy was running his own site and I wanted our content to live on (well, and to still have a platform for my blather when I felt like it) I decided to help him fold our old content into Planet N2000.
- At some point after my first daughter was born I took a graduate class on Cold Fusion and decided I wanted to kick around a project to help me learn both Cold Fusion and SQL server better. This mini-project ended up being the original Planet GameCube core that we launched around a year after I began coding. It was ugly, horrible code but it worked well enough to provide for a back-end and to spare the staff from having to hand-code HTML.
- When Billy noted that people have lost jobs over the site he wasn't kidding. Over the time I'd taught myself Cold Fusion and SQL I'd been working a real full-time job as well where I was bored to tears. When I showed them the scale of the project I'd undertaken to help them understand I could do more than they were giving me it was instead a major part of their rationale in firing me for a conflict of interest.
- For another story of how the site can do funny things to change your life (hopefully most of the time for the better) take a look at me. About 3 months later I got a new job working as a Junior level Cold Fusion programmer for a small company. I'd leveraged my experience with the site into a new opportunity to replace my old job that I really didn't like... that hiring happened 8 years ago this month. Now I'm the Directory of Strategic Projects at the same company. So I'd say that even though my ride hasn't been on the path of most with writing or being involved in some capacity with the industry I'm not complaining.
- Of course now with that change and my family I haven't really contributed since... though now I'm back to shake things up when possible since the Wii has made a 'family opinion' something more of value. Hope to have a new blog up sometime in the next week or two on the casual market.
Final sad fact: For all of the connections I'd managed to make over the years and people I'd managed to piss off I have never really been able to put together a chance to capitalize on it. The first E3 I could have attended was during my Honeymoon, and on subsequent years any number of problems have kept it from being realistic for me, the family guy, on the east coast.
Anyway, for myself I wanted to thank all of the people who have kept this independent site legacy alive. Thanks to all of the staff over the years of all of these sites, hell or even other ones on the scene out there for your time, care, and commitment. Thank you as well to the readers. My god there are too many outlets for information out there anymore... thank you for making this one of them. Truly, in this age that is as high a compliment as one can pay. Hope you all enjoyed this bit of chronology and factoids many people may not have known.
Topic: Happy 10th Birthday, Nintendo World Report! (Read 25074 times)
