Gaming History 101

This site is probably best remembered as having started a podcast that delights with almost 500 episodes on a vast majority of the mainstream topics that exist in the retro gaming world. In truth, however, this site started as a blog and was intended to be a location of various types of information as my interest was piqued. If you sort the site chronologically you’ll find all kinds of articles about all kinds of subjects and actually does start to look like a 101 on the history of video games. You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to, but it’s there nonetheless.

As time moved on the podcast became my core focus because it simply had the largest audience participation. There’s nothing that makes an informative or entertaining project feel valued than hearing from the people who engage with it. The shift to the podcast did come with its fair share of setbacks because audio is not ideal for all topics. There are just things, like instructions, technical breakdowns, even guides and reviews, that don’t lend themselves to audio well. Frankly, they’re just boring to listen to – which is why I never went into more than a few episodes of Tech 101. There’s also the fact that with video streaming services, such as Twitch and YouTube, the video medium seemed a better fit for the topics and information provided by our podcast. This is all my personal opinion, which I’m fully aware of, but it keeps me from giving my all to the project. I’ve spoken to quite a few people about this, but if you’ve ever done a project you share, you have to do it for yourself first and share it with the world second. I wasn’t fully invested in the podcast and I didn’t have the time for a video series. As engagement slowed down, scheduling got harder, technical difficulties more common, the downfall of any project becomes apparent quickly.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get involved in more projects. I’ve always loved the process of researching items, exploring them, and then explaining my findings. What I don’t have is time or resources. Creating a podcast, especially with one or two co-hosts, is a lot of collaboration on top of post-processing if you want high quality. You’re talking at least 3+ hours a week of dedicated work if the show is 60-90 minutes on top of living life. A video is like 10 times that dedication. Not only that, but there are a lot of people out there who are trying to make a living doing this, so you’re now a hobbyist competing with professionals whether you like it or not. Experience has taught me that no one seems to notice, or care, that you don’t have ads in your videos and the audience is quick to destroy every square inch of your work because they were in a bad mood that morning. Even when it is constructive criticism, and you ask questions to help improve the work, you get ghosted. When you spend 30 hours making a 7 minute video that you are proud of, let alone a 45 minute documentary, and someone blasts you over single fact or comment, it hurts. Then a big site like IGN or Digital Foundry makes a video identical to yours but some full time paid employee got to make it as their weekly project and you just want to give up. That’s where I’m at: I want to give up on both podcasting and video making in relation to retro gaming. I know that may not be what some of you want to hear, but it also probably surprises no one.

The written word, however, is cheap, quick, and can be replicated. I can consistently deliver written works that take a relatively small amount of time to produce, can deliver the same content (often more concisely than my audio/video pieces), and can keep up with my ever-changing interests on a daily basis. As such I’m going to kick the blog portion of this site back into high gear and hopefully find something redeeming for myself that will eventually translate into something worthwhile for you readers. The traffic to this site is scant, probably 100 hits a day, and I bet half of it is the newest episode of Video Game Purists and the other half is my guides on games like Majora’s Mask. Still, I want to investigate, research, and share my findings and opinions, which will happen whether someone is reading it or not. The world is cyclical and it’s only natural that in a time where I can spare maybe 30-60 minutes a day to something, a blog be the best source. The topics will be varied as will each reader’s interest in what I share, but ideally there will be a daily post about something I find interesting that I would like to share. I also intend to do larger pieces that can take several hours to produce, which will just stay holding in the chamber until they are completed and properly edited. I have a journalism degree, I studied the written word professionally, it stands to reason I return to it as a hobby.

Cheers,
Fred