Tenth Anniversary Post
This is the 10th anniversary of the blog. I wouldn't have even noticed that I'd started the blog on the 3rd of April 2008, and that exactly a decade has elapsed except for the fact that I was digging back thrpugh some archives, trying to work out how my current thoughts on game design have changed since I started this whole thing.
It looks like I started the blog as a means to vent frustrations over work, I had left a toxic workplace amd had started studying web design at TAFE (A government operated vocational college, for those who aren't in Australia). I guess I was either bored in the class, or we were doing a unit of work about blogs and online journals.
Statistics show that the first few years didn't see a lot of action. That's probably due to the meandering subjects, the lack of focus, and the fact I didn't have the blog linked to any particular social media... numbersicked up for a while when there was a Facebook app directly feeding my posts here to my profile there. But it was only when I connected the account to my G+, and when I was picked up by the RPGBloggers aggregator, that people actually started noticing the stuff I'm doing.
The other two big hits of readers came through my mapmaking series in late 2013, and the time when I tried to offer a review of every GameChef entrant in 2015.
...and I've almost accumulated three quarter of a million views.
In the time I've been working away at this blog, D&D has seen the release of 4th and 5th edition, and Pathfinder has spun off from it...also seeing an imminent new edition. The Forge has gone. The OSR has gone from a niche thing with a few practitioners to a driving force in independent gaming, while story games have fragmented, and generally died off to be replaced by a thousand clones of Apocalypse World... yes, there are still indie games and "story games", but they're all overshadowed by the OSR and the PbtA stuff from what I can see. Give it another 5 years and something else will take a stranglehold over the hobby, maybe Blades in the Dark variants.
I've released both FUBAR and The Law in that time, as well a numerous other games, made a bit of money, enough to keep my game buying habits alive... and I've also finished a Diploma, a Bachelors degree, and almost completed a Masters.
It looks like I started the blog as a means to vent frustrations over work, I had left a toxic workplace amd had started studying web design at TAFE (A government operated vocational college, for those who aren't in Australia). I guess I was either bored in the class, or we were doing a unit of work about blogs and online journals.
Statistics show that the first few years didn't see a lot of action. That's probably due to the meandering subjects, the lack of focus, and the fact I didn't have the blog linked to any particular social media... numbersicked up for a while when there was a Facebook app directly feeding my posts here to my profile there. But it was only when I connected the account to my G+, and when I was picked up by the RPGBloggers aggregator, that people actually started noticing the stuff I'm doing.
The other two big hits of readers came through my mapmaking series in late 2013, and the time when I tried to offer a review of every GameChef entrant in 2015.
...and I've almost accumulated three quarter of a million views.
In the time I've been working away at this blog, D&D has seen the release of 4th and 5th edition, and Pathfinder has spun off from it...also seeing an imminent new edition. The Forge has gone. The OSR has gone from a niche thing with a few practitioners to a driving force in independent gaming, while story games have fragmented, and generally died off to be replaced by a thousand clones of Apocalypse World... yes, there are still indie games and "story games", but they're all overshadowed by the OSR and the PbtA stuff from what I can see. Give it another 5 years and something else will take a stranglehold over the hobby, maybe Blades in the Dark variants.
I've released both FUBAR and The Law in that time, as well a numerous other games, made a bit of money, enough to keep my game buying habits alive... and I've also finished a Diploma, a Bachelors degree, and almost completed a Masters.
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