Retirement Dinner, Courtesy of RPGFan

I am the youngest retiree ever. If unpaid perk-filled writing gigs count as jobs.

Coming out of my freshman year of high school, I had committed a good 18 months of my life working with my peer, Andy Keller, on our own little project called “The Monkey’s Nest.”

The site itself was Keller’s baby, but he gave me free reign to build various sections onto its otherwise-irreverent standards (film reviews, whining about school, hilarious short fiction, and something that tried to copy the success of The Onion). I built two sections: one for Anime, and one for Gaming. The Monkey’s Nest Gaming Section was an obsession for me for quite some time. It even got the notice of one of the senior editors at RPGFan, which is how I ended up being recruited there at the tender age of 15.

At that time, RPGFan.com was also a blossoming desert rose. It started as “LunarNET,” a fan site to Game Arts’ LUNAR series, with news about other JRPGs. It didn’t take long for the site to morph into a pretty big news/reviews page, heavy on JRPGs and web 1.0 savvy. When I started, I was in charge of the now-defunct “Movies” section (no need to host movies when there’s YouTube…). Within months of my starting, a guy named Jason started up RPGFan’s “Soundtracks” section, which I started contributing to at a rapid pace. Within a year I was de facto head of the section, spending all of my hard-earned Dairy Queen cash importing both the standards and the rarities of JRPG music (anything from the FINAL FANTASY VI OSV to the “Orchestral Game Concert” series).

I took a brief hiatus from the site as part of a “no-media” year of my life. But when I came back, RPGFan was still going strong, the soundtracks section headed by a young lady named Lucy (who would go on to make a name for herself as one of the most avid collectors of VGM *ever*). She handed the soundtracks section to me in 2003, and I’d been in charge of it ever since.

In that same year, I decided to try my hand at doing some actual game reviews. I started with some retro Game Boy releases, then some GBA stuff. By 2005, I was handling new releases on PS2, and after my first trip to E3, I was pretty well on board to review full games proper. Meanwhile, I kept the standard output of soundtrack reviews, complete with images, information, an English tracklist, and audio samples in the outdated (but surprisingly well-compressed) RealAudio format.

At the end of 2005, I made some life-changing decisions. I got married (with no job prospects), and proceeded within about 10 months to have our first child. My “IRL” lifestyle was quickly becoming a barrier to my passionate hobby of talking all things game-related. But 2006 was a banner year for me in terms of content output. I was having way too much fun to stop, and I had no reason to stop.

Five years, two more kids, and a couple serious bouts with depression later, I had to admit to myself that I was putting too much on my plate and essentially turning a hobby into a stressor (more about this in a previous post). So I decided to quit. But after nearly 12 years of service, we all decided together at the site that this was a “retirement” for a family man like myself instead of mere quitting. They let me keep my name on the site, listing me as the “soundtracks consultant” (as we prepare a newer, younger me to take the spot) and general “editor emeritus,” meaning I’m remembered as an editor even though I have no time-sensitive responsibilities. Or, really, any responsibilities whatsoever.

I figured that was the end of it. I could keep being social with my staffer buds, but no more free games, no more E3, and as far as I was concerned, no more recognition. But the wonderful folks at RPGFan had one more idea. It was a beautiful one.

The image posted above is a plaque I received from them. They presented it to me this weekend at a restaurant in my hometown. Four of them drove out to see me this weekend, all from New Jersey and NYC (about a four-hour drive). They declared it was my retirement dinner for RPGFan, and the evening would be my retirement party. They planned the event with the help of my wife over the span of two months. Much of it was funded by RPGFan’s tiny pool of cash, and it came with the well-wishes of all current and many former editors of RPGFan. It was a glorious, unprecedented event that I will never forget. Here are some more photos:

I admire the award. My son admires me.

Party at Esaan. Everyone loves me. And the little guy in the distance, who isn't mine, is hilarious.

More Plaque-tion

I like shiny things. I'm also impressed by my own stats.

As you can see on the plaque, some individuals went through and counted (using fancy scripting tools) how many articles I’d written for the site. Together, that’s over 1,000 articles. And considering a game review takes a lot more time to complete than a soundtrack review, those 100+ game reviews are no slouch either (just in terms of the pre-writing experience, the average soundtrack is one or two hours; the average RPG is 20 hours). This beautiful wooden plaque is going up in my man-cave, right next to my Air Man lego art. Both are awesome, but you can guess which one I’m lovin’ more presently. Hint: it has rounded edges.

I think part of what made the staff able to do this is that they knew when I said I was done, that I’d have to be done. My reasons for quitting were personal, and very … shall we say … compelling. Other people who have left say “I’m never coming back” and then come back a year or two later (including two of the individuals that celebrated with me this weekend). But I even wrote in my initial “I’m quitting” post on our super-secret staff forums that, if in a few months or a year I said “okay, I’m ready to return,” that they should deny me the position for the sake of myself and my family. I know they’ll stick to their word; not because they don’t want me back, but because they care more about me as a person than the site’s content generation. Plus, the “new wave” of staff at RPGFan are doing a fine job keeping up on the big releases. They’ve also done a great job integrating WRPGs into our traditionally JRPG-heavy coverage.

So I’ll keep blogging at Gameosaurus, but I go forward knowing some wonderful people out there remember who I am and what I did over the span of just under 12 years. It’s a very, very good feeling.