This is something I didn't realize until lately. I planned on writing a GOTY post like I do every year, and then just go on with my day like nothing has changed. I mean starting a new year really isn't that big of a deal, and with each passing one the next stops seeming so special. With the start of 2020 though not only is it a new year, but a new decade as well. This actually feels kinda strange to me. So much has happened over the last 10 years, and I guess I never really thought about how much things have changed since then. I went through college, started working full time, and heck, all of this blog's lifetime has come from the 2010s! Actually this blog HAS been my 2010s! I opened this back in 2011 as a fun side project over at Capcom-Unity, without thinking how long I would actually keep it going. But now here we are about to enter 2020, and somehow I'm still here. Yeah I might not have been active throughout that entire time, but it's not like we ever went away. For me, the 2010s has been NGR, and now that we're facing 2020 I'm not sure how to feel. Yeah it'll just be the start of another year, but it also feels like the start of a new chapter as well. So with that being said rather than posting about a single GOTY, I figured I'd take a look back at my last 10 years, and even this blog's past. Some of the things I'll discuss have already been brought up before, but what the heck? Why not? Of course I'll be talking about different games over the years, but to start things off I wanted to talk a little about NGR instead. I rarely talk about the blog itself or why we are here, so I figured I'd take this chance to do just that.
Let's go all the way back to the start of 2010. I was in my second year of college, sitting at my usual spot in the math building's cafe, just looking at random things online and what not as I killed time. Didn't expect anything out of the ordinary that day, but then something unexpected happened. Mega Man Legends 3 was officially announced, and Capcom revealed their crazy plan to let fans help develop the game. Legends 3 was a game I had been waiting for since I was a little kid, and to make things worse Legends 3 ended in a cliffhanger! This was a game I never expected to see the light of day, and the fact that fans could get involved made me even more excited. So I dusted off my old Capcom account and jumped into the online community of Capcom-Unity.
Capcom-Unity was (and still is) an interesting site. It's Capcom's official blog, but it's also kinda like a social network. There are official groups for Capcom games you can join, each group with their own set of blogs and forums to post in, but you also have your own personal profiles where you can make your own blog posts or share status updates. Doing activities like this would earn you points, and using these points you could buy special items from the shop or even enter contests. Back then Capcom's USA team was pretty involved with the community, and they often would go along with fan ideas. (At one point Yuri accepted my Monster Hunter Tri event idea which is something Capcom ran during the release of 3U on the Wii U.) It was a really cool system, and what they decided to use for the development of Legends 3. So this is when I returned to the site.
My time at Capcom-Unity was "mostly" great. I was active at the Legends 3 Devroom daily, and my boss idea even made it to Capcom of Japan for final approval! Sadly I got beat out to someone else, but I received something like 25,000 points as a reward (considering you get maybe 5 points a post, that was a lot). If I recall this happened at the end of 2010 as I received the news that I had made it to the finals the day I finished night classes at school. But anyway even though none of my ideas made it to the game, I had a lot of fun taking part in the contests and interacting with fans. Then the game was canceled.
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| (This was my boss idea) |
Although it was sad to see Legends 3 fail, I didn't leave Capcom-Unity. In fact I found a new reason to stay there -- Netto's Game Room. Besides making user blogs, Capcom-Unity allowed for users to create entire groups as well. This was a complete package with blog support, forums, image upload, status messages, etc. It also allowed for other members to join the group or even become writers for it. That's when I got the idea -- "why not make a group of my own?" I chose the name "Netto's Game Room" for a few reasons. The first "obvious" reason was because of my username Netto; however there was a lot more to it than that. The username NettoSaito actually comes from Mega Man Battle Network. Netto is the Japanese name for Lan, while Saito is (spoilers here) Mega Man's real Japanese name. As Capcom was Mega Man, it only made sense to use something that fit, but also related back to me as well. Netto could also be seen as "Network," and as we were online and not in a physical location, Network's Game Room worked as well. So that's the name I went with, and have continued to stick by it.
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| (Can't believe this was so long ago) |
Running NGR at Capcom-Unity was a lot of fun. My main goal was to provide non Capcom related video game news to the community, but I also wanted to talk about my personal life and the games I was playing. Back then nearly every post was "personal" for me, and I didn't really change that until more people started coming in to help. When that happened the blog was no longer about me, so I started backing off and was more careful about what I wrote. That's when things became a bit more news heavy, and review based. Lately I've been trying to break that trend to go back to how things were, but it's not exactly easy. I've changed a lot since I was 19, so it's hard to go back to how things were. But even so I never regretted letting others help. In fact I really appreciate EVERYTHING they've done for me. NGR wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for them. But that's something I can come back to later...
Netto's Game Room continued to be a daily thing at Capcom-Unity for the next few years. I made it a point to post at least twice a day, and sometimes even more if I had a reason to. The only issue was that Capcom had to approve most of what I posted, and the review process could be painfully long. That's why I also started posting my reviews on other websites as well, and why I tried to avoid using images and links if possible (pure text did not need to be reviewed). The good news was I had free time between college classes to do so, so often I'd write something and see it go live by the time I got home. This was my daily life up until I graduated, and that's where things took a turn.
With the start of 2013 also came the start of a new NGR. A friend (and fellow writer) suggested that we got away from Capcom-Unity to do our own thing, and I just sorta agreed. I wanted to be able to do more and have more control over what was posted here, so that's what I did. By that time Unity was already having issues with it's user base, and the review process was becoming longer and longer. Sometimes blog posts would take a few days before they were approved, and there was little evidence that people were still reading them. So we made the jump to where we are today. The domain name didn't come in until later that year, but it was a start. Along with a few other writers we rebuilt this place from the ground up, and I was very selective on what content would carry over. Ended up abandoning hundreds of posts in the process, but I think things are better for it. So that was the start of 2013, and the start of how things are now.
Since then this blog has had it's ups and downs, but what matters is we are still here. Time is still an issue for me considering I work, but now days I'm trying to make up for that lost time. Previous years were harder for me, but now things have changed. This site has been a part of me for 9 years now, and I hope in 2020 we can become something even better. While I don't think we'll ever become anything more than a "fan" blog, I'm perfectly content with that. But I will say I do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read these posts. Over the past couple of months since I've made my return to the blog, the amount of readers has taking me by surprise to be honest, but it's you guys reading this that keeps me going. If it wasn't for you, this would be a lonely blog, and I am thankful that that isn't the case.
So anyway, I guess that's all I really have to say. This blog has been a huge part of my life over this past decade, and I hope to see it last through the 2020s as well. Thank you all again for taking the time to read this, and I promise tomorrow will be something a lot more video game related. See you all then!
