Happy 14th Anniversary Netto's Game Room

Hello everyone, and welcome to Netto’s Game Room!

It is hard to believe, but I first said these words 14 years ago on April 29th of 2011. Back then I had no idea what Netto’s Game Room would actually be, or what it would become; I simply wanted to create a space where I could share my thoughts, and talk about all the new games coming out at the time.

Back then I was extremely active on Capcom’s very own Capcom-Unity, which was all about building a community; so I chose this as Netto’s Game Room’s original home. After opening the blog, I opened it to the public, and quickly got to work on sharing my stories. I started the journey alone, but the idea was always to let anyone interested join the team, as the word “Netto” had multiple meanings. Netto translates to Net in Japanese, while also meaning net as in “the sum of.” It wasn’t intended to be a single person’s game room, but rather, a virtual space on a network, and operated by multiple people. It would be the sum of everyone’s experiences, all in one place… At least that was the dream!

(Everything about this makes me cringe, but it is our past haha)

Looking back at the start of Netto’s Game Room, that time truly was one of the happiest periods in my life. I was about to finish another semester in college, I had a brand new computer and access to wi-fi for the first time in my life, I was working at my family’s bakery (so I had the cash to buy all the games I missed out on), and now I had a place to show off my excitement and discuss the games I loved! It was something I had wanted to do for a very long time, and it was finally becoming a reality. Now, this isn’t something I’ve ever mentioned before, but my original inspiration for even wanting to do this was actually because of another gaming journalist.

I can’t remember who it was or when I read it, but they shared a story of how Final Fantasy X was the game they played after recovering from a major surgery. That game became their life while they were confined to a bed, and helped them through a difficult time. It was such a great story, and it is one that continues to stick with me to this day! Reading that made me realize just how special our memories really are, and how many great stories there are to tell. Maybe not necessarily a story about the games themselves, but the events in our lives that a game became a part of. That got me thinking about my own past, and what I could possibly tell people about. Maybe at least one of those stories would be worth the read, and make an impact on someone else, just as that story did for me.

Over the next couple of years, Netto’s Game Room became the center of my whole world. Some of my friends jumped onboard to help out with things, and a handful of Capcom-Unity members decided to join in as well. Although I might’ve started the blog, it was this core group of people who really helped “found” what Netto’s Game Room would become, and I was extremely lucky to have met them all.

And then, in 2013, we made a major change.

After discussing it with fellow friend and writer Sagi, we decided it was finally time to break off on our own, and become “more official.” By this point we had gathered a decent amount of game reviews, news posts, and original articles, and it was more than enough to fully establish Netto’s Game Room as an “official” media site. Of course this meant leaving our community at Capcom-Unity behind and abandoning hundreds of articles, but making this move would allow us to do so much more later on. Up until then our posts had to be approved by Capcom staff and moderators, and that sometimes took hours to days (assuming they weren’t rejected)! So we packed up our bags, thanked everyone for everything, and moved over to our new home on BlogSpot.

(An original idea was to rotate out Video Game Art behind our logo, but we decided against this to keep Netto's Game Room our own brand without infringing on others. Fire Emblem: Awakening was pretty popular at the time)

Once we were a bit “settled in,” I reached out to the other writers and contributors to see if they were still interested in joining us. This included Jonsku, Cat, DeepBlueMist, and quite a few others. While the others had no interest in continuing or leaving Capcom-Unity, the former three joined the team of the brand new “official” Netto’s Game Room, and we once again got back to work on building the blog. By the summer of 2013 we had purchased nettosgameroom.com, and became the independent outlet we are today. I still remember attending a funeral for a family member the day the domain registration was finalized, and sadly this wouldn’t be the last tragedy I would face that year… But I, along with everyone else, pressed on.

I’ll always remember 2013 as being one of my favorite summers, and Netto’s Game Room was a huge reason for that. We had so much fun back then, and I’ll always treasure those moments. We added new staff members as time went on, but sadly a couple years later life would get in the way. Writers would come and go, and I even had to prioritize my personal life and my new day job over Netto’s Game Room. It was a big sacrifice, but it is ultimately what allowed us to continue on years later.

While Netto’s Game Room never fully went away, it was last year in April of 2024 that we were finally able to fully return. Years of life experience and the funding to do bigger and better things allowed us to come back, and it has been amazing. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some really great people, reunited with some old friends, and have simply had a blast doing what I love. The gaming industry has always been special to me, and I am so very grateful to be able to be a small part of it.

All of the emails thanking us for leading fans to their new favorite games, and the indie developers that have reached out to share their latest project, and of course everyone who has followed us on social media… It makes all of the time and effort worth it! You are all the real reason we have been up and running this last year, and we can never thank you enough for everything you have done. The “sum of” in our name isn’t just the sum of all the writers here… But it is you guys as well. We are all in this together, and you will never know how much it truly does mean to, not just me, but all of us here! Really, thank you so much!

We know that Netto’s Game Room still has a very long way to go, but we hope to continue providing the content you all deserve for many years to come.

Anyway, that’s enough of me babbling on and on!

Jonsku: 

Hey everyone, it's your local Finnish artist living in Sweden. Some of you might be wondering “how did a Finnish person meet up with Ben and start writing on a gaming blog of all things?” Well the story isn’t as grand as it sounds haha. 

Honestly me and Ben met at Capcom-Unity forums because of our mutual interest in MegaMan. I used to be a part of the MegaMan Legends 3 Dev Room forums in particular when it was in active development and we shared our ideas together and started talking. Eventually he talked about his game room and asked if I was interested in writing my thoughts on games.

I have always been that kind of person that likes to over analyze and share my opinions on things, but particularly subjects I am really into such as gaming and art. At the time I was aiming to become an English teacher (before I went full time artist haha) and thought it would be a good idea to not only improve my understanding of the language, but also share my thoughts with the world. The first real breakthrough I had was with my review of the free Japanese indie game Holdover, quite a few people read it and funnily enough it's one of the few reviews that have survived from those days. . . Though it does show its age (apologies for anyone reading a very young Jonsku’s bad English haha.) 

(Image from Holdover)

I have tons of ideas outside reviews that I want to share with everyone, haven’t fully planned everything yet, but I can give a small teaser that I am interested in incorporating my art into the articles one way or another. It has been amazing to see how fast the site has grown considering how small we were during our starting years, and I will always be thankful for anyone that takes the time to read not only our articles but also my stuff in general, thank you all truly!

Jeremy:

I'm the newest member of Netto's Game Room, having joined just after Ben resurrected the site last year. I've loved contributing to the site and helping it grow. I've always loved writing and have contributed to a few gaming sites before lending my talents to NGR. I appreciate Ben letting a total outsider like me in. He and I had only known each other on Twitter for a few months when he invited me.

I'm proud of the interviews that I've been able to do for the site and being able to talk to some really cool game developers through the process. I hope to land more of those in the future. I'm also planning to hopefully fill out some of the older game reviews that are missing from the site. I know in 2025, the people are desperate to know what Netto's Game Room thinks of the Game Boy Color game Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! (For real I'm going to eventually finish that game and review it for the site, then we'll convert NGR into a full blown Hamtaro fan blog. That or a Medabots blog, I'm cool with either.)

(I-Ninja, Jeremy's first "Run It Back" Article for Netto's Game Room)

Cat:

At this point I've known Ben for nearly two decades, having met him on a Kirby fangame way back when I was 12 years old. I’d go on to be part of NGR’s beginning, way back when we were a Capcom-Unity group. I didn’t come from a particularly good upbringing, and don’t have a lot of positive memories of my youth, but those early days with NGR were one of the rare exceptions that I can look back fondly on.

I can still remember the days when we'd make videos together in the early days of the blog. It was never anything too intense or heavily edited, just a group of friends playing some games and sharing our fun with whoever wanted to watch, and our reviews were largely the same kind of deal. We talked about games because we liked them. And even though the site has come a long way since then, that's still the core of what we're doing here. A group of friends playing some games and sharing that fun with our readers.

I was away from the site for a while, but it's been great to be back, and I can't wait to see where we go from here. I have a great deal of catching back up to do on writing, but I have a few things in the works already, most significant being a review of the hit Game Boy Advance game, Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue as part of our conversion into a Hamtaro fan blog!

(Metropolismania, Cat's first review!)

Sagi: 

Just like Cat, I’ve known Ben - known as Netto at the time - for almost two decades now. Circa around the summer of 2006, not too long after Sonic ‘06, when he was making a Silver the Hedgehog fan game, and uploaded it to the Sega forums. I found that one, and reached out to him on MSN Messenger (ah, the good old days…). My name on it was in Hebrew at the time, so that jerk thought I was a virus, the jerk. But he approved my request because he’s a moron.

I barely even knew English at the time, so I probably seemed even more like a virus than not. Tons of looking up words during conversations, not knowing how to say things, and saying things that just flat out made no sense. It was… an experience. Not necessarily a fun experience all the time, but it was an experience nonetheless. Probably the sole reason I don’t completely suck at English now.

But as we kept talking, we saw that we had a lot more things in common; a lot of games we both like - not just Sonic stuff, shows and movies, and we each introduced the others to series we might not have tried otherwise. I got him into .hack, he got me into Gundam, for example.

When he first told me about this project of his, my first reaction was along the lines of, ‘What the heck is a Capcom Unity?’ But after he told me more about it and offered to let me join, I decided to go for it. I honestly think my writing skills are not bad. Don’t know about good, but not bad, I hope. My first few reviews, I’m… not really that proud of, but no one’s perfect on their first try.

It’s been a… really weird road getting here. A lot of things behind the scenes that I never thought I’d experience for such a project, one which almost killed the entire thing as well, but Ben’s been a friend for a long time, so I’m happy to be able to participate when I can. Having an outlet like this to geek out about my interests and experiences is honestly great, and I wish I was able to make more use of it. And if I can get more people to maybe try out those things, all the better.

Nowadays life gets in the way of my posting quite often, but there are a few things I’d like to do in the next few months, so please watch out for those, when I’m finally able to. One of which I hope to post during the month of May.

Thank you all for all your support, and I hope you’ll stick with us as we finally start figuring things out after fourteen years of work.