I haven't been on social media much lately, so here's a status report for all the projects I have going:

1. OH JOES! is receiving a major update. I've added or am in the process of adding 9 new game modes, 14 Achievements, quality-of-life improvements (eg, an option for Quick Lasers to have a warmup animation before firing), an Italian translation, and more. This will probably be my last update to the game (notwithstanding any necessary functionality patches), so I'm making it a point to include everything I wanted to have as part of the initial release but got too burned out to implement. Thank you to everyone who's written words of encouragement and rekindled my enthusiasm for this project.

2. I'm updating this website on a relatively frequent basis. I've been chipping away at various Series Opinions, and I finally added a link to my Mega Man Fangame Tracker under the Games section. Once the aforementioned OH JOES! update is released, I'll post the next developer diary I've been working on, which should be considerably happier than the last one.

3. I'm still working on my Mega Man 8 playthrough for YouTube, I swear. It's hard to work up the motivation to play one of my least-favorite games in the series, let alone replay the same half a stage over and over without any guarantee I'll get decent footage. I'll devote more time to this as my fangame commitments disappear. In the meantime, you can track my progress by looking at the banner image I'm using on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

4. I'm designing a handful of screens for a unique trio of fan-made Mega Man relay levels, where each designer makes a few screens and passes the level along to the next designer to continue the challenges. This is a very small commitment that will only occupy a few evenings total. No release date yet, but probably sometime in the next couple months. (If you'd like to participate, we could use more designers! Click here to join the Discord server.)

5. No further livestreams are planned for the foreseeable future. I do plan to get back to streaming eventually, and I may stream on a whim (like I did recently with a dash-free run of Mega Man X), but my Twitch channel is officially dormant for the time being. I need some time away from actively performing in front of an audience, and I want to direct my attention to projects with a clear endpoint.

6. I'm a judge and on the development team for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 3. I will also be designing a judge level and likely making other contributions to the game. I expect this project will consume most of my free time in December, January, probably February, and possibly March. However, after this is all over, I intend to step away from developing Mega Man fangames and refocus on recording. It's been fun to be so active in the fan community and create content based on my favorite video game franchise, but I have a fanbase of my own that's been starved for new videos these last three years.

7. I am a contributor to the Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest website and have been tidying up (read: overediting) the existing pages and adding new pages. There's a little bit more I'd like to do, but nothing I have to do; this might take up a couple more evenings across the next several months.

8. In an effort to complete my playlist of music from OH JOES!, CosmicGem has given me permission to upload videos of his compositions for the game. I just need to take 10 minutes to slap together a background image and make the videos.

9. This has been on the backburner for an outrageously long time, but some diligent fans have added closed captioning to some of my YouTube videos, and I just need to review them. As a professional copy editor, I want to make sure the captions are as accurate and tidy as possible—which means this is essentially an extension of what I do at work all day, hence why it takes me so long to get around to it in my spare time. However, I'm most grateful that people are willing to put in the effort to write accurate captions, sparing my viewers from the inappropriate and nonsensical absurdities of Transcribe Audio.

On top of all this, I've got a normal life to lead—keeping up with boring adult stuff such as housework and bills; spending time with friends, family, and my wife; taking time to relax with books, movies, and video games; and so forth. I'm assuming that all counts as "normal." I'm prioritizing my side projects as much and as often as I can, but there's only so much time in a year, and only so much energy in a day. But thanks for sticking with me as I try to do it all.

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Two years. That's how much of my life I devoted to nurturing OH JOES! from some goofy level concept into a full-blown game with original cutscene artwork, an original soundtrack, ​58 randomized disclaimers for the startup screen, 500 words of dialogue, 1500 words of game over hints, multiple language options, multiple paths, multiple difficulties, multiple playable characters, and plenty of Easter eggs. I participated in every aspect of development—planning, spriting, programming, level design and decoration, music composition, writing, translating, and playtesting—learning any necessary skills along the way, including skills that hardly come naturally. Overcoming my aversion to collaboration, I coordinated with 34 people to make the game better than it ever would have been as a solo project. To me, OH JOES! isn't just another Mega Man fangame; it's a remarkable accomplishment that pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped define an entire chapter of my life.

At first, the game was a fun distraction, something I worked on a few times a week for a couple of hours at a clip. After a year, it was a pleasant obsession, consuming as much of my free time as my sanity (and my wife, friends, and family) would permit. By the last few months, OH JOES! was more of a burden than a joy, an obstacle between me and how I wanted to be spending my life, but I was committed to doing it right.

The good days, of which there were many, were the ones in which I conquered some programming problem myself, designed some challenges I felt good about, had productive interactions with the other people involved in the project, incorporated lots of playtester feedback, or finalized basically anything (menu screens and sprites were especially gratifying). I took it as a very positive sign that I frequently found myself humming the soundtrack, and that I didn't get sick of fighting Joes until the last few months—which, considering the impetus for the project, is rather astonishing. When I posted updates on social media, I could rely on at least a few (if not several) supportive responses to validate my work and keep me excited about continuing.

The mediocre days, of which there were many more, were the ones spent troubleshooting technical issues that didn't make any sense, coming up with creative new ways to use and combine gimmicks I'd grown tired of using, reworking challenges that playtesters disliked without articulating exactly what was wrong, reorganizing menu screens, finessing level graphics, implementing and testing the translations (especially French and German; Spanish I could confirm without too much cross-checking), ​or endlessly adjusting line breaks in the text. These days were productive, but they felt more like work than fun.

The bad days, which became more frequent the longer the project dragged on, made me angry. These were the days where I fruitlessly attempted to solve programming problems above my pay grade. These were the days where a playtester made a reasonable and compelling case to overhaul something that had been completely fine and final for months. These were the days where I sacrificed all my free time to work on this game, for the sake of a release deadline that was always "next month" no matter how much I worked. I took a week of vacation in the summer of 2017, and about the only thing I remember is being glued to my computer for 10+ hours a day in a futile attempt to finish the game that month.

When I set the official release date, I was in a weird place. My need to retake control of my life finally outweighed my desire for the game to be as polished as possible upon release. I knew there were glitches to fix, challenges to playtest more thoroughly, details to streamline, and features to add, but all the most important stuff was in place and reasonably solid. I was happy with it. The game was playable from start to finish. The majority of playtesters enjoyed the game. OH JOES! was more release-worthy than many other fangames I'd played. It was time to hand the game over to the largest group of playtesters yet, take a break, and come back fresh when there was a consensus about what I should focus on for the next update.

The plan for OH JOES! was a soft launch, announcing the game on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and Sprites INC, where I'd been posting about it during development. It made sense to debut to a smaller audience who knew what to expect, and who was maybe even looking forward to the game. After a week or two of incorporating feedback from the general public, I'd "officially" announce the game on YouTube (to around 12,000 subscribers between both my channels) and on the forums at Capcom Unity, Rockman Perfect Memories, Cutstuff, Talkhaus, and anywhere else I could think of.

Despite all the headaches and hurdles, I was about to fulfill a childhood dream. ​I was nervous but optimistic, relieved but excited. I created a page on this website with information about the game, put together a download package, and played through the game one last time. I uploaded the game to three different file-sharing sites (always have a backup!) and tested that each download worked correctly. Then, I took a deep breath and announced my dream to the world.

It took the world 20 minutes to trample my dream, spit on it, and toss the pieces in my face.

I've been a content creator long enough to know that not everything I produce will be an instant hit with the public. I'm always braced for some measure of criticism, and I've learned to brace myself even more when it comes to level design. I was wholly unprepared for the hostility, ridicule, and indifference my game was about to receive, and I was blindsided by the things people would choose to complain about.

First was that initial ripple of excitement—hey, the game's finally out, congratulations, I can't wait to play it. Next were the first impressions—that cutscene art is fantastic; this music is great. So far, so good. Then came the bug reports—or more accurately, the memes making fun of the shoddy game engine, my horrible programming, and the apparent lack of playtesting. People were getting stuck in walls and crashing the game before even making it to the first checkpoint. Multiple people were outraged by the framerate, as though 30 FPS (more or less the fangame standard until OH JOES! was well underway) was utterly unplayable. Whatever credibility I had as a developer was gone before anyone got to the actual gameplay, by which point OH JOES! was just another no-effort fangame for people to trash. Notwithstanding the remarks about the art and music, the most positive thing I saw anyone say on Discord was that the game overall was "meh."

What a profound waste of my life this game was.

I had to walk away from my computer. I felt sick. What had been a source of tremendous joy and pride 20 minutes prior had rapidly turned into a painful mistake. One might argue that I was being overly sensitive to criticism, interpreting comments as negative when they weren't intended as such. But over the next four months, social media only reinforced the notion that nobody actually liked OH JOES!.

People complained about the lack of infinite lives, the fact that Proto Man loses his charge when hit, and the fact that a couple items require a specific character or weapon to collect—so I was being criticized for staying true to the official Mega Man games. But then people complained about the lack of a stage select or "real" final boss—so I was also being criticized for deviating from the official Mega Man games. I heard that the game was both too easy and too hard, that there were too many power-ups and not nearly enough, and that the game overstayed its welcome but wasn't long enough. There was no shortage of conflicting feedback from the general public.

But it didn't stop there. The lack of original Joes (when the entire point of the game was using tired old Joes in new situations) was disappointing to people. Over 250 screens of challenges, and the game did nothing new or interesting with Joes. Three meaningfully different difficulties, three meaningfully different characters, and a large degree of control over which challenges you face and how to face them, yet the replay value came across as artificial. How was I supposed to work with this feedback? These weren't critiques I could use to improve the game; these were indications that my game was a lost cause.

I'm better at handling the negative when there's some positive to focus on, but there was a gut-wrenching absence of praise for the story, dialogue, level design, tile work, special features, overall execution, and anything else I was responsible for. The only things people seemed to like were the stage music (of course, because Cosmic, Jasper, MiniMacro, and RushJet1 are extremely talented), cutscene art (of course, because Phusion is amazing), and secret character (of course, because she's a silly surprise who completely changes the gameplay nobody was enjoying). A handful of people involved in the project, who had previously stated that they liked the game, reiterated that they still liked it. I appreciated their support, but I also wanted—needed—some affirmation from the general public.

To give some numeric perspective: My initial announcement on Discord, Facebook, and Twitter reached a minimum of almost 600 different people—and depending on how much overlap there was between subscribers across the different platforms, that number could have been as high as 1500. I haven't been able to track the number of downloads from Dropbox and Google Drive, but MediaFire tells me that OH JOES! has been downloaded over 400 times—and I'm not sure whether that's since release, or just since I uploaded the last update. The first playthrough of the game that anyone posted on YouTube had over 1000 views within a few months of release, and my post about the game on Sprites INC had over 30,000 views. Even if, say, 90% of those views were repeat visitors and not unique views, those are still significant numbers.

In short: there were hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of people outside the development team who knew about OH JOES!. Of these, five people in as many months said anything to make me feel like I wasn't a total failure as a game designer. With the exception of one glowing and articulate review, the praise was concise and tempered: the game was fun, despite [insert shortcoming]. Meanwhile, I continued seeing hostility, disappointment, and indifference toward the game every day, then every few days, then every week, until people stopped talking about it altogether. Whenever I brought up the game's unpopularity in conversation, secretly hoping that someone would chime in with something nice to say, the response was invariably, "Oh, that's too bad." Pity felt almost like an acknowledgment that there was nothing nice to say. Even on the rare occasion when someone tried to defend my game against criticism, their response was usually something to the effect of, "Well, the problem isn't that bad...".

Emotionally, I was extremely unwell for several weeks after the game's release. There's a sickening bitterness that arises from being so proud of something—something that you devoted years to creating, that other people told you they liked—and then having your self-worth pounded into oblivion when you put your creation on display. After a few days, I no longer had the drive to record an announcement for YouTube. After a week, I was this close to deleting the game's page from my website and killing the download links. After two weeks, I nearly stepped down as a judge for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 3. I felt like the game's existence was ruining my reputation in the fan community, and I wanted nothing more to do with it.

The game's few vocal supporters eventually convinced me that maybe, somehow, the game hadn't reached the right audience yet. I worked up the energy to advertise the game on a couple small gaming forums, but by that point, the branding was substantially different. "I'm excited to share my game with you" had changed to "Here's this thing I made; maybe it's not a total waste." The only response I've received on any of those forums is a compliment about the cutscene art. I made an effort to review bug reports and update the game if anything critical came up, but I expended a minimum amount of effort in implementing any changes. I also started writing this series of blog posts—partially for posterity, partially to share some insights about what it's like to design a game, but mostly to try to salvage the memory of this deeply personal project.

I didn't spend two years making a game; I spent two years on a challenging, emotional, eye-opening journey to fulfill a dream I've had since childhood. Looking back on the high points, I can be proud of what I accomplished and happy with the personal relationships that developed along the way. Looking back on the low points, OH JOES! caused me an unprecedented amount of stress and suffering for something that was supposed to be fun. If I could go back and do it all over again...I wouldn't.

I think about how eager I was to make more Mega Man levels, and how I would have gotten my fix if I had just waited a few months for Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 2 and then a few more months for Mega Man Maker to arrive. I think about how many YouTube videos I could have recorded in the time it took to make OH JOES!—and how much happier both I and my content-starved audience would have been. Most of all, I think about how much it hurt to spend two years crafting a keen blade intended to cut through an afternoon of boredom, only to have my peers use it to carve out my heart.

But hey, at least I got some blog posts out of it.

I've done a fair amount of yammering about recording videos for YouTube and my time writing for Exfanding Your Horizons, but it's not as often that I talk about GameCola, the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website for which I've been writing since the beginning of 2009. Here and on Exfanding, you might see me mention the site in passing or rattle off links to posts I've written or participated in, but most of the behind-the-scenes tidbits are scattered in bits and bobs across 5+ years of videos, posts, and podcasts on the GC website itself. What's it like to be a Staff Writer/Editor and the YouTube Administrator for the most prestigious gaming website referred to in this paragraph? Well, since you asked...

Ostensibly, it's very easy. The longstanding rule for writers, dating way back to the dinosaur days when GameCola was published in a monthly newsletter format, is that you contribute one article per month. That's it. End of requirements. In our current format, this typically works well: we're posting one article a day, Monday through Friday, with our regular podcast posting on the first Sunday of each month; with a little over a dozen staff writers, some of whom are inevitably prolific enough to contribute more, it should be no trouble to meet our monthly quota. Anytime you see a "Classic 'Cola" article go up with a golden oldie pulled from the archives, it means we totally blew it.

As an editor, I can see how many articles are in the queue for review, and when things are scheduled to be published. During a dry spell, I'll often try to churn out a fluff post to help tide us over until the pace picks up. Anytime you see an article about a video series that's at least three years old, that's a sure sign our most prolific writers are on vacation, or else I'm really struggling to come up with a post this month. Actually, that's only half true; as both the administrator of GameCola's official YouTube channel and a completionist, I like to make sure all the videos we record get proper coverage on the main site.

Unofficially, I'm also GameCola's resident historian. When I was first invited to join the staff, I started doing my research, reading through the archives from the beginning. With the editor privileges I was given during the site's big relaunch in 2010, I soon embarked on a massive quest to bring all of our old articles up to code, proofing and editing them as I read them to ensure a minimum standard of consistency and polish across (at that point) nearly ten years of history. We have a GameCola Style Guide I adhere to when reviewing these old posts, and several of my suggestions for future revisions have come from past posts. I'll do a full editorial review of one or two new articles in the queue per month, and I'll instinctively spot-check any others I read, but what I most look forward to is the day I catch up with the relaunch articles. Anyone who's familiar with my creative works probably knows how much of a sucker for continuity I am; seeing where we've been makes me appreciate that much more where we are now, and it's a joy to be working toward connecting those two places in a meaningful way.

That being said, there's some scary stuff in the archives that I'm sure most people would prefer to keep buried. But at least it'll look extra pretty. Like a skeleton wearing makeup, maybe. We can be selective about what we reference, but we can't always control where Google searches and those suggested "You May Also Like" posts take people, so I figure it's in the site's best interest for every metaphorical room of our metaphorical house to be as tidy as possible when we leave all the metaphorical doors open.

Likewise, I strive to keep our old videos on our GCDotNet channel in good order, moving things into playlists and updating descriptions if need be. The review process is much less structured and stringent there: upload a video privately, and I'll take a quick peek before posting it to the public, ensuring the description, tags, title, and video and audio quality all meet our basic consistency and quality standards. I very rarely watch YouTube videos unless someone specifically shares a link with me, but I make an exception for GCDotNet out of loyalty and my silly notion that I should be informed about the content I'm supposedly administrating. Of course, it sometimes takes me years to do anything more than skim through a video (have you seen our Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward series!?), but I plan to get completely caught up eventually, I promise.

That's one of the fun things about GameCola: I'm as much a fan as I am a contributor. I have side projects within my side project. Call it GamatryoshkaCola. Or don't, because that sounds terrible.

As one of the senior members on staff, I also feel a strong sense of investment in the site. I've been here longer than the majority of the people currently on our staff roster, and aside from Alex "Jeddy" Jedraszczak (our Editor-in-Chief), I'm the only old-timer who's been continuously active over the last year or two. I'm relieved that Paul Franzen didn't fire me about a half-dozen times while he was Editor-in-Chief, because it's been a fun ride so far, and I've been honored to collaborate with him and with Jeddy on some big and small decisions behind the scenes. Together, we've developed a process guide for editors, diffused a few potentially ugly situations on the YouTube channel, and turned The END DAY into an official GameCola holiday. My perfectionist and control freak tendencies have mellowed considerably since joining the staff; frequent participation in group e-mail discussions, podcasts, and video commentary has a way of instilling an appreciation for effective teamwork.

Do I see myself staying with GameCola indefinitely? Hey, I'm happy to stick around as long as they'll have me. As with Exfanding, there could come a day when it's no longer sensible for me to keep going, but I don't anticipate giving up being a gamer anytime soon. GameCola is a great outlet for that side of my personality, and I've met some wonderful and hilarious people as a result of being here; I'm in no rush to break away, especially with all those side projects left to finish. I've got some video and column ideas yet, and at least one more RPGcast that I'm really looking forward to pulling together. And let's not forget about the 40-odd Mega Man games I have yet to review.

In other words, as I say in my biographical blurb on the site, you're pretty much stuck with me. Sorry.

In the 5+ years I've been blogging and making videos, I've been ad-free. No advertisements before my latest Mega Man playthroughs; no flashy widgets in the sidebar telling my readers they're the 10,000th person to be annoyed by this flashy widget today. I am not morally opposed to advertising, but there's never been a strong pull for me to don that sandwich board.

It's been a matter of integrity: I like offering my content without any sense that I'm only doing it for the money. It's been a matter of consideration: my readers and viewers are bombarded by advertising everywhere else on the Internet; how refreshing it must be for them to have a break from that. It's been a matter of control: you can't always hand-pick what gets promoted on your site, and the last thing I need is for practically naked fantasy women to spoil the family-friendly appeal of my content, or for gross diagrams of some dude hacking up a lung discouraging even me from looking at my sidebar. It's been a matter of money: I haven't needed that extra income, at least not enough to compromise any of the aforementioned principles.

Suddenly I'm planning for a trip overseas, and the thought of having enough money to eat there sounds appealing. I've toyed with the idea of enabling ads on my creative works before, but this is the first time I've ever given it any serious consideration. This is such a simple and obvious source of cash. How many hundreds—if not bajillions—of dollars have I willfully turned down in the past 5+ years?

But then there are the ramifications of getting paid. Sure, Google. You've already got my personal e-mail, all of my YouTube videos, four years of blog posts, and probably my credit card details all under one roof. Let me give you my bank account, too. Then there's the paranoia that partnering with YouTube to put ads on my videos will draw more attention from the copyright infringement watchdogs. I suspect "fair use" doesn't hold up so well if I'm profiting from videos that are of fuzzy legality to begin with. Is all this, plus the compromise of the twice-aforementioned principles, worth the $100 that I might get paid by the time I'm ready to go on the trip that's prompted this idea in the first place?

An alternative is Patreon, a site that allows fans to become patrons of their favorite content creators, paying them whenever they release new material. I'd need to look more closely at the logistics, but this sounds much more my style. The only problem? From what I understand, creators also need to generate additional exclusive content for their patrons to make it worth their while. I'm barely able to crank out a new video every 1-2 months, and I'm already giving my Facebook followers little tidbits they won't get elsewhere; now I need to figure out more ways to reward and entertain my supporters?

Maybe I'm better off playing the lottery.

Well, Google, you win. I've resisted you at every turn, publicly decried your decisions and methods, and conscientiously objected to your unwelcome changes with whatever clever subversions I could muster. Finally you've made it so inconvenient to not have Google+ that any further resistance would defeat the purpose of using your services in the first place.

I couldn't comment on my own videos. I had dozens, if not hundreds, of unanswered questions and dangling conversations from my viewers that begged for a response, and you took away my right and privilege to communicate if I didn't sign up for Google+. But then you nullified those conversations without warning—suddenly, Google+ or not, it was physically impossible to respond to any comments posted before a certain date. Was this part of the plan all along, or were you so eager to push your unloved Facebook competitor on us that streamlining the transition didn't matter?

I resented the theft of my voice. I ran out of ways to be upset at you, Google. First the obnoxious popups about connecting my accounts, then the subterfuge that led me to unwittingly set up a Google+ account, then the horrendously organized options pages that brought me this close to inadvertently deleting my entire YouTube channel, then the denial of my basic ability to talk to my fans without playing your little game, then the denial of my basic ability to talk to my fans who'd been waiting for months or merely minutes for a response. No amount of resistance, criticism, or outright complaining could satisfy my rage. I had been grumpy before about change for the sake of change; this time your agenda was clear, and this time, I was angry. This is not the creature of habit talking who'd prefer to leave well enough alone; this is the person who despises being bullied and taken for a fool by someone he trusts.

Today, I grudgingly but willingly signed up for your Google+. Today, you deprived me of one of the greatest joys I have from making videos: checking my e-mail the day after posting a long-awaited video to discover a deluge of subscriber and comment notifications, and taking my time to read through and appreciate each and every one. Today, after posting a video that's been in the works for two months, my inbox was empty.

I don't receive notification e-mails if I'm not signed up for Google+, you see, despite there being e-mail notification options in YouTube whether I've connected Google+ or not. You ever put on a performance only to have the audience stare at you instead of clap when you're finished? That's what this felt like. And navigating to the comments section of the video to see if anybody had said anything was like listening to the audience members talk amongst themselves on their way out of the theater. I was no longer involved in my own videos. I had become a cyber stork who left newborn videos on my subscribers' doorsteps before disappearing from their lives. So I swallowed my righteous pride and admitted defeat. Making videos isn't worth the effort without the human connection, but the human connection, I thought, might be more important than refusing to compromise my principles in the face of a corporation who isn't even listening.

I had fun populating my Google+ page with ridiculous information, claiming to be a Super Fighting Robot who works at Dr. Light's Lab and who went to school for special weapons use at the Challenge stages of Mega Man 10. Under better circumstances, Google could have persuaded me to at least create an account for the sake of better publicity—after all, I signed up for Twitter, which I neither like nor fully understand, so that people who prefer Twitter can get automatic updates about my blogging and YouTube activity that way. I'm not unwilling to try new things, but their value needs to be made clear to me if they're not forced upon me. As it stands, I feel dirty for joining Google+ because I neither wanted to nor was truly forced to. It's a little like being blackmailed—do I give in to the villain's demands to maintain the status quo, or do I preserve my sense of morality at the expense of something potentially greater?

I started to get anxious when, after two hours of setting up Google+, I still wasn't receiving e-mail notifications—as though I'd sacrificed my principles for nothing. That situation righted itself after enough time had passed, but I'm still finding brand-new comments I cannot respond to, and if I never have to wade through all those settings menus again, it'll be too soon. To me, that's the big tip-off that Google+ was never intended to be so integrated with YouTube: multiple settings menus that all seem to say the same thing and have a delay of several hours before the changes in one place take effect at the other place.

So I'm on Google+ now. It's not the end of the world. Maybe I'll end up using it or even liking it. One thing's for certain, though: Unless Google gets their act together and either streamlines or apologizes for this mess, it won't take much for a man who's already abandoned his principles to abandon the company that pushed him over the edge.

"General bitterness commentary." That's how one of my friends has described my recent creative work. It's true, you know.

I've always been something of a perfectionist, so complaining about things that are less-than-perfect comes naturally to me. Still, I can do more than complain. I prefer to do more than complain. I used to be a very laid-back, happy-go-lucky sort of guy. Humor used to flow easily into my writing. What happened to me?

Perhaps a better question is, "What happened to the world around me?"

Anybody who knew me in elementary, middle, or high school and has seen me even remotely recently could probably tell you I really haven't changed much. I'm taller, wider, and beardier, but still a theatrical goofball with an overactive imagination and a cabinet full of Spaghetti-O's. I'm still a terrible backseat gamer, a goody two-shoes who can barely lie to keep a birthday party a secret, and a squeamish liability at a horror movie. I have the same lack of fashion sense (thankfully I'm through my sweatpants-in-summer phase), essentially the same hairstyle (with a few exceptions, like the floofy ridiculousness featured on my first driver's license), and the same penchant for playfully flipping other people's ponytails and pigtails whenever they're within reach (long hair is magical). I'm not absolutely identical to the me who walked into his first day of fourth grade and threw up on the floor, but I'm not too far off.

I also tend to be more forthcoming about personal information than I should be. Maybe I should work on that.

The more I think about what I've been writing, the more I'm realizing what the root of my bitterness is. Everything that makes me happy is being systematically distorted into something that makes me unhappy. No doubt there's more to it than that, but I cope better with Big Life Stuff and the stress of being a so-called "grown up" when my sources of entertainment function as escapism, and not something to be escaped from.

I've stated before that it usually takes time for me to warm up to change. I am not instinctively opposed to it, but I don't often see the need for it. Don't fix it if it ain't broke; make it better, not just different; that sort of thing.

Over the last several years, I've watched my three favorite entertainment franchises--Star Trek, Metroid, and Mega Man—veer off toward the boundaries of what I'll tolerate as a fan. I've endured an endless parade of website redesigns that seem to cater more to the people designing them than the people using them—Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Pandora, and Blogger have undergone everything from minor tweaks to major overhauls, inevitably replacing something I love with something that annoys me. I've seen more and more large corporations—Capcom, Nintendo, Microsoft, Borders—make decisions that call into question whether they know anything about their consumers.

I've witnessed geek culture get absorbed into the mainstream with The Big Bang Theory, 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and Mega Man 10's Easy Mode; now I'm just like everybody else, and my geek cred means nothing because we're all geeks now. I've watched the fan community create so many mashups of Firefly, Zelda, Star Wars, Calvin & Hobbes, and Doctor Who that there's barely any meaning left to them—what was once a charming novelty has become a mass-produced commodity. I've heard more and more music on the radio that hooks me with a great instrumental introduction and sends me away screaming when the vocals come in.

Too much change. Too little improvement.

And too much time spent agonizing over the few major merits in a sea of incredible flaws. If only they had fixed this, or left out that, we could've had something more amazing than anything before it. I miss the days when I could simply like or dislike something without deliberating over the pros and cons. It's draining to write about the things I love when they're also the things I hate, but the things I merely like usually don't get me fired up enough to talk about them unprompted.

Thus, you have my general bitterness commentary. However, if I can get off my soapbox, I'm sure I can also get out of my...
um...complainy pants. Bitterness boxers? I should stop gravitating toward clothing.

Effective as soon as I feel like it, this blog will be taking a more positive direction. I still reserve the right to complain, but I'd like to do so in a manner that's more humorous and thoughtful than it is straight-up cathartic. I feel more like myself when writing with a smile on my face, and I haven't done enough of that lately. I take requests, so let me know if there's anything you'd like to see.

I wonder how much thought really goes into the decisions made by the entertainment industry's current generation of policy-makers. From where I'm sitting, the prevailing attitude seems to be, "We're doing things this way, because we said so. There's no need to consider our consumers, because we know what's best for them. They've supported us in the past, therefore we have their guaranteed support for the future. Our happiness is their happiness."

Example: Nintendo is identifying videos on YouTube that feature Nintendo-created content (e.g.: "Let's Play" videos of Mario and Zelda games) and is collecting any advertising revenue on those videos that otherwise would've gone to the video creator. All discussions of "Fair Use" aside, has Nintendo considered the ramifications of their actions?

Yes, this allows Nintendo to make a profit while protecting its intellectual property. But what happens when reviewers stop posting video reviews of Nintendo games, claiming it's not worth the effort to review something (no matter how good the game may be) when they can't make money off the video? What happens when fans whose enthusiasm for Nintendo is infectious—often inspiring their subscribers to go out and buy more Nintendo games—stop making "Let's Play" videos because they're afraid of having a copyright strike on their account? What happens to fan loyalty when Nintendo, in effect, starts stealing the ad money that allows its biggest fans to avoid working a traditional job? Is the obvious gain worth the potential loss of your fanbase? Or was that not part of the discussion to begin with?

Another example: Microsoft announced the Xbox One.

Yet another example: YouTube is forcing its users to switch to the new "One Channel" design on June 5th, citing an increased focus on content and the ability to reach a broader audience. It's telling that one of the top four autocomplete options for a Google search on the topic is, "youtube one channel sucks." I say this every time YouTube, or Facebook, or anybody at all introduces a so-called "upgrade": Make it better, not different. One Channel strips away much of the individuality of the old channel designs, introduces obnoxious new restrictions for making a channel banner that has to double as a background (depending on how you're viewing the site), and leaves little or no way to keep things THAT WORKED PERFECTLY WELL arranged as they were before. One Channel is targeted at a very specific type of YouTube user, which is great as an option when choosing how best to set up your channel for yourself and your audience. You might be the biggest game in town, YouTube, but you're not the only one—and especially with Nintendo making all those copyright claims, it's not outside the realm of possibility that gamers such as myself might find a more user-friendly site to call home.

I have to wonder whether anybody at Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, or anywhere else is thinking about the people keeping them in business as they pave the roads no one wants to drive on. And I have to wonder what kind of consumers we are to let them get away with it.

It's no secret I'm a fan of Star Trek. Perhaps you've seen my necktie with the Original Series cast on it, or the Next Generation lunchbox I had in elementary school, or the Deep Space Nine graphic novel I picked up on my last big comic shop run, or my review of Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force on GameFAQs, or the model Enterprise NX-01 that served as a makeshift star atop my Christmas tree last year.

Perhaps you've seen my collection of three sets of the Star Trek: The Next Generation PEZ dispensers.

The first one I brought home from the gift-swapping segment of last year's company holiday party. The second one I received from my family for this past Christmas. The third one came from a friend just this weekend. Now, I do collect PEZ dispensers, and I think it's the coolest thing in the world that my friends, family, and coworkers were thinking of me, and spotted this nifty gift that I otherwise wouldn't have known existed. It's also become a ridiculous running gag that I keep getting these PEZ dispensers.

This isn't the first time this has happened, though. I bought myself a Mega Man E-Tank mug when I first saw them on ThinkGeek. Then a friend bought one for me. Then another friend bought the Fangamer version of the mug for me. Don't get me wrong—I'm still appreciative, and you can never have too many mugs. (That's a lie. You can. But all of these see frequent use.)

But wait, there's more!

A friend sent me an e-mail the other day with a link to a plush Mega Buster and Mega Man helmet set that can be used both for cosplay and as a stylish pillow. I thought this was hysterical, and very clever. Then someone posted the same link to my Facebook timeline. And then another person.

ME: Oh, jeez. #3 person to share this. I should clear some room in the back closet in anticipation of Christmas...
FRIEND: Nah, I'm broke. Maybe you should just diversify your interests?
ME: I ALSO LIKE MEGA MAN X, THANK YOU.

Aside from Star Trek and Mega Man being the two fandoms I talk about most often--in large part because I'm slowly but actively watching through every episode of every Star Trek with my wife, and because I'm locked into in the Mega Man mindset thanks to daily comments on my YouTube videos—I suspect part of the issue here is that many of my other interests are more obscure, rarely seem to come up in conversation, and/or are tricky to buy for. I can tell you I like listening to James Taylor, but that narrows your options down to buying a CD I most likely already have, or springing for pricey concert tickets (which my parents have done twice now, because they are very cool parents). I can tell you I liked that Ralston Batman cereal they made for a limited time in the late '80s, but your response will be, "What the heck am I supposed to do with that information!?"

Star Trek and Mega Man are more mainstream than they've ever been thanks to J.J. Abrams, Mega Man 9-10, and all the merchandise and publicity that have gone with them; you'll never come across something like The Space Quest Companion as a gift idea unless you're doing some intense research, and know I'm enough of a Space Quest fan to be interested in something like that in the first place. I only pay attention to all the old, obscure stuff you can't get anymore, anyhow; anything that's mainstream, brand-new, and related to my interests is a great gift idea.

Still, I'm wondering what to do with these other two PEZ dispenser sets that doesn't involve painting them with goatees and evil eyebrows to make them look like they're from the Mirror Universe.

One month away from Facebook. One friend request, three messages, and seven notifications. That's about what I get if I leave YouTube for a couple hours.

Guess I didn't miss much after all.

I've actually been back on Facebook for a week now, but you'd barely know it. A link to a blog post and a GameCola article, a goofy status update or three, and a new poll on my GeminiLaser page. I'll glance at my feed when I log in, but I'm mostly there nowadays to coordinate weekend plans with people who never check their regular e-mail, or whose regular e-mail doesn't appear to have a "Reply All" button. (You know who you are.)

Giving up Facebook for a month deprived me of a unique and effective method of communication with my friends, family, and fans. For that reason, I'm glad to be back. As for the rest of it—the Farmville requests, the ever-changing privacy policies, the fact that my friends only post pictures of Doctor Who and BABIES! (you know who you are)—I'm reminded that spending more of my time tidying the house and falling off of ledges in Tomb Raider probably isn't such a bad idea after all.

I've been thinking about leaving Facebook for a while, and now seems like as good a time as any. A friend of mine was talking to me recently about how he gave up Facebook for Lent (I typically joke that I'm giving up abstinence for Lent); how many more productive things could he be doing with his time than idly scrolling through status updates? Especially after this past election season, Facebook has become less of a place to share your interests and catch up with friends, and more of a place to shout opinions, post inflammatory links, and give your friends reasons to never speak to you again. Frankly, I think a lot of us could use a break.

This past weekend I got to meet up with a few of my fellow GameCola staffers for the biggest party I've been to since college. (Bear in mind that my definition of "party" typically includes people staying up until 3 AM playing games and drinking beer—that is, video and root, respectively. This one was no different.) The party itself was a blast, but it wasn't just playing The Cave or smashing up a llama piñata wearing a top hat and monocle that made the evening so enjoyable—it was spending time engaged in these activities with other people. At a distance, we forget that our friends are not solely the sum of their posts and tweets—I was playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii U with friends, not simply some people who write GameCola articles.

It's tough to return Facebook after that. Ha ha, you said something funny. I'd hit the Like button, but that would imply I wholeheartedly support the views expressed in your post, and it also shows favoritism if I don't Like every single thing that makes me laugh—at which point it looks like I like everything everybody posts, which robs me of my individuality. I could be overthinking this. I could also be tired of walking on eggshells every time I respond to a comment, for fear of inadvertently hitting a nerve when I'm trying to be helpful or silly—facial expressions and body language don't translate well into the text of a status update, and moods can shift so drastically by the time you're finally responding to something. Some people you haven't seen in years aren't the same people you used to know, though you couldn't tell from what they post. Things happen to people that they do not talk about online. I'm interacting with fragments of my friends anytime I'm on Facebook anymore; I miss the people.

It's not like I'm terribly difficult to locate online, and my phone still works—I'm not turning my back on the world here. I haven't been on AOL Instant Messenger for nearly a decade; I think Facebook can make do without me for a while.