In late 2009 Crispy Gamer acquired GamerDNA.com, 360Voice.com, TweetMyGaming.com, and an associated ad network running ads on multiple privately-owned gaming websites. The board of directors, excited by the massive increase in page views and ad sales opportunities, decided that it was time to cut costs on the Crispy Gamer front, consolidate down to one company, and focus mainly on revenue. They laid off Crispy Gamer’s entire editorial staff, including the managing editor, the copy-editor, the senior writer, and several contract writers. They alerted the other freelancers that there would be no further work coming in. They also told the development team, consisting of myself, my friend Gabe, and our Junior Engineer Stanley, that our services would only be needed for a few more weeks as they transitioned Crispy Gamer to a more basic website.

To that end, Gabe and I were still technically employed by Crispy for a few more weeks, working on some back-end changes to the site. It felt a little creepy, like dressing up a friend for his own funeral, but this is a part of the internet startup world: sometimes things don’t go as expected and the board, who let’s not forget invested $8mm in this company, jumps in and assumes control in order to try and recoup their initial investment.

For my own part, I find the timing unfortunate. Beginning with the redesign in May 2009 and moving forward into the summer and fall of 2009, I thought the site had really turned the corner. It was much easier to use, much easier to navigate, and much easier to read than the previous design had been. We’d developed some really cool technology using current AJAX and DHTML techniques, and were looking forward to building even more. Our user community was taking off, with nearly every article getting several comments, and some of them getting dozens. Our numbers were holding steady despite dramatically decreasing the amount of paid traffic … in short: people were using the site, liking it, and coming back without having to be enticed by marketing or ads.

That’s exactly what you want, when you build a website. Unfortunately, that tipping point came too late. Instead of happening at about six months in, it took about eighteen, because there was a lot of stumbling in the first year. This, also, is not exactly uncommon in the world of startups, and I don’t blame the Crispy founders or employees for it — sometimes it takes time to find your voice and establish who you are. It’s just sad, because I’ve been on the other side of things. I started working for GameSpy in 1999, just as it was making its move from “three guys in an office running a couple volunteer sites” to “investment-backed real company with multiple product types”. It was touch-and-go during that time and a single different — not even necessarily bad — decision could’ve submarined the entire company. Instead, we struggled through, figured things out, and became profitable. It’s a great feeling and an amazing thing to have gone through, and I’m sorry that many of my fellow Crispy staffers don’t get to find out what it’s like.

I worked with a lot of good, smart, talented people at Crispy and I’m happy to have spent the last two-plus years there. We may not have made it over the hump, but we came damn close, and I’m proud of what we accomplished with the site. Now it’s time to move on to the next adventure. Gabe and I have both accepted some work with a San Francisco-based startup, for one thing. For another, I’m 35 pages and counting into a business plan for our own internet startup, which we’re hoping will allow us to raise some grant money and be able to employ ourselves full-time. It’s a very busy, very interesting time, but I’m excited about the possibilities out there and looking forward to continuing to learn and improve as a web designer and development director.

Oh, and now that I’m done with CG, you can expect more frequent updates to this blog, too. Woohoo!

Yes, that’s right. For the second time in my life, I decided to join in and try to write a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days. I succeeded, hitting 50k on the 28th, and as of this post I’m over 53k. What’s pretty amazing is that I missed four days at the beginning of the month due to my New York trip, and three more over the course of the month due to preexisting social obligations. So I actually wrote 50,129 words in just 21 days, which is an average of 2,387 words per day … which is a lot! Big thanks to my lovely wife for keeping me on track and spending a lot of weekend mornings at the local coffee shop with me.

I think the story’s actually pretty good, too … definitely worth a second draft. It’s about a young girl who is attacked by a werewolf but manages to kill it and is subsequently recruited into a school of monster hunters. You can read an excerpt over at my NaNoWriMo Page if you’d like.

Unfortunately, all the writing and paperwork (not to mention Thanksgiving and our one-year wedding anniversary!) hasn’t left me a whole lot of time for other activities, like updating this blog or promoting The Blood That Bonds. Both of these things will be addressed in December, although I’m also going to try to keep writing on a regular basis, AND we’re celebrating Christmas in LA FRANCE this year, so there will be traveling and such getting in the way as well.

There’s just not enough time in the day, week, month and year, you know?

And it’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. The site looks a lot better, and the underlying structure is a million, billion, billion, trillion times better than it was. I took the CSS file down from over 6000 lines to under 2000, reduced the size of the JavaScript, dramatically reduced the page weight in both graphics and HTML, and widgetized the living hell out of the site, so creating new pages with lots of dynamic chunks is super-easy.

I lost a lot of nights and weekends to this project (I’m typing this at the office, in fact), but thankfully my lovely wife has been super-supportive, taking care of the house and the cats, and even swinging by the office to provide moral support and/or Starbucks runs as necessary. She rocks. :)

So anyway, check out the site and let me know what you think. Or join our forums and let us know there. Either way, go go go!

Here now are some progress reports:

Lose 25 lbs. Project

Starting weight – 213.5

Current Weight – 213.5

Difference: 0 lbs. Son of a bitch!

Long Hair and Outrageous Muttonchops Project

Hair: Steadily growing out of control

Muttonchops: Mildly outrageous, as you can see!

I’ve got  a few more reviews coming, and then more regular updates will resume once we get into June.

Recent releases like Gears of War 2 and Killzone 2 have offered gamers visual fidelity of unparalleled quality. For over a decade, improving visuals has been the focal point of development in gaming, and titles have advanced by great leaps during that time. We’ve also improved the audio in our games, and arguably even moved into telling deeper, more interesting stories. Text-adventure advocates may disagree with that last point, but certainly we expect a great deal more story from today’s mass-market titles, such as Gears of War, than we did of titles like Bubble Bomb or DOOM.

Unfortunately, the characters that populate our games seem to have been lost in the shuffle. One could easily argue that modern gaming characters are shallower and less compelling than their ancestors, some of whom had great reams of text-driven dialogue to spout. Even in a Game of the Year-quality title like Fallout 3, we’re still presented with primary story characters about whom we know virtually nothing, and with whom we have a hard time forming compelling, coherent relationships.

You can read the entire article over at Crispy Gamer!

Ah, yes … E3. The gigantic hype machine has been toned down compared to its heyday, to be sure, but it’s still a major industry event designed to get gamers salivating over the latest and greatest offerings from developers, publishers and hardware-makers alike. Or, in the case of Nintendo, it’s a chance to leave gamers confused and mildly frightened. Either way, there’s been so much gaming news coming out of LA this past week that, unless you’re dead or stuck on a desert island, you’ve probably been caught up in the hype.

Hype sucks.

Look, there were interesting-looking games at E3, for sure. Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 — these titles and others are looking exciting and fun. Some of them even look like they might change or advance the face of gaming in some minor way. I’m particularly intrigued by Prince of Persia‘s “no punishment for sucking” philosophy, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is really starting to sound great.

But for all of the intrigue and excitement, a bunch of games on the slate that got some major press at this event just don’t do it for me. So here, in reverse order, are my least compelling games of E3.

Read More at Crispy Gamer