Hello!
It might have been a little while since you’ve heard from us, and I do have to say that we’re sorry about that. It was never our intention to step out of your lives without a word of warning. This was something of a slow fading, which I think we all can see, a sad thing to see happen, but something that was going to happen eventually.
I am sure, of those who still were paying attention to our little site here, you’re asking what happened? How come we stopped chatting with you and reviewing and all that? Well, it’s simply that everyone started to slowly go in different directions for a variety of reasons.
At the end of this page, I’ll have a roundup of where some of us currently are, so you can just scroll there if that’s what you’re interested in, but first, a word from some of us.
Mel
I joined Nintendad (the precursor to BDG) in late 2019. At that time it was a thriving little hobby site that focused on Nintendo Switch games, accessories, and what have you. I was welcomed in by some wonderful people and it was all so exciting. It was perhaps what got me through the pandemic when that hit just a few months later. It was a time where we were all riding high off of what we were putting together and everyone was super invested, perhaps because there was little else for us to do at the time.
When the new console generation launched, we were perhaps the most jazzed that we had ever been. BDG was launched to be a companion to Nintendad where things beyond the scope of Nintendo could be covered. However, for a variety of reasons, including that few of us had access to next generation hardware at the start of the new generation, there wasn’t a whole lot happening on BDG. It was stagnant, with just a tiny handful of articles that we had put together. It wasn’t something that looked like it was going to lift off at all.
So, the choice was made to merge the two sites together. Nintendad content would migrate into BDG, and Nintendad would become the personal blog/site/creative space of Kieran, our founder and the titular Nintendad. Nintendo content would supplement BDG and Kieran, who was taking a step back to spend more time with his family, would have a space that he could use as a creative outlet without having to worry too much about the rest of us.
This was… a rocky transition, more so than we had expected.
We, admittedly, communicated this change and transition poorly to our current following, so some were confused and most did not follow us over to the new location of our content. Our numbers saw a huge hit. And to be clear, numbers were not why we were all doing this, we were doing it for the love of games. However, numbers were important for getting publishers to listen to our requests for game code. We had some that were still reaching out to us, but we did lose some of our bigger contacts because we no longer had the reach we once had. This was on top of the migration of Nintendad articles causing issues, such as wiping out images on many of them.
Still, we adapted and kept going! We were still all having a lot of fun. Then… life started changing for many of us.
I stepped up into the position of Editor-in-Chief when our last person to hold the position, Abram Buehner, stepped down. This was because he had gotten the amazing opportunity to do paid work at another site. We were sad to see him go, but at the same time we were happy to see him make such a leap.
I tried as best that I could to keep things going after that. I admit that I wasn’t the best at it. I had no managerial experience and I wasn’t good at being strict with people. Still, we kept chugging along for a while and even brought on some people that I really adored at that time.
Slowly, though, the cracks started to show. Our weekly news roundup fell behind schedule more often, and I found myself writing more and more of the weekly opinion pieces because there hadn’t been any submitted. These had been planned to be insightful looks into gaming and a place where we could explore ideas that weren’t meant to be put into a review, but with the self-imposed pressure to have one weekly, the trap of top ten lists came for us just as much as anywhere else.
That’s not to say there wasn’t anything great, though. We were still putting out fun reviews, an occasional banger of an editorial, and Greg managed to score some cool interviews too! We even launched a podcast, which waffled around a little and never had more than a handful of listeners, but it was still fun for us to do, just getting together and chatting.
Though, behind the scenes, I was watching as we lost people.
Some left for bigger opportunities, which I applaud each and every one of them for. Some stepped back because of a change in their day job or family situation, which we would never fault them for. Others just slowly were able to write less and less or shifted their creative pursuits elsewhere. None of this was anything that any of us could blame anyone else for. It was natural, almost, to see people moving on.
We weren’t picking up anyone in their place, not really. One or two joined on, some lasted, some didn’t. And I could never blame anyone for not putting 100% of themselves into things, after all, this was a gig where we were not getting paid since we never ran ads on the site. Everyone was doing this for the love of it, as a creative outlet, so if someone couldn’t find the time to do it for free, well, I could hardly blame them. Changes in my personal life kept me from writing too, more and more. When I did write, it was for other projects, even if part of me kept feeling guilty about that.
So, it was a slow and quiet unraveling of things as people left, both suddenly and slowly. There are a few of us around now, but before we noticed, nothing had been posted in months and we were accepting that the site was a shadow of its former self. I’m personally upset with myself that I wasn’t able to keep our head above water as much as I would have liked to, but in hindsight, I can see how the writing was on the wall longer than I was willing to admit. The landscape of making this sort of content has changed so much in just a few years, after all.
I’m grateful for what we managed to put together while we were here, though. I had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends, and played a lot of games that I otherwise might not have. We were blessed while we were here and I will forever be grateful for that.
So, this isn’t the end of all of us. Some of us are working on other things! Some are focused on our families, some are focused on creative pursuits, some of us are just living life. Many of us are on social media, still posting, even if they’re not the articles that you used to see from us.
Myself? Well, I made the jump to youtube essay content, mostly about magical girl anime, which you can find the link to at the bottom of this page.
Greg
Hello everyone. It’s Greg from the various facets of BDG, to podcasting, editing, reviews, the occasional researched thought piece on whatever I was hyper fixating on at the time. Trust me, more often than now I am sure the others would call my thought opinion ideas more of a fixation, but it drove me to give the most insightful thoughts I could. I was overjoyed to join this wonderful team during the transition into BDG back in March of 2021. It has been a dream come true to do this type of work, even as a hobby, and it will be sad to see this site end, but I have to admit that it simply is not feasible to keep the site running. It has never truly been my intention to step away over the past year of our slow decline but I want to talk a bit about what happened to me personally during that time.
Firstly, as many of you know, we did this as a hobby and it was certainly a pleasure to provide that content for you all. The site did not bring in money as we did not run ads because making a living out of this was never the intention of the team we gathered. So I applied for and received a promotion at work back at the end of January. Well that job keeps me pretty busy with me still working in the medical sphere, that my schedule fell behind. Scheduling collaborative projects got harder with this new job as well. Though I will say that I could have managed if not for the second issue I was tackling at the same time.
As listeners of our podcast would know, I have been suffering a steady medical decline since last year in late October. It took us a while to figure it out and I was told in February that my urinary tract for my left kidney was closing shut and my kidney was slowly failing. Admitted, I hid this from much of the team and that was not right of me as I kept pulling in review work despite this. The plans for recovery were originally going to be a reconstruction of the urinary tract on that side, but more tests resulted in me ultimately losing my left kidney in June.
I want to finish this by saying the surgery was a complete success! I have been able to enjoy my life again without feeling constantly sick. My energy is not 100% post-surgery yet, but all signs look good that I will be able to fully recover. This being said, while BDG may end, I am working on a return to the form of reviewing and covering game news and will provide more information on that once everything is more set in stone. I hope that you can continue to enjoy the content that I will put out, albeit at a schedule that works more easily with my hectic life. And for those that may not wish to follow us, I still wish you the best all the same in your own pursuits because I will never regret joining BDG and living a childhood dream.
Kevin
Kevin here! I was the guy who produced a lot of the images and Yesterday’s News Today reviews for a year or so back a ways. BDG got me to meet a lot of my friends that I still cherish today. BDG was a really cool experience that I got to be with for a decent amount of time and it opened my eyes to a lot of what it means to be in games journalism. Sure, I got in because I wanted to play games before anyone else, but I got some amazing recommendations and experiences out of it. I got to record a few podcasts, make an April fools video of a Wario collection, and even cameo in a few year-end round ups. In short, BDG gave me a chance to spread my wings and figure out that I could really do something with myself artistically.
While I ended up stretching myself a little thin (you can thank some now-diagnosed ADHD for that) I loved just about everything I did for the site. I loved that I could challenge myself with the Sunday Coffeehouse articles and talk about stuff that really got me interested and I’ll miss that a lot (I STILL do, but you get what I mean).
As for me, what am I up to you ask? I’m finally getting into my Steam library after a fortunate set of circumstances landed me a Steam Deck, I’m hanging with my wife and 4 kids, and I’m making infographics professionally at my current job. If you ever want to get a hold of me, just head on over to James’s stream every few days a week and I’ll be there. The man is a gem and needs to be protected at all costs. I’ll just be over here playing Marvel vs Capcom 2 when that collection comes out like my life depends on it. Or you can follow my terrible life choice of finding the best song on every US SNES release over on Twitter (@smlcaptain). Later, friends!
Derek
Long time no chat, guys, it’s Derek! I’ve been absent for a bit, over a year, and before then my output had dropped drastically. I published my first review for Nintendad back in ancient times (2019) and it was a dream come true. I ended up writing reviews for some of my favorite games, Castlevania, Streets of Rage, Dragon Quest, Zelda, you name it! If I were to tell my younger self I was reviewing games just like the “pros” in Nintendo Power were doing, I wouldn’t believe it.
Through Nintendad I met so many cool people, be them my fellow writers, other members of the press and even Hideki Kamiya! Yet, in early 2021 my wife gave birth to our daughter and it led to a massive slowdown in my output. Family first, right? I kept feeling so guilty about doing more and more work, even though no one was expecting it of me. I became my own worst enemy and would find myself forced to review a game. No one knew about this, except for my wife. She thought I was being ridiculous, and frankly, I was. Add to the equation a big move to a new town and all the challenges it brings, I quietly stepped away in early 2023.
I am really thankful to the rest of the team that continued to carry on the legacy of Nintendad and BDG after I was gone. It wasn’t my baby, but it was my team and I have always rooted for them to keep the dream alive. It saddens me to know that it’s ending soon, but the memories and moments that I have shared will never be taken away. With this, I say Adieu. BDG, here’s looking at you, kid.
James
Big Daddy Gaming means a lot to me. It was a lot of ‘firsts’ in my game reviewing career. I had been reviewing games for years before, and will be for years after BDG closes it’s doors, but it was the best of the 3 teams I’ve worked on for reviews. It had a passion for creativity and open mindedness for different ideas that other teams don’t have. It had an ‘open door’ policy for the many opinions and thoughts that different reviewers have. Sometimes, we even reviewed the same game because we don’t have the same feelings about Nintendo games or roguelikes, and the different perspectives meant more ideas got to be known. Finally, BDG had the most important aspect of a small-but-growing gathering of reviewers: the idea of growth without grandeur.
Seeing as how most of us had lives that we had established outside of game reviewing, none of us had any ideas of ‘bigger things for the brand’ when it came to reviews; we never planned to eventually make this our career because we already had one. We understand the lucidity of the rules of the internet and what will and will not make you money. There are already brands out there that make money off of this, and sure it would be nice to be them, but we weren’t. They peddle the click-bait opinions you’ll read 100 times, we let ourselves do the talking and that doesn’t invite the kinds of views and interest you need to make $100 million off of one review. And that was okay. That was established from day one, and that removed any worry of having to express an opinion that went with the status quo, or against for more views. We all had our own ideas of how good a game was, and it felt like we all had our own personalities expressed in our own style of review. Which should be how all review aggregates handle themselves, but don’t.
Finally, BDG gave me the most important thing a game review team ever has. My very first ‘Big Deal’ review. As stated above, there was no money in this, so I had no reason to put in as much effort as I did, but I knew exactly what was going to happen. I prepared 6 review videos, 6 written reviews, and a final ‘final thoughts’ document for Super Mario 3D-All Stars because it was my very first Nintendo-based full review. I was elated, I was overjoyed, I will never forget the opportunity BDG gave me that day. I still can’t contain the amount of excitement I felt at the fact someone like me, who had been there less than a year among the other members who had spent years building the BDG brand, got to review this treasure of Nintendo games. That still lives in my brain as unbelievable. I even bought an [accidentally European] copy of Super Mario 3D-All Stars to hang on my wall because that is the very first Nintendo anything I was handed to review. It is still in the packaging and I will never open it.
But, the BDG train finally had to close its doors and move on at some point. It has been several months/years without my involvement as I simply got too busy in my own life and reviews to donate anything meaningful to the brand. I felt if I couldn’t donate my full heart as I do to my own stuff to theirs, then I couldn’t be there and give a half-effort job. It didn’t sit right with me. That and burnout is a [bad word]. So, as BDG moves on without us, I want you, dear reader, to know that I am continuing reviewing things, animating things, creating end-of-year award shows, telling jokes, and having fun elsewhere. If you’d like to find me on social media or other places, I stream on Twitch every Monday-Friday at Gateway2Drillbit – Twitch. I also continue creating things on YouTube with new uploads every Sunday at Gateway2Drillbit – YouTube. If it interests you, I also have other socials you can follow me on all right here: gateway2drillbit | Twitter, Instagram, Twitch | Linktree
Thank you everyone for joining us on this journey forward and upward. We may not have touched the stars like we hoped, but we came pretty close, and many of us are still trying on our own. So, go check them out and be sure to join all of our journeys onward and upward.
Thank you Big Daddy Gaming for all of the opportunities you gave me, the ideas you expressed toward me, the people you allowed me to meet and get to know, the games you opened my eyes and heart to, the developers I now follow, and the joy I got to experience while working with you. I will never forget this, and I hope to join you all on your journeys forward as a viewer, a cheerleader, a fan, and, maybe one day, future collaborator. Thank you.
Where to Find Everyone
- James – Gateway2drillbit – @JFairbZ
- Greg – @Bris_pit
- Mel – Magical Girl Mel – @Melcurtis
- Kevin – @SMLCaptain
- Joachim – 4metal.info (German) – @texjoachim@blabber.rocks
- Derek – @schwetty
- Dorks and Discussions Podcast (upcoming)