As much as I don’t like the term, let’s roll with it. I am a webmaster. Although, even after more than two decades of experience of forums and blogs, I still consider me to be a webamateur.
Let’s Start With Some History
These pages are littered with examples of websites I’ve ran or been involved with. From an initial start on gamingforums.com in 2003 I swiftly got the hang of what community management was all about (or so I thought!) and I struck out on my own with sites like devioustyrant.com, evilgamersonline.com and supremecommanderforums.com.
Some were popular, some were not, but remember this was in the heady days of forums when “if you build it they will come” was still a thing. That’s not the case any longer. I had success with a couple of sites that I sold for reasonable amounts of money, but this “business” has always been a hobby to me, not a commercial enterprise.
If I had to guess when my long hiatus from webmastering began, I’d say it was when I started my current employment, or perhaps when I met Clare. I went from working a steady Monday to Friday gig to shift work with nights, late shifts, weekends. It’s also a time when my social life – and my romantic life – took off. I had less time. Something had to give. Slowly, but surely, forums fell by the wayside.
In 2020 I dabbled with getting involved once more with a short-lived venture called SGN (Strategy Gaming Network), but this never took off. I was distracted. I had other things to do such as look after my two young boys.
Where Are We Now?
In 2023 when all of my work drama was unfolding and I ended up working from home I found that I was sat in front of the computer most days and that I had time on my hands. I started looking back over my internet sites history and slowly got back into it. I’ve always been a gamer. I’ve always had a reasonably good PC to facilitate gaming. It’s always been strategy games which have been my go-to. I stumbled upon Sanctuary: Shattered Sun. This is a large scale RTS in the style of Supreme Commander and it looked incredible.
Two of my most successful forums were left4deadforums.com and dead-island.com – based on the games of the same name. I created the forums when the games were still in development and they both did really well. I started thinking; could a forum for Sanctuary be a thing?
Well, yes, yes it could.
Sanctuary: Shattered Sun
Launched with very little fanfare in August last year, Shattered Sun RTS was my return to the forum game. It’s a hobby. I enjoy building forums, there’s something therapeutic about the entire process. Some people play golf. Others go out drinking. My hobby is this.
As I explored Sanctuary I came across the official Discord community for the game and got involved in that. I started speaking to the developers of the game who loved the idea of a forum. They’d tried to do one themselves but forums take a lot of time to manage effectively and they’d closed it. I was offering to do it for them – for free. Right now Shattered Sun RTS is the official community for the game. Good, huh? We’ll explore Shattered Sun RTS in more detail another time.
Eat Sleep Game Repeat
With the launch of my first forum in years I started looking at methods of promoting and improving it. I found my way back to forumpromotion.net and from there, admin-junkies.com, where I met Cedric. Between us we launched oldgamr.net, a gaming news blog. We attached a forum to it. A momentum was started to build.
With ESGR we started to think, wow, could this be a commercial success? We have a brand, we have resources. So far… No. But it continues with Cedric now a silent partner who promises to one day start writing again and me, occasionally writing content for the blog.
And The Rest
Well and truly bitten by the bug my sites have multiplied. I now have:
There are a few others out there which either were a thing or will become a thing if I can find the time and inspiration. Maybe. Who knows.
It’s just a hobby, you know. I’m not in this for the money or fame(!). Its something that brings me joy.
The Future
I sometimes find it remarkable how something that started as a hobby has become such a significant part of my life. When I consider my early days with gamingforums.com all the way up until now, writing this, I have to consider that the landscape of online communities and evolved dramatically. We’ll cover that too, at some point.
Despite the ups and downs, success and failure, one thing has remained constant: I love this. It can be the thrill of launching something new, or engaging with a community, or getting frustrated with the technicalities of servers, software, mysql databases and other things which I barely understand.
I’ll continue to juggle my professional life and personal commitments alongside an ever evolving portfolio of websites (which gives me another idea). This is part of who I am. It’s not about commercial success or recognition it’s just something which brings me joy. Its that feeling of being creative.
Here’s to many more years of gaming, community building, and, of course, webmastering—however amateurish it may be.
