Grow’n Up A 1-Up

As kids growing up I loved everything about gaming.  My close friends in highschool can atest to the fact that I was a severe gaming “geek”.  Heck I was an early 80’s kid… and didn’t want to be left out of the gaming boom that was happening all over.

I can still remember watching my older friends who had Atari 2600 & Colecovisions & convincing (well ok begging) my mom to buy me my own.  An even older memory was seeing a News Reporter talking about the NES and how that was the newest system in-town that was taking gaming to new heights.  Funny after my my mom got me the 2600 it was maybe less than a year later that I begged again and got my grades up good enough for her to justify getting me an ”upgrade” to an NES.  Once I had that machine,  I was in “gaming heaven”, I used to think to myself. 

And of course, as gaming grew, I grew.  Upgrading each year for every console generation; i.e. SNES, PS & PS2, etc.  For large part of my life, gaming WAS my childhood, and not only that…it was my best friend.   As sad as that sounds to some people today, it wasn’t for me back then.  In fact next to Saturday morning cartoons and playing handball at recess, gaming was my closest thing to having a sibling. 

Growing up a 1-up, I was able to fix “world” problems, save countless lives, and most of all… have a blast  being a kid.  It provided me a chance to ”beat the competition at its own game.”  It didn’t matter to me that the competition was a computer.  And while my time and resources have limited my passion over the years as an adult, I still can atest that I still have a gamers heart.

And like most gamers, I grew up wanting to join the industry.  And unlike most of my friends, I didn’t only love playing games but began to love reading about them.

In fact, at some point, reading about gaming & learning what was going on in the gaming world would eventually provide me more of a kick than playing the games.  Guess you could say I was just happy to know what was happening and learning who was shaking things up and taking names. 

And it wasn’t that I didn’t love playing games, as my mother and friends well knew I would love just spending the entire weekend playing.  It was just I loved finding out what was new.  Around highschool I started buying and keeping every issue of EGM, Gamepro, GameFan, and heck, when it was decent… I even liked picking up Next Generation Magazine.

While I had my favorites, none of them were perfect, although some were definitely better than others.  And while EGM & Gamepro have managed to outlast most of their competitors to stand well grounded even today, it can be said that gaming news and reviews is no longer what it used to be.

Today, gamers have the chance to get their gaming fix online in forms of blogs, e-zines, etc.   Heck even the Wii has gaming news updated on the console online!  How cool is that?

Guess thats why nearly more than 15 years later, I’m proud to be starting a gaming website.  This blog, (which I’ve agreed to personally take charge of; Junj will be working on the gaming rentals & reviews) will be my personal voice as a gamer and 2g4g’s site will finally give both of us a chance to join the gaming industry.  By starting up a gaming business and now with the technology in place to be an actual player in this big pond… it really is great time for us to start making something of our love for video games even as adults.

Becoming a game blogger, I want to help provide a voice for gamers both in and past the usual 18-24 demographic.  The gamers who are now in their careers, either single, married, or looking.  Those who still play from time to time and love it. 

Who says we have to stop our love to “grow up”?  Certainly the industry is looking to all ages now, both young and old-er.

- C

Grow’n Up A 1-Up

As kids growing up I loved everything about gaming.  My close friends in highschool can atest to the fact that I was a severe gaming “geek”.  Heck I was an early 80’s kid… and didn’t want to be left out of the gaming boom that was happening all over.

I can still remember watching my older friends who had Atari 2600 & Colecovisions & convincing (well ok begging) my mom to buy me my own.  An even older memory was seeing a News Reporter talking about the NES and how that was the newest system in-town that was taking gaming to new heights.  Funny after my my mom got me the 2600 it was maybe less than a year later that I begged again and got my grades up good enough for her to justify getting me an ”upgrade” to an NES.  Once I had that machine,  I was in “gaming heaven”, I used to think to myself. 

And of course, as gaming grew, I grew.  Upgrading each year for every console generation; i.e. SNES, PS & PS2, etc.  For large part of my life, gaming WAS my childhood, and not only that…it was my best friend.   As sad as that sounds to some people today, it wasn’t for me back then.  In fact next to Saturday morning cartoons and playing handball at recess, gaming was my closest thing to having a sibling. 

Growing up a 1-up, I was able to fix “world” problems, save countless lives, and most of all… have a blast  being a kid.  It provided me a chance to ”beat the competition at its own game.”  It didn’t matter to me that the competition was a computer.  And while my time and resources have limited my passion over the years as an adult, I still can atest that I still have a gamers heart.

And like most gamers, I grew up wanting to join the industry.  And unlike most of my friends, I didn’t only love playing games but began to love reading about them.

In fact, at some point, reading about gaming & learning what was going on in the gaming world would eventually provide me more of a kick than playing the games.  Guess you could say I was just happy to know what was happening and learning who was shaking things up and taking names. 

And it wasn’t that I didn’t love playing games, as my mother and friends well knew I would love just spending the entire weekend playing.  It was just I loved finding out what was new.  Around highschool I started buying and keeping every issue of EGM, Gamepro, GameFan, and heck, when it was decent… I even liked picking up Next Generation Magazine.

While I had my favorites, none of them were perfect, although some were definitely better than others.  And while EGM & Gamepro have managed to outlast most of their competitors to stand well grounded even today, it can be said that gaming news and reviews is no longer what it used to be.

Today, gamers have the chance to get their gaming fix online in forms of blogs, e-zines, etc.   Heck even the Wii has gaming news updated on the console online!  How cool is that?

Guess thats why nearly more than 15 years later, I’m proud to be starting a gaming website.  This blog, (which I’ve agreed to personally take charge of; Junj will be working on the gaming rentals & reviews) will be my personal voice as a gamer and 2g4g’s site will finally give both of us a chance to join the gaming industry.  By starting up a gaming business and now with the technology in place to be an actual player in this big pond… it really is great time for us to start making something of our love for video games even as adults.

Becoming a game blogger, I want to help provide a voice for gamers both in and past the usual 18-24 demographic.  The gamers who are now in their careers, either single, married, or looking.  Those who still play from time to time and love it. 

Who says we have to stop our love to “grow up”?  Certainly the industry is looking to all ages now, both young and old-er.

- C

Got the Domain name!

Earlier this month, Junji & I spent an entire Saturday just to talk about one thing: “How can we start a business?” And more importantly, what can we do together, that would help us leverage our start out the gate?

It had been a few years since we have even considered the idea, let alone think of starting something together. While starting a business with one of your best friends sounds like a great idea, it also can be a friendship-killer. And after being friends for over 17 yrs. you can imagine that going thru as much twist and turns as any friendship that long can stand we wanted to make sure we approached doing a business together with our eyes wide open.

But truthfully, that amount of friendship has given us trust in each other that you can’t find easily. And after talking about it again, we realized truthfully at our ages, (30 and 29) we really have nothing to lose AND everything to gain. Now was the time if were ever to start something and make a difference.

And so naturally, when the thought of a mutual business venture came about starting a business in the video game industry was a no-brainer. As kids, we lived and loved gaming, and as adults, we always wanted to be a part of the industry.

So after a few hours, we thought up a few concepts of what kind of gaming business we wanted. We both would love to aspire to have a gaming store one day. And I really wanted to get a blog site going for gaming news, etc. Junj even had a great idea of getting gaming rentals and repair going.

Well after spending a whole day brainstorming, our brains were drained and we thought we should call it a day. We knew that starting a business would take time and we didn’t want to rush into anything without really thinking it throughly.

Funny thing is, I never stopped thinking about the idea. And so, after a week, I started thinking about the name. After a few ideas and checking them out on domain name sites like godaddy.com & register.com I found 2g4g… which stood for 2gamers4gamers. I figured this fit a perfect description of who we were, what we stood for, and what we provided, all in our own name… with access to the acronym to boot!

In between contacting Junj, I asked a few friends what they thought of the name, including my wife. And out of 10 people, I only had one friend think it wasn’t a cool name. And I’ll be honest as this friend was a marketing com professional, I figured his opinion weighed heavily.

Yet, something in my gut felt like I knew that our name would do something. It’s one of those things I guess where when someone tells you can’t, instead of getting all discouraged, it actually became the actual push for us to say “we can”.

And so, after bringing it up to Junji, it became clear to us that if we were going to do anything about it, we better start now… and so we did.

Its going to be a long journey, and I told Junj I’d be in it all the way. And so last night we got the domain name. And while we still have a website to build, clients to find, and a product to sell…. sometimes you just got to sit back and appreciate the basics.

So for now, we’re shaping our identity.  Junji is excited to start the game rentals & repair divison of 2g4g, and I’m just as ecstatic to be the core blogger for 2g4g.  Together we plan to provide gamers an indie-portal to gaming info, culture and status.

What’s in a name? More specifically obtaining the domain name? For us, it marks the beginning and next chapter.

… and with a warm greeting, we both welcome you to 2gamers4gamers.com

Make sure to keep us bookmarked!

Unoffical post # 1

Hello world! More specifically hello fellow Gamers!

This being the 1st blog entry, we just wanted to have an “unofficial” posting marking our first entry into blogging.

Our main goal will be to provide you information on current gaming. We have a few other ideas we’re working on that will tie on to this blog, and we’ll post those when we flesh them out a bit more.

For now we just wanted to introduce ourselves, and get started.

A formal posting will start soon.

Yours truly,

Cid

2Gamers4Gamers

Co-Founder