As a 1up survivor, I too was looking for a new place to call home while frantically trying to save my blogs. I'm just glad I was able to call this place my new internet home. Alot of the people I knew from 1up move here so I was glad I was able to see some familiar faces, but I met some new ones as well. I'll write something about this hopefully today so I'll keep this short. But congrats Pixlbit and congrats everyone!
Celebrating Five Years of PixlBit
The staff of PixlBit commemorates five years of the site.
Nick DiMola Celebrates Five Years of PixlBit
Before I even start to explain what PixlBit means to me, I just want to take a minute to respond to the absolutely heart-warming write-ups from all of the staff. Reading their responses and knowing that PixlBit has touched or changed their life in some way means the world to me. These internet strangers have become people that I know and care about and without PixlBit I would’ve never had an opportunity to know or collaborate with them. It’s something special and amazing and a completely unexpected outcome of starting this endeavor.
And the same extends to this community of fine people. It’s been an absolute honor to host all of you and make this small corner of the internet a continuously better home for you. I love discussing topics with you all because I know we can have a grown-up discussion without the bile and venom. If we don’t agree, we don’t agree; there’s a mutual respect that’s incredibly uncommon on the internet. Knowing that PixlBit has become a part of your life makes me so proud of everything we’ve accomplished, it’s ridiculous.
That being said, PixlBit means so many different things to me. In a lot of ways, it’s been a very personal journey of self-discovery. Before Chessa and I started the site, I had a yearning to start my own business. As writers at Nintendo World Report at the time, starting a gaming site seemed like a surefire success. We had contacts, a reader base, and I was certain I had the technical know-how to make the actual site a reality.
For a month, Chessa and I pushed ourselves to the absolute limit. I’d get home from work at 5PM, sit down and code until 3AM, stopping only for a few minutes to shovel food into my face. Chessa was preparing content, doing graphical designs, and helping me test everything I developed. Weekends were completely sunk into doing site development, or setting up mail servers, or forging PR contacts for initial content, or finishing up outstanding assignments at NWR before walking away. It was simultaneously the greatest nightmare of my life and an incredibly exciting start to what would be a very long journey.
After finishing, it didn’t take long for things to start hitting the fan. A falling out with our business partners at the time was incredibly frustrating and stressful and disheartening and a hundred other emotions that were very hard to deal with at the time in my completely exhausted state. It didn’t take long for things to turn so sour that they exited the business relationship, which increased our burden to run the site alone and created a slew of other problems that made life much more difficult for a long time.
Things weren’t made better by the dwindling readership or the continued long hours and mountains of work to be done. Server cost with no revenue was yet another demoralizing blow. But somehow we kept moving. Somewhere in between there, Jason Ross joined up as a volunteer and I think that without him, we probably would’ve just given up. He helped lighten the load and was a friend in a time when things were especially rough.
At some point around that time I think Chessa and I realized that as a business, PixlBit simply wasn’t going to be viable in the short term, so we strapped in for the long ride in hopes of eventually achieving relevance.
Little did I realize that PixlBit was already paying dividends. Turns out I had learned an incredible amount about building web applications from the ground up and PixlBit offered the perfect playground to try out new ideas and increase my knowledge. This has helped me immensely in my personal career. Furthermore, PixlBit taught me a bit about myself. What I could do, how to approach problems, even how to navigate harsh interpersonal situations.
There’s no doubt that PixlBit has helped me grow as a person as well. While it’s only writing about games, it’s allowed me to more carefully examine situations before jumping to a given conclusion. It’s helped me learn how to work more successfully with other people, it’s proved to me that with enough drive and dedication, you can accomplish so much even when the odds are stacked completely against you.
Five years of PixlBit has been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. It’s a labor of love that I can’t seem to ever pull myself away from. I love this site and I’m incredibly proud of everything that I’ve accomplished here. Five years later, it didn’t turn out the way I had expected it to when it was first dreamt up, but what we have today is remarkable nonetheless.
Thank you to everyone who has made PixlBit what it is today. The 1up refugees came at the perfect time and breathed new life into PixlBit that continues to thrust the site forward today. I truthfully and sincerely can’t thank all of you enough. Here’s to five more years.
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