Today marks 10 years since I joined this website, which is kinda ridiculous to think about. Where that time went, I don't know. A lot has happened in my life since then, but at the same time it feels like nothing happened at all.

Anyone remember my first avatar? 
I joined right around E3 2014, so it makes sense that it was this... Guardians of the Galaxy hadn't come out to change my life yet! Since then I've used -checks records- 31 different Rocket avatars, not including special variants for holidays and such. And that's without even getting into the Fox and Paddington phases, but anyhow.

I think my favorite avatars that I've had were these (I can't pick one between them):
 

*ahem* Anyway, that was a bit self-indulgent. I suppose this thread's existence is, it's just me talking about myself. But there are things I genuinely wanna say to y'all about here, where to start...

Well, I'm posting this thread as a sort of "soft goodbye", if you will. You know how users here would post threads saying they're leaving the site, and saying goodbye to everyone? I'm not doing that, because well, it's kinda silly to me, my account will always be here and I can always come back whenever I want to. But the truth is, I've been getting more and more inactive here in recent years, and in recent months I've barely come here at all.

I've also been losing the energy to host the Greatest Games Event every year, something I've already mentioned to one or two people. We're late enough into 2024 that I don't want to burden someone else with it, but this year's the 15th event and it'll be the last one I host. If anyone wants to keep it going after that, I'd be happy to share all the know-how and resources from the many years of doing it.

There's something else I also felt like telling, but I'll keep it short so to avoid things getting a bit too heavy here. Last year, I met a different online community, full of people who were as obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy as I was, and through my experiences over there, I rediscovered my sexuality - I used to believe myself asexual, now I identify as gay, hence the signature I've been using since. I then got into an online relationship, which was beautiful until it wasn't. Now I'm going through my first break-up. It's been 3 weeks, but holy shit I wasn't ready for how much it'd hurt. And how it's led me into my worst emotional crisis as I find myself questioning.. basically my entire life.

The thing is, I'm a 29-year-old who's just going through his first break-up, has never had a job, is still living with his parents and brings in no income. I went to college for a few years, but I dropped out. My life has gone absolutely nowhere in all of my adulthood, and I just don't see how I can fix it. I don't have the confidence or the social aptitude or the willingness to try and get a job, I played all of my cards into dedicating myself to music-making and hopefully making a living through that, but I've barely made any music in years because my motivation's died out completely. I feel like I was building up a hole inside my heart for years without realizing it, and when it got big enough to consume me, I tried to fill it in with other people's love - but they're all gone. That community I got into, my ex-boyfriend, everyone else, everyone left me. I suppose I have this place, but this doesn't feel like home anymore, because VGC is a site for shallow game talk and I've changed from being a shallow happy person, to a deeply broken mess.

Anyway.

That did get pretty heavy, I'm sorry about that.

I hope you're all doing fine, and that the community in this site continues to... exist for as long as possible. If anyone has interest in continuing the Greatest Games Event, please reach out, I'd love to see it continue too, but ideally as a participant rather than as a host. My life situation clearly allows me all the time in the world to work on this, but that doesn't mean that work doesn't get tiring - in truth, last year I really felt like I was going through the motions, and I started almost mixing things up in my head, between 2022 and 2023.

I remember back when I joined, I used to think about how'd it feel when I was a long-time user here, it almost felt like there was a reputation associated with that, but I'm not sure, is there? Maybe there was, and it got lost somewhere along the way, as the community shrinked more and more. Anyway, 10 years yay! I hope the next 10 years of my life go better than the last.

Think that's all I wanted to say, see y'all around.

Wherever you end up I just hope it's somewhere good. :)

Awh that's a shame, it's one of the highlights of the year on the forums! I imagine it's a huge undertaking each year though, so I can understand it becoming a bit of a burden after hosting it for so many years. Thanks for all that work over the years though. Hopefully someone else takes over. If no one steps up then I might take it on next year, though I'd have to scale it down a bit and probably move the date, in order to incorporate it into my other work on the site.

And on your personal life, I hope you're able to set some goals and gradually work towards them so that you dig yourself out of the hole you've found yourself in, and from there hopefully find some happiness.

Btw I'm glad you're not leaving leaving. You'll always welcome back if you do take a break though!

There are a lot of us with not much going on in life. Just live day by day and try to find things that bring you joy.

Guess my account is also 10 years old this year too.

About the stuff going on in your life, even as I'm quite ill suited to give anyone advice, all I can say is that everything is a lot worse on ours minds than it actually is, you do not have to compare yourself to others to judge whether or not you are doing good, but we all end up doing that anyway.
A broken heart heals, even as you might think it does not when you are going throught it, it heals, time can't fix eveything but it does help a whole lot with the healing.
From my POV you have always been a nice person, and I'm sure you'll get things sorted out in your own time, and I'm glad you found out a community to share some more of your interests with.
I think most of us catch ourselves barely even coming here anymore too, but the greatest games thread you took the mantle to hold was a nice event to come back to, so thank you for holding it for so many years (but also don't worry about it too!).

Yeah, most of us 10+ years are dying out. I hope you find your way soon. I felt a lot like you until I moved to Japan. It might be something big like that or something small until you feel like you are in the right place.

Oh I’ll be hitting the 10yr mark December 15th, so expect ioi to turn the servers off on the 14th :P

Thank you for your contributions over the time I have been a member and reading the comments before that.

Sorry to hear that. I’ve considered you one of my ‘VGC-friends’, so I hope everything is going to be alright.

First off, I’ll consider taking over the Top 50 Greatest Games event, but I’ll have to admit, even participating has become a bit of a burden too. I still like the event and the idea a lot, but I’ve also been doing it for so long now and not much has changed for me for many years, that each year it has kind of been becoming a bit of a chore. My interest in games has waned greatly in this time. I’m still nowhere in Tears of the Kingdom for example and if even a Zelda game can’t hold my interest anymore than.. yeah. But like I said, I’ll think about it.

About the other stuff. I’m bad at advice, so I won’t really give any. All I can really say is you should do what gives you joy. That’s the only thing that matters. Though I know that might be difficult when you’re in a bit of a slump. If I may share some of my personal experience in life, maybe it helps gain some new perspective. It seems I’m a bit older than you, but it also took me a while to get my life on track so to say. I have never had a relationship. In my case it’s probably because I’m too picky, I hardly ever like anyone. I’m sociable enough though, not ‘outgoing’, but sociable enough. I do live by the day. When I graduated I took the time to get a job. I wanted something with a little ‘prestige’. Which I finally found. I payed like sh*t, but the studio where I got to work now looks really good on my resume, which turned out to help in getting interviews and such later. At one point I figured I had enough, and tried to do something on my own, with friends, for a while. Again living by the day. Success would come I thought. But it didn’t, and meanwhile my money slowly ran out and I saw friends move on with their lives, buy houses and get kids and at some point I realized I’ll have to look for something that does pay enough and is stable. Again I took my time, much to the chagrin of my parents even though they never made it clear and continued to support me.

Finally at the very end of last year I found a place at a municipality. I’m very happy with it, which means I can now finally get to look around to get settled. It might be more normal to take a longer time to go out on your own here where I live than where you live, but still, I’d say the time it takes is the time you need. You’ll get there, just do what you like to do and be with those who you want to be with and it will be fine in the end, you still have all the time in the world.

Only suggestion I have is to roll with life. I've lived in 3 states, had my father die unexpectedly a bit over a year ago, and moved abroad.

There is no gameplan for life, kind of just happens.

Best of luck.