Lifetap MMO Daily

Welcome to the 1st Edition of Lifetap

Lifetap: because sometimes, your life is like a fart

Ten Ton Hammer has been around for quite a long time. Almost ten years, to be exact. A lot has changed within the MMO industry during that time, and like the Watcher of Marvel Comics fame, I’ve been around to witness it all.

To quote one of my favorite moments from Bladerunner, “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

Maybe I haven’t watched C-beams glitter in the dark, but I have actually listened to Revolting Cocks’ Attack Ships on Fire during more PvP matches than I would ever dare to count...

Back when the MMO industry was still finding its footing in the wake of World of Warcraft’s massive commercial and critical success, I happened across an article that would steer my own career ship in unexpected new directions. I can’t recall exactly what I was originally looking for, but my browser pointed me in the direction of John “Boomjack” Hoskin’s daily Loading… column.

It was witty, catchy, and Boomjack will be the first to tell you that spelling and grammar were the least of his concerns as he penned his daily column. That was also when I realized that games media didn’t need to be some super highbrow bullshit like you’d read in the New Yorker. That writing about games can and should be as fun a playing the things, not diluted to death by AP standards or absurd corporate expectations.

I eventually became part of the Ten Ton Hammer writing team, and even contributed to the very column that brought me here in the first place. I’ve helped build and launch a number of fan sites on our network, including NecroBator, GW2Hub, Swtorhub, and EQHammer to name a few. Apparently I didn’t screw things up too terribly in the process, and here I am today kicking off a new daily column of my very own.

Even though our network has been around for nearly a decade, in many ways we’re still the scrappy underdog that we have been since the beginning. We’ve got nothing but respect for our peers that have been around for just as long, and welcome all the newcomers to this wacky world we call MMO games media.

We've got some massive plans for the next year of Ten Ton Hammer. This column and those kicking off by my writing team this month represent just the first small building block of much, much bigger things to come. I’ll be chronicling many of those things here, along with my special brand of industry analysis, tips for developers, random anecdotes, and even insights as to what the life of a video gaming journalist is really like.

While I can’t spill the magical bean sauce on what we’ve got up our Ten Ton Sleeves for 2014 just yet, I’m oh so eager to share the details once I’m able.

In the meantime, thanks for visiting our small corner of the MMO macrocosm. We love receiving feedback from our readers, so be sure to drop a virtual /wave in the comments. Have a topic you’d like to see me cover here during my daily deliberations? Shoot me an email (scratch-n-sniff preferred, but plain text is perfectly welcome!)

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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Reuben "Sardu" Waters has been writing professionally about the MMOG industry for eight years, and is the current Editor-in-Chief and Director of Development for Ten Ton Hammer.

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