IN THE BEGINNING there was N-man. The "N" originally stood for "Nintendo" because I love Nintendo. Even today I am still, spiritually, N-man. I think there's a little bit of N-man in every gamer. Anyway, it was late 2004 when I first discovered Blogger. I thought it would be cool to have my thoughts on video games published to the internet and I created a GameWeb blog based on my newsletter. And let me tell you, Blogger was a hell of a lot easier than making a printed newsletter. My friends eventually joined me and GameWeb began to grow. In the GameWeb days, my fellow posters included Doegab, Battsman (sometimes The One Known as to be Reckoned With, or "Reckoned" for short), and RaiderBear (a.k.a. Kromebear30 ).
I BEGAN TO BRANCH OUT because I wanted to write about more than just game news. I created a second blog only for reviews and called it "GameWeb: Viewpoint". There was also "Total Randomity" my blog for everything else. Randomity became neglected, but I later revived it under the name "Shups and Croids." What the hell does that mean? I don't really know other than I remember mistyping some words once and they came out as shups and croids. Needless to say, the goofy typo stuck with me. This was mainly a blog for crazy original stories and other wacky stuff. In between, I opened up numerous other blogs for various things, including one for my Dragon Ball fanfiction. Yeah, I was one of those teenagers.
INSTALLATION 04 came about because I realized it was stupid to have two separate blogs, so I merged Shups and Croids with GameWeb and Installation 04 was born! The name came about because Halo was my favorite video game series at the time. Also, it just sounds pretty cool. Anyway, at this point I really began to crack down. The day before GameWeb's third anniversary was the day I04 launched. Readers were greeted with this message:
This is the end. Well, sort of. It's been a grand journey my friends, but now it's time to say goodbye. Gameweb is closing its doors (that means Viewpoint as well) and, for that matter, so is Shups and Croids. The two blogs will be incorporated into one: Installation 04- effective immediately. And so Installation 04 is born! It will have the same wit and humor as Shups, plus gaming reviews and, occasionally, news. It will be less news focused and more opinionated because, lets face it, you could just as easily get your gaming news elsewhere. So sit back down and relax because GameWeb isn't going anywhere any time soon- it's just evolving. So I ask you to please enjoy Installation 04 as much as I've enjoyed working on it! It's been fun guys! Thanks for everything! GameWeb would have been three years old tomorrow.That was the day I defined my style in the blogosphere. I began posting as often as I could and the site really began to take off. During the early days of Installation 04, it was mainly myself and Doegab writing content. During 2009, MonkeyLord joined the team to occasionally contribute and RaiderBear made a triumphant return. We were riding high as a little independent blog.
N-MAN FINALLY EVOLVED into Fuzunga. Yup, I went by N-man all the way until May 26th of '09. At that point it was pretty ridiculous to keep doing so, as I went by Fuzunga on literally everything else imaginable. But long before my name evolved, my writing evolved. I realized how stupid it would be to report on every little piece of news that came along. So I decided that our articles would be 100% opinionated and original. If we mention a news story, that's because it's a megaton. But it wasn't just about games any more. I finally adopted the subtitle, "Games. Media. Stuff" for Installation 04 because that's really what we were all about. We covered just about everything relating to anything interesting to us in our own crazy way. It's funny looking back on this considering there's now only about three websites you can go to that only cover video games news.
THE PLAYERS REPUBLIC was a wild journey. In Summer 2010 RaiderBear and I decided to launch an all new website called The Players Republic. It was "top secret, top awesome stuff" that Raiderbear and I had been working on for about a year and finally got off the ground on May 29, 2011. Yet another farewell was posted, but this time it was intended to be final.
For a while, things were going... about the same as they were before. Our goal was to live out our childhood dream and qualify as media so we could attend E3, but it was slow going. For a time, The Players Republic was basically Installation 04-2 with the same kind of content posted sporadically, but with a fancier look and organization. This went on until about late August of 2011, when everything started to implode. At this point, the two of us had been looking to expand out team and brought on board some more people. The site really began to take off as a result, particularly due to one particular individual with industry experience. Less than a month later, though, tensions were high as we developed internal guidelines and began to apply for business licenses. At this point I was starting to have second thoughts.This, the 780th post, will be this blog's last. For you see, we moved on, grown up, and transformed into something new. The Players Republic. If you somehow frequent this blog, or just now stumbled across it, please redirect yourself there.
See you on the other side.
/Fuzunga
Soon, disputes and egos got to the point where people were unable to work together and so the team split just as we had a six week milestone. RaiderBear went one way and I went another. The Players Republic was no more. RaiderBear quietly shut the site down and shifted his focus to Rigare, and old site his friend retooled as a gaming and tech blog. My team created Twinfinite, intended to be the spiritual successor the The Players Republic. After only a few weeks, Twinfinite had achieved tens of thousands of views. The site was doing better than ever, but I wasn't. Shortly after, RaiderBear shortly sold Rigare for a small yet decent sum of money.
FOUNDING TWINFINITE was perhaps, both the best and worst thing I've ever achieved. Most of the staff (and by that I mean all but RaiderBear and his friend) sided with me. Or should I say I sided with them. I was naive to think I was in control. I soon began to feel an immense amount of pressure and it just so happened that things weren't fun any more. The other founders pressed for rapid expansion which quickly lead to a team of as many as 16. When it came time to apply for business licenses and assigning real jobs, I realized I didn't want to get myself into a position where I couldn't adequately fulfill my duties. I wanted to step down and simply become a writer for the site. However, someone on the team managed to convince me that was a bad idea. I was essentially duped into taking a position I didn't want until I could take it no longer. I decided to quit as the site veered farther away from my original vision. Remember the person I mentioned with experience? Yeah, this whole ordeal was more or less their fault. They always wanted to run a website and saw an opportunity to take mine. I was being used the whole time, and then they had the audacity to try and gaslight me into thinking I was a bad person and a quitter. Probably the biggest regret of my life is that I didn't side with the guy I'd been friends with for 15 years, but instead sided with the person I'd only met three months ago because I stupidly thought they knew best. I was a fool and a jerk and I'm lucky and thankful to still have my friend. Karma struck eventually, though. The site was acquired by the maligned Gamurs Group in 2022, who fired my mortal enemy shortly thereafter. Feels good, man.
THINGS CAME FULL CIRCLE because I quickly realized the whole time that I had been trying to create something I already had. RaiderBear had expressed that he always just wanted to do a fun project with his friend, and he was right. It was always meant to be fun. So I started Installation 04 back up! RaiderBear even expressed interest in returning as a contributor early on, but in the end he understandably decided to move on. I was rather content for the time being, but as the industry began to change I began to grow jaded.
THE SQUARESPACE ERA came about during a time of depression. I tried to blog, but I'd lost my team and my motivation. I wanted something to reinvigorate my blogging, and Squarespace looked like just the thing! It started off well, with all sorts of fancy but easy to use features to take I04 to the next level. But changes soon came to Squarespace that turned me off. It was a great website maker, but in many ways a less powerful blogging tool. I kind of just abandoned things after a few months. Having rebranded the old Blogger site as an archive, I just didn't know what to do. So I did nothing. I did nothing for Installation 04's tenth year of existence. I ended up cancelling my Squarespace membership shortly after. I was on the brink of giving up blogging forever when I threw out a last ditch hail mary on the Destructoid community blogs. I called for passionate individuals interested in creating something new. After finding who I believed were two like-minded souls, The Megalodon was born once again using Squarespace. It was an exciting time, and being around the launch of the Switch there was plenty to write about. However, I quickly realized that the other two weren't actually that committed and I was going to be alone again. About as quickly as it had come, The Megalodon was gone. After that I gave up for real, and closed the book on blogging for good. Or so I thought... but the pull of Installation 04 couldn't keep me away forever!
FINALLY, the absolute state of video games in the year 2025 had a magical motivating effect on me. When I looked out at the sad wasteland of video game coverage and the sorry condition of the industry I should have sunk further into depression. Instead, I thought about how the world needs positivity and free thinkers more than ever. With the site's 20th anniversary, it was the perfect time to open the book back up and write a new chapter for Installation 04. So here I am, just a guy with thoughts in my head and compassion in my heart here to share the joy of video games and other nerd crap with the world! Thank you for coming, thank you for reading, and I hope you'll stick around!
