Dude Take Your Turn – 8 Years and Counting

Sometimes you go on a journey and at the beginning you can’t even contemplate how far you will have travelled by the time you get to the end of it.

Especially when the journey seems to be a never-ending, yet incredibly fulfilling, one.

Today is the 8th anniversary of the beginning of Dude Take Your Turn, with the first post essentially being this:

Now, 8 years and 926 posts later, I’m still here.

Through many (way too many) mental health and “why am I still doing this?” lulls, I am still here.

And I will continue to be!

I never thought that this blog would be going strong after all these years.

My original blog (Dave’s Buttoned-Up Mind) maybe lasted 5 years? I’m not sure.

Even when I am having challenges, I still enjoy playing games, writing about them, reviewing them (I do have a backlog of those!), and just putting myself out there.

I love experiencing new (to me) games, and I love playing my old favourites!

I am excited each year when I see just how many different games, and how many total plays, I have in a year.

It’s not as many as a lot of the bloggers/Youtube folks out there, but it’s still pleasing to me.

Doing this blog has made me actually think about what my favourite games are.

And which ones can go in the trash heap (though I do realize that all games have their fans).

It’s also affected how I play games, at least a little bit.

I try to mix in both playing my favourites as well as trying new things. Without the blog, I may not go for the new experiences as much (or at least not the “new experience of an old game”). I do that mostly because I enjoy it but also because it gives me good things to write about.

As well I wouldn’t take nearly as many game pictures as I do. It must be annoying for some people, but I try to take them quickly.

Which is why, when I post them, they can irritate some people because they’re a little haphazard.

I call it guerilla journalism (or just “in the moment”).

Ok, some might call it lazy…potayto, potahto.

I still get a rush when something on here takes off and suddenly my stats are soaring (relatively speaking, as this is still a very low-engagement blog).

I get giddy when I get compliments about my writing from out of the blue, from friends and from people who just stopped by to say hi.

I love and cherish all of the friendships that doing this blog has brought me, including a few people who I have actually met in person!

And others who I promise I will meet in person one day.

I’m not going to name names because there are too many. I don’t want to leave anybody out and I also don’t want this to be a super-long post.

Could I be even more a part of the online gaming community?

Yes, that would be super-cool.

But I’m happy with where I am.

As mentioned above, this is a fairly low-engagement blog. Many blogs get thousands of hits a day, and I’m lucky to get 125-150 per day (sometimes not even 100 if I haven’t been active for a while), but that’s ok.

Sure, sometimes it would be cool if it were higher.

But I started this blog just to express my enjoyment of gaming and for myself.

Getting readers, especially regular ones, was just gravy.

I plan on continuing this for many more years, even if I do have my struggles and lulls.

It’s worth it to me. The satisfaction that I get when I finish a post. And more satisfaction when somebody responds to it positively.

I go back and read posts sometimes, and it just amazes me that I’m still doing this.

Sometimes I see something that I missed or could have done better.

But others I read something and say to myself “wow, that was actually great” or “funny” or whatever and I’m proud of it.

So here’s to another 8 years and more of writing at Dude Take Your Turn.

Thank you all for going on this journey with me.

I hope you will continue!