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It sure feels somewhat unreal for me that it´s been over two years since I started TGG and this homepage, because it´s indeed true. As our very first post was done on the 18th of May back in 2014 (“Welcome to The Gaming Ground v2.0!”). Sure, we did have an old homepage called “The Gaming Ground” previously. However, back then we weren´t global and everything was written in Swedish. We also didn´t have a crew at the time either (I did everything on my own).

This is what our old hompeage (thegamingground.com) looks like.

And the journey from thegamingground.com to thegg.net has been a real challange for sure. Well, I don´t know if you remember what our homepage originally looked like when we made our first post in May, 2014? (“Welcome to The Gaming Ground v2.0!“) But I´ll have you know that I have basically worked seven days a week since 2014. And between TGG v2.0 to v2.4 (the current edition of TGG) I have made almost 1K fixes and improvements. And it has taken quite a while to get sponsors, giveaways and to find a talented crew and so on as well (blood, sweat and tears).

Even so, I´m more than aware that we got a lot of stuff left to sort out (like the fact that we´re in great need for some more reviewers, news reporters and editors). However, I/we will continue to work hard to improve ourselves and our homepage in the future as well. And right now, the highest priority would be to find some more talented people to join our team (I also hope to launch TGG v3.0 asap). As we now have reached the point where we´re we are literally drowning in review requests and whatnot. And it´s a pretty much a full-time job to sort out posts, reviews, giveaways, interviews, answer comments and keep the homepage alive in kicking (all while sorting out business and PR-related matters as well).

This is what our homepage looked like back in 2014.

Nevertheless, I can´t say that I regret making the decision to create and run TGG. As I love games, Gaming and entertainment in general. I just hope that we will get a “little” more financial support from our viewers and readers, because right now we only get 15 USD a month via Patron (we haven´t received a single Paypal donation in months…). And quite frankly, if everyone donated 1 USD per month, then we would have more than enough money to cover all of our monthly costs (including paying our writers per post they make, travel costs and so on).

So I don´t know if it´s because we´re not doing a good enough job to be worthy of 1 USD per month, or if it´s because most people simply don´t have the cash to do so? I honestly don´t know which one it is, but what I do know is that we need YOUR help in-order to stay alive and advance to the next level. And I´m sorry that I wasn´t able to put together a fancy “TGG celebrates two years in the Gaming industry!” party (or something like that), but it has been crazy busy times for me as of lately (I was very close to burn myself out during E3 2016, due to stress and lack of sleep).

However, you will find quite a lot of giveaways via our contest page (“Doom 2016” and much more). So I hope that will do for now (I hope to do a better job next year when TGG turns four in May). With that said, thank you for staying with us all these years. And I hope that you will stay with us for at least another two years henceforth.

Robin Ek, founder and editor in chief, TGG.

Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround