Goodbye From Loot Ninja – Our Last Entry

Editor's note: This article was published on June 24, 2011. We are leaving it untouched to remain as an archive. We'll miss you all.

I didn’t think this day or this post would ever come, but the words I’m writing are resonating loudly in my living room as I type:  this will be the last article published at Loot Ninja. Ever. Today, sadly, we’re shutting down the website.

I’ll let you take a minute for that to sink in – it still hasn’t for myself or anyone here.

We’ve had a great run and have enjoyed bringing you news, reviews, previews, editorials, commentary and event coverage for the past 5+ years. From our humble beginnings to our dramatic growth over the last couple of years, it’s been one hell of a ride. We’ve had our fair share of ups and downs, but I can safely say we had more ups than anything else. If it wasn’t for you, our loyal readers, we never would have made it to where we’ve been. The website as it stands will remain up through the end of July, but on August 1st, we’re taking everything offline and shutting down our servers.

So, why are we closing our doors? Well, as you’ve probably read a number of times, we all have full time jobs outside of the site. Between our jobs and personal lives, not much time is left for writing for Loot Ninja. Myself, Steve and Justin are all going to be getting even busier in the very near future with work and personal things, so we all made the decision that it’s time to walk away. I’m sure you’ve noticed a decrease in posting here lately, and that’s because of our growing workloads away from the site. Our time commitments are being pulled in other directions, and we have always said that when we couldn’t do this anymore, we’d stop. Sadly, that time has come. Justin and Steve are both planning their weddings, so I want to congratulate them both now, since I won’t have the chance to do so here in the future!

From Matt:

Personally, Loot Ninja has been my baby for a number of years. WordPress development, server configuration and upgrades, attending GDC and E3, writing and breaking some news, interviewing some of the biggest names in video games, reviewing and previewing hundreds of games, sharing my thoughts in articles, and making more amazing friends than I could have ever hoped – that’s been a big piece of my life for the past five to six years. I can’t thank you, our readers, enough for coming back and reading everything I’ve typed in that time! Thank you to the game developers, publishers, marketing and PR folks for giving us the access we needed and review materials to bring coverage to the world! Thank you to all of the writers and editors here at Loot Ninja throughout the years, especially Steve and Justin, who I consider not only great writers, but great friends! Thank you to my wife for putting up with me playing video games on the living room TV at all hours! There are so many thank you’s to get out that I could never get it all out without my brain imploding and turning to mush. To everyone who’s ever interacted with Loot Ninja: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! I’m going to miss writing here, but there are exciting things ahead.

If you want to keep in touch, feel free to bookmark my personal website. I plan to blog there on all kinds of topics on a semi-regular basis (maybe once a week, if things work out). I’m in the process of designing a new theme for the site and reworking some of the functionality, so stay tuned. Also follow me on Twitter where I’m most active.

This has been an amazing experience. I’m going to miss it.

Your mom’s box.

(If you get that reference, I heart you.)

From Steve:

Let me let you in on a secret. I don’t like video games that much.  I don’t like writing that much. I don’t like doing much of anything unless I am paid a lot of money. This is who I am.

However, I really, really, really enjoyed writing for free about video games for 5 years. It’s a contradiction. I know. Which is why when Matt, a fraternity brother of mine asked me if I wanted to write about like Xbox or something I was like, “Uh, I’m super lazy, I don’t play a lot of games, and you have no money to pay me.” Matt rebuts with, “Yeah, but you get to curse at strangers on the internet.” Sold.

Sentimental I am not, I guess I lack an empathetic gene. The words Matt and Justin wrote above and below echo my sentiments. Not many of us get a hobby where we get free shit, get to go places, meet awesome people, and have our thoughts, however maladjusted they are, be read by thousands every day. Loot Ninja > Collecting Stamps.

To all those who I interacted with through writing about gaming:  best of luck man. To all of those who I interacted with through writing about gaming who whether intentional or not made my life more difficult through one avenue or another:  lick my fucking balls. Seriously. It’s video games. Get over it. Get over yourself.

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, so goodbye for now.  We’ll be back one day. I’ll see you then.

From Justin:

With a very heavy heart, it’s time to close the doors and say goodbye to Loot Ninja.  The time that I have spent here, the effort that I have put in, everything that I’ve done has always been for you guys – the readers.  I have made some incredible friends here on the site (readers included) and I want to give a quick shout-out to everyone who has ever read my articles, listened to Twisted Gamer Radio, and commented on any one of my many posts. Thank you!  Thank you to readers like Windowlicker, David, Magnis Canis, PFC Mike Honcho, Mike Y, Tweak and all of you “regulars”.  I know there are more of you, but all of you guys shaped Loot Ninja and made it a great site and an awesome place to come to everyday.  It’ll be a very sad moment when I finally click on Loot Ninja in my bookmarks and the site won’t load.

But with the closing of one door, yet another door opens.

I’ve decided to take a break from writing video games and doing the podcast thing to focus on other endeavors.  Please, hit me up and follow me on Twitter, catch me at my personal blog, and on Facebook if you would like to.  I promise to keep you guys in the loop about future writing gigs, and the status of Twisted Gamer Radio.  I’m not done with this whole writing thing, so stay tuned.  Just be ready for whatever happens.  I’ll of course be there, so there’s no telling what kind of trouble I’ll get into.

I’ll never forget my first website writing gig with Loot Ninja, the same way I haven’t forgetten my first dish washing job.  It’s really a testament to Matt and Steve believing in me as an un-tested writer and giving me a chance to voice my opinion on this website.  I just hope that I’ve made both of them very proud over the years, and can see me maybe later down the road and say, “See that guy?  He started with us.”  I can’t thank both of them enough for what they have done for me (both the teaching and the emotional scarring) and this will continue with me forever.  So thank you gentlemen.  Thank you for all of the many dick jokes, spoilers, podcast and IM chats, funny videos, companionship and humor you’ve filled me with over the last 2 plus years.  I’m just really happy you didn’t fill me up with man-seed.

Thank you so very much for everything Matt, Steve, the readers, the PR people we’ve met, everyone out there reading this right now, I will definitely miss it.

In closing:

With that, we bid you all farewell. If you’re the last one here, make sure to turn out the lights. We love you all.