Get in the arena. Become the champion of your own life.

Game With Those Who Make You Great

There's a disturbing trend in tabletop gaming spaces.

Communities are filling up with petty, backbiting, cynical, depressing, self-defeating, snarky, crabs-in-buckets who only see the bad and negative in everything and everyone.

Real examples, exaggerated for effect:

Wizards of the Coast = "Evildoers. All of them. No exceptions. If you work for, enjoy, or defend WotC as a business, you're a Very Bad Person Who Hates Games Forever."

Current "Evil" Gaming Person of the Day Who Nobody In the Wider World Actually Cares About = "Worse than Hitler 🙄! Make their companies go bankrupt! Lock them up forever!"

Latest Game That Doesn't Fit My Perfect Vision of Game = "SUPER MEH. I could totally do it better, y'know, if I really wanted to."

They want to tell you how to think, who you're allowed to talk to, what games you're allowed to buy and enjoy, and nothing is ever good enough, fun enough, well designed enough, or done just to their particular liking for them to understand how anyone could possibly enjoy such a thing.

The Man in the Arena

In short, they are not "in the arena." They are mere spectators and thrive on taking safe, unabated cheap shots at the people trying and building and working and sweating and putting their stuff out there.

Listen, I don't want to get sucked into the negativity vortex myself, but I want to make it clear that there's a better way forward. I get that fan communities can get pretty toxic and I've been witness to online flame wars (yes, all you young guns, we old-timers used to call them "flame wars") since the mid 90s. Nothing new under the sun and all that.

Word of advice, if you don't already know it:

Ignore these people.

Instead, focus on all the beauty and power that games can demonstrate for you. Find people who want to play, laugh, who are accepting, willing to bear your best and worst, and will not only challenge your status quo, but help you get to a better version of yourself despite your many and frequent roadblocks and barriers, self-impose or otherwise.

Enjoy that others might play games you find reprehensible and you play games that others might think are downright trash.

You're allowed to do that. It's okay. There's no shame in it. Really.

Sports For the Win

Sports are a microcosm of the human struggle to improve. I think this is why I love making and playing sports games so much these days. It also explains my life-long love of sports and athletic competition.

My mission, aside from making killer games, is to help you find a better version of you. I want you to leave the excuses, doubt, and anxiety behind and challenge yourself to do something spectacular. Today.

You're not a product of your mistakes. You are redeemable. You are capable of tremendous feats. You are worthy of duly earned respect and admiration. You can improve physically, mentally, and creatively every day if you choose to do so.

You'll never find that path to greatness around people who want to tear everything down.

Spend more time playing and growing with people who build you up.

Get after it.

I'm rooting for you.

To future worlds,

Matt ventre