Happy Birthday Home Button!

That is right, one year ago today Home Button leapt into existence with my Xenoblade Chronicles 2 review. Let’s talk about what’s next, shall we?

It is crazy to think that one year ago what started as a whim has lasted an entire year. The death of my father impacted me deeply, and it made me realize that we can’t wait to do things that we are passionate about. Nevertheless, I really thought this would be something I would end up doing for a few months and walk away from. I have a busy life, with two kids and a spouse, a full time job, and a seeming never ending list of chores at the house. Though I’m not always predictable in how much I post, I’ve kept it up and for that I’m very proud of myself.

I’m also so very thrilled and humbled that so many of you took the time to read what I’ve written. You can go through all of the stats from 2018 or find out where the heck I was for a month in a look back here, but suffice to say that your support was far more than I ever expected. From the bottom of my heart thank you for your time and kind words–you have a million choices of things to read on the internet and I’m so grateful that you took the time to interact with my content.

So what’s next for Home Button?

 

Podcast and Youtube Channel

I love the written word, but I can recognize that many people prefer to consume content of an audio or visual nature. Personally I absolutely adore podcasts and listen to many on a daily basis, and like any other person alive I watch my fair share of YouTube. It has always been my intention from day one to eventually branch out to these platforms, and my biggest goal in 2019 is to get both of these things off the ground. As for what that will look like, or how to go about it, I’m a complete beginner–I have no experience with editing either of these mediums. Either way, I hope you’ll take that journey with me when I do finally get started.

 

Photo Mode

Photo Mode became something I couldn’t have possibly imagined when I first started the feature. I really just wanted some content to beef up site, and I have thousands of screenshots across all of my consoles–I really like taking photos in-game if you haven’t sussed that out yet. Originally I uploaded so much I was able to post one every day, but as I ran out I found that getting photos off the PS4 is unexpectedly difficult, and Xbox screenshots are cumbersome to take. The Switch made things incredibly easy, but I still had to upload those from home, and I do the majority of my work on the site while I’m at my day job during down times.

This lead to a drop to 3 days a week, then every now and then, and now they are almost a treat. I think that is a crying shame, and other people have shared with me that they see it as a cornerstone of my site. I still love screenshots, and I plan to put a lot more effort into sharing these with you during this New Year. That being said I’m also working on some changes to the format that I’m excited to share with you in the coming weeks. Originally I had intended to have something ready for the anniversary, but I’ve just been incredibly busy and am not quite ready to talk about it yet.

I can give you a sneak peek though: the changes to the format though will involve the best thing about Home Button–you.

 

Purchasing Domain, Unique Website, And More Content

While a unique domain and hosting don’t cost that much–only around $70-$100 a year for the baseline stuff with email addresses–that can be a lot for a single income that takes care of four people. With my wife getting a new job and nearly doubling our income this frees up a lot of capital, and I feel like now is the right time to put that into Home Button. In the coming months I plan on buying my own domain, moving everything over, getting official emails set up for the site, and possibly hiring a graphic designer to make my terrible paint job logo just a little more appealing–not to mention build out my new site.

As for more content I have a load of things getting ready to hit the internet. I got to play a ton of games during the Christmas break while I was on vacation, and I finished a lot of games. In the next few weeks you’ll be seeing reviews for The Last Guardian, Untangled 2, Minit, Nefarious, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, and Super Mario Party. I’m also playing through Aragami now, a fantastic game I’ve no idea how I missed up to this point, and that’ll be joining the list in the next few weeks. I also have a review that should be going up this week, or possibly next, on Well Red Mage for a game called Omensight.

During our first year I introduced features like +1 to Joy and Snap Judgement–look forward to seeing more of those in the months to come. Snap Judgement especially is exciting to me as it allows me a way to share my feedback with you on newer games much more quickly than before, since games just seem to be getting longer and longer and my time to play them shorter and shorter.

So how am I planning to put out so much more content? Well, that leads me to my next point.

 

Home Button Is Hiring

You read that right. Though Home Button is still just a fledgling blog in a lot of senses, I really think there is a lot of room for growth. In my opinion the key to any good company or community is having a diverse set of talents, backgrounds, and voices. Though there is something to be said for having everything be exactly the way I want it, and never having to confer or touch base with anyone else, that is also precisely my greatest weakness.

It is with this in mind that I would like to seek new people to begin contributing to Home Button on a regular basis. Originally this will not be a paid position, though my goal is to eventually grow large enough that I’m able to begin to generate small amounts of revenue with the site that I can then share with any other writers. If you have your own blog you will be consistently linked to on the site, sharing both views and exposure, and once our views steadily increase and we get more official email addresses I anticipate receiving far more review codes–which of course means games you can enjoy (or not enjoy, as the case sometimes is) as you write reviews for them.

If that sounds like something you would be interested in I would love to have a discussion with you to see if you would be right for the site. We can start with a friendly talk in the comments, on Discord, or you can cut right past the pleasantries and send me a sample of your writing (or a link to your blog) and a short blurb about why you want to join Home Button. I should have a more professional email shortly, but in the interim please send any and all correspondence to mailorderninja@gmail.com, and be sure to put Home Button Applicant in the subject line.

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Thank you again for making the last year so incredible. I look forward to building this community of diverse and kind individuals with you, and I can’t wait to see what remarkable gaming experiences 2019 has in store for all of us.

Have a great day everyone!

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