A lot of things can happen within 25 years.

You can start a website just as a way to practice how to make them for other things only for it to become your main website. You can make a game site about the old games you love and run it for so long that the site itself is older than those Sega Genesis games were when you started the site. You can start off as a line artist who mostly edited pre-existing sprites to make decorations for your site, start making more by scratch until that's all you do, and then be known more for your pixel work than line art (and not be mad about it). Then you start typing about it and wondering how that even happened.

The game play styles you enjoy and defend, especially Beat 'Em Ups, can be constantly trashed by magazine and big name internet sites only for those genres to return with a vengeance. Series long proclaimed dead by the dead can rise from their graves (but not that specific one yet) by people who really care about them, sometimes even by the original teams. Even art formats that became popular targets by smug, snarky writers can make a comeback and even appear mainstream entertainment outside games. Suddenly the chip you carried on your shoulder while defending what you do and enjoy transforms into a badge of pride, and be there for the new heads who are just getting into the mix. One of the best ways to relive the joy you first felt getting into a hobby or art is make something, whether it's the thing itself or the road maps to get there, for the next person who wants to get into it, too.

That so-called weird project you start can take on a life of its own. You can learn from it. Grow with it. Make friends through it. You could even help someone else with their own project. You'll never know what other people will find in it until you make it and how much it means when they let you know. Those people are worth it. How do I know? Because you're worth it, or else I wouldn't still be doing this 25 years later. Thank you for being here, for giving me a kind word just when I needed it, and I hope that good thing you're working on gives you at least 25 fun years, too.

- - James "PrimeOp" Beaver, ScollBoss owner.