I'm always looking for new things to write about and the inspiration comes from the most unexpected places sometimes. I've been a gamer all my life and have been getting deeper and deeper into the behind-the-scenes of a lot of different aspects of gaming. It's a full-on hobby for people and there are tons of collectors out there now which is exactly why I wrote my Console and Videogame Collector's Field Guides to help others discover what games and consoles I discovered during my research. I went from being a gaming consumer to a gaming content creator. A very broad term, I know.
Last year I jumped into one aspect of content creating that I had always wanted to do but never had the drive to start from scratch. Podcasting. I have a lot to say about video games, to say the least, and I wanted to share my opinions with others who might enjoy listening. I feel as someone who has done years of research into games and consoles, I have a unique perspective to give.
Anyway, fast forward to this year and I got some feedback from my mom who watched my podcasts once I uploaded them to YouTube. She enjoyed our spirited banter and discussions but was completely lost when it came to a lot of terms and lingo that only a gamer would understand. LIGHT BULB. What if I made a dictionary so that she could flip through the book and see what we were talking about on-the-fly? I did a little bit of research and to my surprise, Google didn't return any hits on a dictionary for gamers except for one that was written about Japanese games at one point.
I got right to work and started compiling a master list of terms. Once I ran out of all the terms that everyone else had, I went to work filling in the gaps with terminology that is spoken amongst our gaming communities but never really documented. I would literally walk around my game room and the video game stores I frequent both literally and, in my head, and thought about terms associated with the games I've played and the things I have. I've added hundreds of terms now and am still going as I finish the dictionary.
November 11, 2024 I went live with the Kickstarter for the book which, as of writing this, has 27ish days left to go and is about 3/4 funded.
After a few ugly attempts at the cover and spine, I think I came up with something sharp, handsome, and, most importantly, it won't make anyone's eyes bleed. An optional add-on, which Jeff Wittenhagen and I decided we're going to try and do going forward, is a 1" enamel pin to match the book. Eventually he and I will sell custom Hagen's Alley pinboards where you can display your pins. Dictionary pin design is below.
The dictionary is estimated to be about 4-600 pages, it just depends on the font size I end up going with. But the form factor is that of a pocket dictionary. In this case 3.5" x 5.4"
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