Twenty years ago, I began writing online out of love for games — their infinite worlds, their invitation to become a hero. In those early days, our MMORPG blog circle felt like a fellowship. Blogrolls were not lists; they were bonds, silent oaths of kinship.
All I wanted was to explore the design of fantasy virtuals worlds and help make them better. I never sought a fight. But as the worlds I loved were poisoned — hollowed out by corporate greed and ideological dogma — I faced a choice: stay silent and watch them die, or pick up the sword. I chose the sword, not out of ambition, but out of duty. I became a reluctant warrior.
I saw the cracks in World of Warcraft as early as 2008. With Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard locked us onto rails, turned us into passengers in their story rather than authors of our own. That shift foreshadowed the coming cultural collapse: freedom replaced by dogma, worlds replaced by corridors. Then came the rise of “social games,” Farmville-style manipulations designed to farm dopamine rather than inspire wonder — another sign of the commodification of play.
When Gamergate erupted, gamers were demonized, painted as toxic misfits to be purged. We nerds built this industry, brick by pixelated brick, yet they grew ashamed of us and plotted to replace us with a “modern audience” obedient to their cultural script. In that moment, my fellow bloggers had a chance to defend our space, our hobby, and our identity. None were man enough to stand. They retreated into personal diaries, safe journals chronicling harmless adventures, and became cowards compliant with the new narrative. Virtual courage in slaying dragons meant nothing when real-world monsters appeared at the gate.
They bragged about bravery in fantasy, yet feared a mean tweet more than any raid boss. Their courage was puddle-deep; mine was real.
Twenty years later, most are gone. I remain. Unbowed, unbought, unbroken.
To all who have continued on this adventure with me — thank you. Your courage, curiosity, and loyalty keep the fire burning.
—Wolfshead
You were one of the first to notice. And one of the few very first to write about and against it.
I remember I was irritated and didn’t read you for a while when you got more political. I was not sure what was wrong with you. No kidding. I was still theorizing about MMOs and … hmm was I studying in that time, don’t quite remember. Whatever, I did not yet see what you already saw.
I revisited now and then. I cannot recall what article it was, I linked it and some bloggers just ignored you without comment and a non-blogger who was also playing Lord of the Rings just called you terrible. I wondered why, “Breitbart” and “Catholic”, not sure what offended him more. No explanation. I really was naive back then.
Over time another gamer and very occasional blogger “outed” himself. Around that time I must have made a disparaging remark about some people putting a rainbow colored pony tail into their rear end and celebrating it as freedom. I don’t even recall what I said, basically they must have dumped something into their own brains, something like that.
I got quite the George Bush speech style seething rage reply boiling down to “who is not with us is against us”. Guess what, I asked what the action described above has to do with freedom. That didn’t go down well.
Most bloggers though just removed you silently from blogrolls and many others just stopped blogging. One was absent for years and suddenly recently wrote something about making gamers for gamers, not about ideologies in an article.
People often wonder how the Third Reich happened. Or similar movements going down a dark path. People just marched along. Afterwards they denied ever being part. Thinking by yourself, following ideals one accepted, following Faith/God. Should be easy. But people love going the way of least resistence, even betraying themselves that this is right/OK. And how much they love making the life of dissenters hard and miserable.
You deserve a lot of respect and admiration. You have mine. That isn’t much, just me, but you well deserve it and more.
Standing up for your values doesn’t need applause and approval. See how hollow and wrong it is to tag along and be supposedly among the good and righteous that are so hateful towards all others.
So many did that. And still do. Some not even tagged along but fell for the lie hook, line and sinker. The tide is slowly turning. But wokeness is still there. The battle for faith and Western civilization is still raging on many fronts, from migration to gaming to literature to science just to name the few I am most familiar with.
You are right. Most people take the path of least resistance and blindly follow the crowd because they are lazy. Sloth has a price.
I never wanted to be political. I detest political websites and those who promote ideology. The problem is, I was forced to confront the politics that were systematically infiltrating our hobby. In doing so, I learned that there is a larger cultural war being waged. It is sinister and dark. So I can understand why some of my former readers don’t want to be red-pilled. They are happy taking the blue pill and live in blissful ignorance.
Also, I had zero help from fellow bloggers except for Tesh. Jason Olivetti emailed me once, and got me blogging again after I became disillusioned. But that’s it. The left wing MMO bloggers all had each other and there were friends with the devs too.
I made my mind up years ago not to play to the crowd. I remember David Bowie made that observation. You have to be true to yourself.
I wanted to acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the site in some way. Thank you for your loyalty and support over the years.