Celebrating One Year of ZZG236 – Thank You All For Everything 

Year One

Tomorrow we celebrate the one year anniversary of ZZG236 and honestly, this past year has flew by. Today, the day before we celebrate and thank the fans, I wanted to write a letter to you all.

On December 17th 2013, Tyler revealed ZZG236 to the world. In under a total secret not even telling his closest friends, he shocked us all. Being a friend of Tyler, I joined the site on day one, followed the Twitter and so forth. In what was a website with zero members, zero followers that no one ever heard of. We wanted to create the ultimate all-in-one network for gamers, regardless of platform, regardless of region. Just gamers.

Tyler told me on the day of launch that there might be something for me. Maybe a news writer, forums moderator but nothing too big. In January I was given the position of Community Manager and officially joined the team that had Tyler, Gregory and then, me. So it was a huge upgrade from what was originally planned and I’m thankful to Tyler for creating this website and this opportunity for me.

This past year has been nuts, especially the recent months gone by. In March, we had Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer from Sonos visit the website and tweet one of my articles about his time when he was part of Microsoft. You can read that feature here: http://zzg236.com/home/m/16532465/article/2175642

During my entire time at ZZG236, I was constantly thinking about how could we create a great mobile experience. So, early this year I started work on the official ZZG236 App for Windows Phone and Windows RT/8.1 devices and launched it in July. As what came a huge shock to everyone that knows myself, Tyler and the others, also set a new standard. Gaming communities/websites as small as ours don’t typically makes Apps. We did it and we can see others following our footsteps, developing Apps of there own. We’ve noticed this already and we it shows a standard that we set as a website. The App has been a roaring success with more downloads then the number of members on the site and we’ve received tonnes of positive feedback and I’ve released updates throughout the fall based on fan feedback. I cannot wait to talk about what’s next for the ZZG236 App in 2015.

In October, we decided to expand the canvas and start doing game reviews. I was lead this new division and I asked CameronMines at the time to join the team as Reviews Manager. We started with reviews for smaller games like Contrast, Geometry Wars 3 and Sherlock Holmes  Then, in November, I was given the opportunity to review ‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ and also present early access streams on Twitch. The streams were nuts, we were above 100 viewers for many of them, reaching almost 150 at times. For us, that’s nut. For me presenting those streams, I was definitely nervous. But happy and proud of our team. You can check out my review here: http://zzg236.com/home/m/16532465/article/2617659

Also, on November 22nd, we celebrated the one year anniversary of Xbox One. Again, I wrote a feature article and was retweeted by many including the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer bringing us the to highest amount of hits we’ve ever reached in one day. You can read that here:http://zzg236.com/home/m/16532465/article/2636455/tag/Hard+Drive

Then there’s today. The day before the one year anniversary of us, ZZG236. Phil Spencer one again retweeted us, supporting ZZG236. It’s mind-blowing to think the Head of Xbox is supporting our website. That article was based on the top 10 Xbox One games to get in 2014 and you can see what one right here: http://zzg236.com/home/m/16532465/article/2671672

I hope you all join us tomorrow, on Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and here on the site as we celebrate our one year anniversary. We’ll have streams going most of the day, great new original videos on our YouTube channel and loads of giveaways you don’t not want to miss.

So to close, I want to say a huge thank you. Thank you for reading our articles, visiting our site everyday. Thank you for downloading the App and giving great feedback. It was you who shaped the holiday update which recently shipped. Thank you for tuning into our Twitch streams, tweeting them for us, recommending them to others. Thank you for watching our videos and subscribing to use on YouTube. Thank you for creating, as gamers, what ZZG236 is today.

– Alan

Above picture made by TwiztedShotz, more of the great talent we have on our incredible team.