After four years of fun, it is with a heavy heart that I find myself, entirely by my own choice, departing Sarcastic Gamer. Though I am comforted by being able to continue working with the great team of staff that I met through SG, it still saddens me that it has come to this.

To say Sarcastic Gamer saved my life is perhaps a little overly melodramatic … but not by much! It is certainly fair to say that it had a massively positive effect on my life, and I will be eternally grateful to Doc and Dave for the chances they have given me and the friendships they have enabled me to share.

Sarcastic Gamer was the first time in my life that I was given conclusive proof that the internet could be used to make real life friends. To be bluntly honest, friends have never been too hard to come by in my life. Either because I’ve just been lucky or because making new friends is not that difficult a thing to do for someone as easy-going and friendly as I pride myself on being. However, good friendships are extremely valuable to me. Part of the reason that I joined a gaming community was that the majority of my close friends were not as much of a *cringe* hardcore gamer */cringe* as I was. I really enjoyed just chatting about games on the forums with people, even a long while before I was posting on the front page. Regua was the first person on the forums (before either of us were staff) that I regarded as a friend and have since gone on to add a number of other staff and forum members to that list. I fully expect a vast number of the friendships I have formed, both locally and around the globe, to continue for the rest of my life.

I started on SG as the resident comic artist, which I always found amusing, given that I can’t draw. This started a trend, as I then went on to start writing for the site (when I couldn’t write) and then went on to podcast (when I couldn’t podcast). A lesson in never letting something that you can’t do stop you from doing it! With a good bit of work, help from those around me and a lot of practice, I feel that I grew into any role that I threw myself into. I certainly do not think I became an expert in any of the fields, but I have at least elevated my skills to the point where I had a good, rewarding time producing the content with the people I got to work with. I was always thankful that people were kind enough to regularly comment that they enjoyed my work. I am truly grateful for the multitude of positive comments I have had over the years.  They are the fuel that feeds my creative fire. Despite the general warnings of “that is just the way that internet commentors are,” I have always been fortunate that the overwhelming majority of comments on my work have been, almost alarmingly, positive. On the odd occasion that was not the case, it was usually as I had been misguided down the path of being an internet troll. I long ago accepted that this was the quick, lazy, childish way to get ahead in the internet. Many people have, and will continue to have, success with it. And good luck to those that do. It was not suited to the way I like to conduct myself in life and is not the best way for me to contribute to the world.

After a few years of fun times and hard work, a number of great gaming opportunities came my way. Being Dragon punched in the face by the man that made Street Fighter (the awesome Ono-san) was a definite highlight. As was being driven round a racetrack by a man formally known as “The Stig” in a Porsche being chased by two Need for Speed style Lamborghini cop cars. That kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. That may even be a level above what I get to do in video games! Then there was visiting BioWare’s studios in Edmonton, Alberta. While I will always fondly remember my first visit to a gaming studio (to go see the lovely people at Relentless Software), visiting Canada was special. BioWare have made some of my favourite games of all time and getting to visit the place where all that magic was made, in a strange far away snow covered land, was very much the epic blogging quest of my dreams. And I lived through it. Then blogged and podcasted about it, so everyone else could BASICALLY share in my adventures.

I got a lot from Sarcastic Gamer, and I like to think I gave a lot back. I would like to reiterate my deeply humble gratitude to Doc and Dave for the invitation to be Sarcastic with them. It has been an absolute blast that has changed my life forever. Goodbye seems oddly inappropriate and words, not for the last time, fail me. So, I’ll leave you with a semi-appropriate quote from one of my favourite authors: “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

NB: 107 small kittens were harmed in the making of this resignation post.