This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Back when I first joined Bitmob in 2009, I wanted to wait until after I “made it” as a writer before making a Meet the Mob post. Being an on-staff moderator who has written over 70 articles certainly counts in that regard, but I still feel like have a long way to go to achieve my goals.
I was born in New York City but grew up in South Florida, where I still live. I could say that I was a big video-game fan from a young age, but instead of telling you, I'll show you my senior-year science project instead.
The gist of it was that I had two groups of players run through the Quick Man level in Mega Man 2 — the one that had long chutes filled with Blue-Bomber-killing lasers. One group identified themselves as gamers and the other one didn’t, and I tested to see who had better reflexes by measuring how far each got in that deathtrap of a stage.
The gamers won, though in hindsight this wasn’t the best way to test reflexes. This project actually got second place in my category and went to tri-county regionals, though in the interest of full disclosure my school only had one other project in my category.
I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in Creative Writing and worked as a slot editor for the student newspaper. On the side, I enjoy writing scripts. I’ve come up with some really weird but hopefully interesting stories, but I tend to over-think my work and put off trying to sell them, which is not a good combination.
I’m also a huge fighting-game fan and have been since the days of the Sega Dreamcast. Unfortunately, the UCF Student Union was the closest I’ve ever been to a real arcade, and I didn’t know anything about high-level play until the current generation of consoles. Since then, I’ve entered several tournaments, most recently CEO 2011.
I have to drive two hours to compete and am still trying to improve my underwhelming record, but it's worlds better than playing random people online. I don't promote myself as a Bitmob staff member, however, for a number of reasons. I'm still new to the scene, and I'd like to observe a line between being a participant competing in an event and being a reporter covering it.
Bitmob Writing Challenge: First-Person Writer
This is the first prompt I created for the Bitmob Writing Challenge I might not be writing for Bitmob in any form if it wasn’t for Michael Rousseau’s writing prompts that gave me a framework to craft articles around in my early days at the site. I owe him a lot for starting this series and for later letting me make my own.
This was a rather overzealous example piece for the “Comics Zone” Bitmob Writing Challenge that I wrote and drew myself. I wanted to say something about obsessing over games, and like most pieces that try to say something it ended up an unwieldy behemoth that I’m too embarrassed to re-read in case it sucks.
Oddsmakers: Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition
At the time of the article Yun and Yang had just been reveled for AE and there were rumors that six characters in total would be added to the lineup. I guess Capcom looked at this list and decided to pick “none of the above.” I attempted a prediction article again when Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out with similar results.
Skullgirls' Mike Z: From tournament player to fighting-game designer
This was my first developer interview, and I was very nervous while preparing this. It was surreal seeing this article on the front page of iPlayWinner and Shoryuken, both of which I visit every day.
E. Honda confessional: Akuma "ruined street fighting"
The idea for this article came from listening to YouTube “shoot” interviews from Jim Cornette, a sharp-tongued wrestling promoter. I was ready to publish this article but postponed and made minor edits to it when WWE wrestler Edge announced he had to retire due to injuries. It's all fun and games until we're reminded that it happens.