Our 500th Post!

Source Gaming has reached 500 posts! It’s amazing how much the site has grown since making the first post on August 18th, 2014. Originally something I thought would be a hobby, Source Gaming has grown into a production with daily articles and translations, YouTube videos, podcasts and running an active Twitter account. There’s a lot of people involved with Source Gaming too. With over 2 million views across 500 articles, I thought it would be nice to take a moment and reflect on the content we’ve produced. Consider this post to be something like a “best of”, and I hope it introduces you to some of other articles. Let us know what content you’ve enjoyed, and didn’t like in the comment section below. Feedback is super important to us, and we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish so much without the help of our fans. So thank you for reading Source Gaming, and here’s to the next 500 posts! –PushDustIn

A difficult choice for me as I have a strong attachment to most of the posts here. If I had to pick one, I’d pick “Why Does Wario Fart?”I wrote it as a celebration of reaching 100 posts (a feat, which I have already more than doubled). It was a pure joy researching, compiling and creating that post. I really enjoy looking up information and putting sources together and I feel like Why Does Wario Fart? exemplifies that aspect of Source Gaming pretty well. For an article that I didn’t work on myself, I really enjoyed the work Soma’s done with the Sakurai on series (mentioned below!).

Personally, I don’t have a particularly strong interest in Smash 4, so I don’t really have any particular attachment to any of the Smash 4-related translations I’ve done. As a result, despite being mostly a translator, my favorite posts are actually the two writing pieces I’ve done at Source Gaming: Sakurai on Smash 64: A Phenomenon Is Born, and Sakurai on Melee: Pushing The Limits. They’re two longform-ish pieces that focus on what Sakurai’s mindset and intent might have been when developing the aforementioned games, especially as Sakurai’s feelings towards these games (specifically  Melee) seems particularly complicated.

I’ve always appreciated what this site has done. Source Gaming by itself has really changed the foundation of the Smash Bros. community. A lot of misinformation that used to be believed and actually used in arguments on forums/chat sites has been practically cleared up now. The amount of passion these translators, writers and contributors have to this site is phenomenal. It’s just staggering how much the tides have changed from a couple of years ago now that a lot of misconceptions have been cleared up.

I joined Source Gaming (somewhat) at the end of February. Since then, I have never regretted it one bit. The amount of fun I’ve had writing the Featured Content articles and contributing to these write-ups is impeccable. Knowing that I’m contributing to a community I love dearly really touches me and I hope it continues to be that way for a really long time. Even if things don’t last forever.

Anyways, the article I would highly recommend to people is the sources for The Definitive Unused Fighters List. While the original contains all the information, others might want to check out the actual material from which the information came from. It’s nice to have if people want to ever see the originals. I highly recommend you check it out!

At Source Gaming, we’ve provided the Smash Bros. community with so many different informative pieces. We’ve been branching out into different genres of articles ranging in themes from studies, to wishlists, to reviews, to opinion pieces and beyond. I think perhaps my favorite article was done by our own PushDustIn. It’s something I’ve reflected on many times, and I cannot commend Push enough for the work he did in compiling it. I am of course talking about the perception of Smash DLC in Japan. From my own pieces, I’ve always been fond of the Extended Mario Universe, I had a ton of fun researching into the different franchises and compiling this image together.

The article on Source Gaming that will forever be remembered by me is the article that helped me discover the site in the first place. Arguably the biggest part about the Super Smash Bros series is its characters and with this comes a lot of misconceptions so the Definitive Unused Fighter list of Unused Fighters is one of the most useful articles and sources for anyone interested in Smash’s development. This article not only clears up various fan misconceptions like Meowth and Pit for the original Super Smash Bros but also compiles all the characters that were planned and considered for each iteration of the franchise. I would never have known about Sonic actually being planned for Melee if it was not for this article. From my own articles though I recommend Nintendo History 101: Chibi-Robo. A three part series that covers the history of the franchise from released to cancelled games as well as simultaneously covering the fall of Skip Ltd. As a historian myself I was glad i could put my skills to good use while also writing about video games.

I’ve written quite a few articles since joining the Source Gaming staff, and I’ve also had the pleasure of reading the vast majority of what has been published on our site. While Source Gaming has largely (and rightfully) been known for its translations, the majority of the site’s content actually comes from original articles. I’ve always felt like these articles, when they match the site’s mission statement, are an invaluable part of Source Gaming. The article I am personally most proud of is Was DLC Planned for Smash 4. I set out to write a well sourced, researched, and interesting article that dealt with a topic that much of the Smash Bros. fan base would care to know more about. I really do think that, in this instance, I succeeded.   

It’s hard to think of just one thing to highlight, but I think there’s something in looking at Soma’s two part (with more coming!) translation of the massive interview between Sakurai, Iwata, and Itoi for Nintendo Dream. Because unlike Sakurai’s recent Famitsu columns or current Japanese articles, this is seventeen years old, with information that illuminates so much about how the first Super Smash Bros. was made. It’s crazy to think that we as a community had no knowledge about this wealth of information, for years, and before I joined Source Gaming I was happy the team was looking at these treasures hidden in plain sight. For my own, though, I’m incredibly proud about my own contributions to the site, like my “Music to Smash To” series. I’d like to think that even without translation skills, I can keep up the site’s emphasis on taking a deeper, historical look into these games.

 This is easy. The Post Smash Salt Storm is something I think is mandatory reading for anyone wanting to delve into future speculation. If I could be honest, I admittedly have a bigger bias towards other pieces I’ve written. But when talking about something that is truly going to stick for the future, this is it. Being aware of what tore the community apart during speculation for two games now is a good way to try and not repeat the same mistakes, making speculation(slightly) more welcoming to the outsider. And even without that aspect, it’s still an interesting retrospective on it’s own merits.

I don’t really read a ton of stuff other than translations, so If I had to pick one article to show to people, it’d probably be the Harada x Ono Interview from a couple months ago. It’s got a great header that Nirbion created, the source material is entertaining, and Soma did an awesome job translating it. Wonderful article all around, and some people might have overlooked it since it isn’t Smash-related. I also have fond memories of 100 Questions for Sakurai, since Sakurai actually says some interesting things in it, and it was the first thing I ever translated for Source Gaming. It’s been fun watching this site grow, and I’m really glad to be a part of it. Here’s to 500 more!

One of my personal favorite articles has always been PushDustin’s “Sites Shouldn’t Report on Every Rumor”. It’s a great article detailing the thought process behind fake leakers, and what drives them to continue lying.

Reporting on fake leaks gives the fake leakers exactly what they want… attention. Many of these site reporting on the fakes know full well that they are fake, yet still report them anyways for the page views. Leaks are fun, I don’t blame them for that… but there’s a line to be drawn. If you’re going to report on a leak, be sure you research the history of it.

I’m reminded of July-August 2014, when Smash speculation and rumors were off the charts. Neo Zero got info from someone and ended up sharing the info with me. It was the final list of Smash 4 characters. We confirmed with another source, Vaanrose, that what we heard was accurate (Vaan only had heard of Robin and another character if I remember correctly). And so we let the news out. Due to a post from Vaanrose explaining the situation, sites began to call the leak the “Vaanrose Leak”. Which was not at all what Vaanrose wanted. It ended up creating a lot of issues regarding which leaks were the ones that we put out, and which ones were fakes.

I love discussing fake leaks over on Smashboards. I want to see every awful text “leak” on 4chan to discuss whether or not said scenario is possible. Discussion boards are the place to do that. A front page post on a AAA Gaming Site? That is not the place for a weak text leak. And this article does a great job describing why.

500th post!!! We did it!  Of course, we couldn’t have done it without our awesome readers!!

We’ve got a lot of different articles on the site from a variety of perspective. We’ll have even more great content coming as we shift focus to Nintendo content. I would definitely check out some of my articles, such as the Barrel is Half Full and Super Smash Brothers for 3DS: Does it Stack Up?, where I look at how the 3DS version of Super Smash Bros. performed. One recent article that was great was Nantendo’s “An overview of ALL Nintendo IPs IN Smash” and “An overview of ALL Nintendo IPs NOT IN Smash” Actually, those were posted yesterday. Another great article to check out is “Image Transcriptions of Project Proposal for Smash for Wii U/3DS.”  It’s got a lot of great info in it.

I’ve written and spoken a lot about Smash, but we have so many awesome people here that have done so much awesome work.  Check out their articles, and give a shoutout to folks like @Nirbion, @GameOnion @ConnorEatsPants and @8BitGirl who have supported Source Gaming.

For me, it’s really exciting to see how Source Gaming grew in that time, I joined the Team.I think I was part of the team near the end of September 2015 and went from the guy, who was just doing header-images to the designer, who’s responsible for the entire Source Gaming-Design. I love and appreciate every article published so far. But I think I’ll do a Designer-Move and choose this article: Artwork Origins from the Smash 64 CSS written by Nantendo.

Besides I really love artwork from Nintendo, I think that article matches perfectly what Source Gaming is all about: It’s not only about Translation, it’s also about working with the source. If it’s a translation or some Artwork, everything can give you new information as long, as you work with the correct source. AND to listen to our Fans and Supporters, who gives us new information so we can update the article. There will always be misinformation on the internet. But as long, as we work together, we can make the internet a place with less misinformation and give the community, what they deserve: Correct information, based on the real source. And I think this is what Source Gaming is all about. Hope we can make it someday to our 1000th post!

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