I've been sorta distant from the Vizzed community for the past year and a half and especially lately over the past few months. I've been spreading myself too thin ever since I started a full time job 1 1/2 years ago and especially more so with my wife recently getting a full time job, putting me in charge of my kids while she's at work which has limited my time to invest into Vizzed even more.

Up until a few months ago I was investing a lot of time into the website. Between working my full time job, I was also investing an almost equal amount of hours into the website...but not the community. A lot of the stuff I had been working on was more behind the scenes stuff such as fixing things, optimizing things, server transfers, server maintenance, marketing and advertising, researching, studying, general site maintenance, working on making the site more mobile friendly and making the games in the Retro Game Room playable on mobile devices. I was working too much, lacking sleep, battling depression, barely spending time with my wife and kids and definitely had no time to myself (basically retired from video games and definitely no time to work out like I use to). I eventually had a mental (and physical) crash where I had no motivation to even use the site and the lack of sleep was really taking its toll (still is). So now I'm going to be taking a slightly different approach to the site.

From now on, I'm going to put far less focus into adding new features to the site and more focus into fixing the ones we already have. But prioritized over that though will be the Vizzed community since that's the part of the site that has been dying the most. Over the past year, the posting traffic has taken some massive drops and more recently it's close to extinction. I've got 100s of Private Messages I have to go through and I'll make those a higher priority than I have in the past but it'll still take me a while to get through them because some require time consuming responses, some require me to look into and/or fix things that are complicating, and some are ideas and proposals that people submit to me. I also had 10,000s of unread notifications but one day I accidentally opened it up which cleared it all so there's a lot of stuff I'll never know about that I was summoned to. Anyways, I'll probably be investing about 20 hours into the site a week on average with 10% of my time invested into adding new features, 25% of it fixing features and maintenance, and 65% of it invested into the community.

Becoming more involved with the Vizzed community should result into me posting more. I'm also hoping to get back into netplaying and streaming once in a while with some of you that I haven't done so with in a long time. In the near future I'll be making a thread allowing users to let me know of what needs to be fixed around the site but my first priority will be restructuring the staff. I'll most likely demote all staff (excluding site staff) and rebuild the entire staff from the ground up. A community can't survive without a good staff and a bad staff can turn users away from the site and that's been one of the biggest complaints and one of the top reasons I've heard that users have been ditching the community, they don't like the staff or the leadership.

So yeah, my involvement with the users of this site and the staff has been terrible and I apologize for that It's not that my management skills are bad, I just have really bad time management and I think the big reason for that is not only my lack of time but also my ADHD, which is something I've always struggled with and can be pretty bad sometimes. I start a lot of projects that I don't finish and adding new stuff to the site is more exciting to me than spending hours reading and responding to Private Messages and emails so I tend to put off to the side those things and ended up prioritizing what was exciting to me since it motivated me. But those reasons aren't justified and probably caused me to sometimes become impatient since I started viewing it as a burden to have to respond to things that were time consuming or unexciting. I'm hoping this new direction is the right direction (or at least until I can make Vizzed my full time job again) and those of you who have stuck around and been patient with me, or even those of you who are willing to give me another chance, I thank you all



All RGR Games Cost 0 Viz & Temporarily 25% Off All Market Listings
As part of my apology and gratefulness that some of you are still checking up on the site, I've made the price of all the games in the Retro Game Room cost 0 Viz (a while ago I did make it so users could still play games without Viz but they'd have in ad in the play window). I've made all of the game systems (except PlayStation) available to everyone (this actually was done a few months ago), regardless of powerlevel or what items you own from the Vizzed Market. I've permanently dropped the price of the PlayStation item from 30,000 Viz to 10,000 Viz, which gives you access to play nearly 2500 PlayStation games. I'm able to do this thanks to the new servers that I migrated to recently which now offers me unlimited bandwidth, gives me more disk space and surprisingly the servers are cheaper than the previous I had which is crazy since they're also a lot faster.

I'm also temporarily discounting all of the items in the Vizzed Market by 25%. This includes all digital items that I've listed and also all vizzed items.


150+ Items Added to Vizzed Market
Over the past month or so I've added well over 150 games and other various items to the Vizzed Market (actually 200+ but a lot of those listings sold quick). I still have a lot of game codes to add from years ago when I had the money to invest into buying digital games in stock quantity. The purpose of that was to reward users by giving them something to spend their Viz on. I'm hoping to get another 100+ items added within the next month or so.



Anyways, if any of you have any questions or feedback regarding any of this, please let me know

You can only spread yourself so thin before you snap. Everyone knows that, and it sounds to me like you spread yourself thinner than most people between your many responsibilities both online and offline. Anyone who has dedicated a massive amount of time to something understands where you are coming from, and I dare say there are less than a handful of people around the site who have felt neglected. I believe that some issues running through your mind as self blame concerning the community are not at all your doing. Changes always need to be made over time, that is just the order of things.

No one sees you as you see yourself, so I hope that you will stop beating yourself up, put your best foot forward, and take everything one step at a time. Many great sites with even a large group of highly-skilled staff have struggled or fallen off of the map while this site still stands.

Hey Davideo,

Sorry to hear about the troubles you've been going through. It takes a lot of strength to be able to come forward and admit your vulnerabilities as you have and I hope you're able to find the inspiration and resources to get back on the horse, so to speak. I cannot speak on behalf of the greater Vizzed community, but I can certainly say I enjoy playing video games here on Vizzed and greatly appreciate all the work and dedication you've poured into creating and maintaining this community.

Even though I'm a relatively newer member of this site, I've been around through some of the past shake ups and roadblocks that hit Vizzed and have seen you persevere. If you can make it this far, then you surely possess the resolve to see it through.
Family and self always come first. We're on your team either way and we'll still be here all the same.

Best regards,
G789

"There ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on, till we get to the end of the line."
   -Barret Wallace

i recommend adding ps4 titles to the raffle ticket section

We all need to have realistic expectations and know our limits as well as others'. Those of us who are still really invested in the site are aware you can't be everywhere at once and that you've had a whole lot going on.

(Content hidden from non-Staff members!)

I'm sorry that things are the way they are in your life right now. I'm in a similar boat; sometimes it's hard to remember that we are all only human.

Davideo7 : are you, your wife and your kids ok? are you guys still together

Davideo7 :

It is appreciated, but was not necessary for you to apologize. Please take care of yourself and get healthy. The site is awesome and even with some of the problems you mentioned, this site is far and away better than anything else on the Internet. Being family/kid friendly and having nearly unlimited gaming enjoyment is in my opinion the two main reasons for the greatness of this site. I am not a big poster (I don't think I am that interesting and I am shy to boot) but I do enjoy reading them from time to time.

Anyhow, thank you for an amazing site and everything you do. Take care of yourself and your family and Good Luck to you.

Sincerely,

Triad2000
John

First of all just wanted to say your awesome and love vizzed. Second hope you, your wife, and kids are ok. You can only do so much, so please pace yourself. We love you.

I kind of know what you're going through. I suffer from ADHD, Autism and Asperger syndrome.

its ok, no need to worry

CobraGuy : Many great sites have risen and fallen during the long span that Vizzed has been up. This month the Vizzed.com domain turned 15 years old which is crazy! I guess you could say I've got a persistent (and sometimes obsessive) personality. Giving up is something that's too hard for me to do and maybe that's thanks to growing up playing video games in an era when video games were incredibly hard and unforgiving (I started gaming at 2 so that was drilled into me at a very young age).


G789 : The site has gone through some bigger obstacles in the past but the posting activity hasn't been this low in over 10 years. Hoping to pull off another recovery.


KillerLatias : I'm broke these days. I don't have the budget to invest into more codes. Sorry.


m0ssb3rg935 : The staff that'd be demoted would all have a chance to work there way back to the position they were at. I just think we need more staff members who are more involved and willing to help keep the forum active.


hellno163 : We're ok and we're all still together. I appreciate the concern


Triad2000 : This community has a unique atmosphere and this type of atmosphere doesn't really exist much on the internet anymore. Hoping to keep that alive.


TaySwift13 : People who don't have ADHD would probably have a hard time understanding just how much of an obstacle it is. My mind never shuts off and is always hyper and active which makes it impossible to sleep without sleep aid. It's almost impossible to get myself to do something I don't want to do and even reading a lot is difficult because I tend to day dream a lot when reading a lot. But when I do find something that inspires me or motivates me, I get so dead focused on it where that's all I want to do.

Hey man, before anything else you should prioritize your own health and your family. I've never seen a site owner be this invested in their site for this many years and still have it up and running. Get some rest if you need it because you definitely deserve it after the many hours you put into Vizzed. 

We're all really grateful to you for allowing us to play old games that we love or to meet fellow gaming enthusiasts, and it'll be awesome to have you come back to the community.

I'd say with the way things have been going here lately it's pretty understandable why you'd be inactive from the site. If it was me, I would have a very difficult time getting motivated to do anything Vizzed related. I know what it's like to put a lot of work into something and not be able to even enjoy it without worrying about it even being around in the future to keep enjoying it. Sometimes it just isn't worth it, but that's for you to decide. That's always up to the individual. I feel like that's the way it is in my life a lot. With all the financial problems I'm having there's times when I don't even feel like using my computer because of everything it takes to keep it running properly.

It's really hard to explain why we just don't feel like doing something, but that's how it is for me. It sounds like your situation is a lot like mine. You don't feel like messing with it if it's not going to be around to keep enjoying. Like a lot of other people have already said, there is no need to apologize because most people like myself already understand how much effort you've put into the site. It sounds like you've burned yourself out. I say that your health and family comes first, and that's all you can do. You can just do your best and do whatever makes you happy.

Definitely these are not so fun times. I am experiencing quite a bunch of issues myself but they are by no means even close to what burden Davideo has had to bear for so long. The fact he has this much endurance, this much dedication, to keeping his site intact, deserves respect beyond many respects.

Also, pardon me for asking... but will there be potential for vizzed mc's revival coming up? My hopes for such have managed to survive somehow.

It's OK. Sorry to hear about how much all this affected you. I've struggled with some more frequent burnout as well as other personal problems. I've felt bad for being so distant from vizzed too aside from recording videos. But it's been for all real life priorities so I know now that I shouldn't feel bad for putting real life 1st.

As others have said, please put your family and real life 1st I've needed to do this to keep my well-being where it is. I'm praying for you and the staff that will be taking over.

First thing I’ll say, I didn’t think I’d ever come back to the site unless someone asks me to give them Viz. Your apology came to my attention, and I read it, read it again, and I decided to log in just to apologize to you.

It may sound weird, probably wondering, “why is she apologizing to me?” Well, David, for a short summary, for everything that I had dealt with in the past year, I partly blamed all of it on you.

To explain, I had left back in September, leaving in awful terms with some people here, and I had felt this site was going to decline more than ever. I had felt that you were to blame for it. Your site explicitly stated “respect all members” and “respect all staff,” and I know several people here aren’t fond of Vanelan, but ever since word came around that he and I are a couple, a majority of that negative attention came straight to me, and I was completely helpless on what to do. People I didn’t know, people I did know, people who I thought I was on good terms with, and even people who I was on good terms with, we were on a war. I was being mistreated solely more my relationship, and I had thought, “this isn’t right.” Then, when I seeked help and needed you the most… you weren’t there.

I don’t know if you remember, but back in July, Vanelan had told you that a member was intentionally disliking all of my personal posts, and Van told me that you dismissed it, claiming it wasn’t a big deal, but the disliking continued afterwards. Even then, you never came to my aid, so I had to take matters into my hands, but even then, I felt you failed as an owner. I was thinking “he had a chance to help me, and he didn’t,” and I felt hurt and began to feel a bit of resentment towards you.

It also didn’t help that I hang around with the wrong crowd of people. These people, they said so many things, like “he might as well dump this website” or “he should have sold it when it made millions instead of bragging about all the attention it was” and as time passed, I had agreed with these people. I always felt confused on why you were streaming instead of fixing the errors evident on the site. I always felt you were more focused on promoting the site than improving it. When I spoke of you or the site in past months, I always spoke so bitterly of it.

I was wrong to do that. I was very wrong to blame it all on you. I should’ve known that it was all out of your control, and I should’ve reminded myself that no matter how much you do, you’re still human, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I resented you and blamed you for my own problems, regardless of whether I even started them or not, and that was very wrong of me to do. Even when I had left the site and moved on, trying to improve myself and my own personal life and online left, I still felt a bitterness when I thought of the site, thinking it failed me and several other people who had left because of the kind of people who spread hate about the site and its members. Some of the things that happened the past year, the things around me and some other members, there was no way you could’ve really helped, and I should’ve known that. I should’ve known better than to pin blame on someone else for my problems, especially on you, who was having a hard time with everything.

Please, David, please, for the entire Vizzed community, take care of your health. Make that your first priority. During my last moments on the site, I realized it was best to leave, even if it meant ending things bitterly with the people I thought I could trust, just so I can take care of myself and improve from my mistakes. Please, David, take care of your health. Focus on the little things in your life. Focus on your family. Your wife and kids, they need you. They need a husband and father in their lives. Then, when you feel better, when you feel that you have everything under control and it’s going good for you, then come back to your site. Return to the members who truly appreciate you.

Aria summoned me here. Wow David.....that's a lot if words there. I didn't really have a reason to blame you so much life has its toll on all of us including you...as a matter of fact a few weeks ago I was talking to truine about the subject of this matter. I wanted to help but I didn't know how so I haven't really been posting because of that and because of other things as well. You can never know as on what can happen to vizzed we can't always predict something that may not happen even if it's heading that way. David as aria said focus on getting your health back to normal then sort out what you feel needs to be done to help vizzed.

I've been trying to reply here a few times, but I fail to come up with the right words to express myself. That's the main reason why I've stopped posting, I can't seem to get my mind straight due to real life. Still, sometimes I need to push myself, no matter how late, for the sake of the team, so here it goes.

You may have ditched out the community, but it was all a consequence of your decision. You decided that Vizzed needed to offer newer, more updated incentives to attract new users, and as a single-man team you worked your best and beyond to make it true. You thought whole-heartedly that it was what you could do to return Vizzed to some of its former glory, and we cannot blame you for that.

You may have been absent and disregarding minor issues, even if in reality they weren't such, but you above all of us know this site to its fullest. We can only imagine what goes behind the scenes, and we cannot grasp what you can go through just with this site. As the only coder of the site, only you could update Vizzed and your limited free time demanded sacrificing some of what you could do around here.

Maybe what failed is that you relied on the staff to keep in touch with the community while you worked behind the scenes. We may be under your command, but you always allowed others to take some of the responsibilities you had so as to not overwhelm you even more. You never implied you were leaving the community in our hands, but we should have been smarter and get the message.

Still, getting rid of the staff like you announce is a bit too radical. If you're back in touch with us and able to stand above any other staff member when taking some decisions, things will go different without any other change. Some of the drama that has been going on would have not been such with somebody of a high authority and an objective point of view capable of "cutting the wings" of those who went overboard. Sometimes that's what we need: to be reminded that there's someone above us.

We've always said that real life must come first, and we won't say anything different to you. Nobody blamed you when updates didn't come and you announced how your work out routine allowed you to shave off some weight (and if they did they're just the toxic haters floating around everywhere), and personally I was happy to hear that you were doing semi-okay. I, like the rest of us, would love to get news like that again instead of the crude reality you're going through, so do whatever needs to be done to get that back.

I'm expecting that site staff will get a post quota as well, even if we apply for this position to do specific roles outside of the boards, so I'll try to get back to where I used to be two years ago. I may not be able to average 200 posts a month again, but 50 (slightly more than half of the local quota) should be doable by all of us. And even without that quota, I'll aim to keep my posting consistent, I've been focusing solely on my roles for too long. That's all I can do, sadly, but I'll make sure I do it.