Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #342


Sorry for the late newsletter tonight guys. I've been having a hell of a time with internet access lately. Long story, and not a particularly good one. In fact, I've got about ten minutes before I have to log off again so this week if you don't mind I'd like to revisit the original WGU newsletter format, lose the link and question of the week, and just freestyle rant with the time I do have.

Ahem...

I've had a lot of time to think over the last few weeks and with the help of the crew and their constructive honesty I've come to face a few realities:

1-Nobody is interested in PWX just for it's characters or content 2-PWX Uprising, while an admirable achievement, will impress no one on it's own merits.
3-Wrestling Gamers United is operating at less than 1% of it's potential to make a difference.


See, for the last few years, since we opened the studio actually, something didn't feel quite right. Sure it was exciting to become a real game studio. Hell, it was a massive high. I still can't believe we pulled it off sometimes. But as soon as we started development we began to go against the original intent of Wrestling Gamers United. We began to stop taking input from fans. Sure we had a very valid reason. When you start development you have to make a lot of permanent decisions that have virtually nothing to do with the type of creative and advanced gameplay concepts that so many have you have been kind enough to submit.


But still, facts are facts. We became a game developer and like so many other developers we went about doing things our way and with every design or gameplay decision we automatically made some fans happy and made other fans pissed off. We told ourselves that there was no other way. You can't please everyone. So the original intent of WGU, to empower wrestling gamers, was only accomplished to a half-assed extent. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with Uprising and it's gameplay but THAT'S my point exactly. In the end it wasn't really about Wrestling Gamers United and the whole community. It ended up being just another wrestling game developed with a very specific type of gamer in mind.

It became Wrestling Gamers Who More or Less Agree with Dave United. There are worse things in the world but still, we alienated just as many people as Smackdown did back in the day. Are we really any better or just different? But most importantly, can we get back on track and achieve what we wanted to from the beginning, empower Wrestling Gamers, pay them all proper respect, and show that we CARE about what we give them. Can we make WGU and the entire concept of PWX a two-way street again?
Because just replying to fans on a forum and answering email isn't enough. More needs to be done or it's just another niche game that will come and go.

I've made this war cry before in the recent past and fell flat on my face. Not this time. I've been extremely fortunate to have crew members who care enough to be honest and out forth brilliant proposals. Once again, this isn't a one man show.


There has to be more Wrestling Gamers United than just a newsletter and answering email. And after all this time there has to be more to PWX than just a little game that kinda plays like No Mercy.

We can do better. We have a crew that believes we can. And if we don't, Wrestling Gamers United would have missed it's mark. Why settle for that if we don't have to? If we can still do something special aren't we obligated to do so?


In the meantime and in-between time, that's it. Another edition of Wrestling Gamers United.

Thank you for your support,
Dave Wishnowski

I'm still on board to design the belts (with input from the FANS, obviously). And now, I'm even closer to becoming an actual professional at it than ever before!