((As is appropriate, Sean gets the final say. Have a safe New Year’s, and here’s to a better 2024.))

The name The Daily Worker Placement is less of a reference to a Communist newspaper and more a joke about Seinfeld. I remember the night I came up with that name and feeling immediately that it was right. It was just that way for me from the start, where I always felt like I was following the right path with this blog.

I had been wanting to continue writing and taking pictures of games after leaving my marketing job at a board game cafe where that had been one of my favourite parts of the position. I just starting writing about the games and subjects that interested me and for many years, running this site was a great passion of mine. Any content creator knows the addictive rush you feel when you hit publish and share your work with an audience. This is especially true when you’re putting up a piece you’re particularly proud of.

Any content creator also knows that keeping an outlet running consistently for (checks notes) nine years takes an entire team. There have been dozens of people that lent their talents to the site over the years. David and Nicole both have made incredible contributions to running our little blog.

David, first as the most consistent contributor of insightful articles, perspectives, and contests, and for the last three plus years taking on a massive task as the Managing Editor. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does with his next project.

Nicole and I worked together closely bouncing ideas of each other and plotting the voice of the DWP in the early days. She was always had a journalist approach to her work and it resulted in countless great stories, many about games, but she also wrote a lot about topics on the edge of the hobby, bringing to light subjects, I know I never considered before reading them.

So I want to sincerely thank them both and I also want to thanks all the many other amazing contributors we’ve had over the years. One of the great strengths of the DWP is that we had so many different contributing voices. We always tried to encourage and recruit writers with different perspectives and I think we succeeded in that aspect.

I feel very bittersweet with the end (for now) of the DWP. It is a good timing for us all to move on to new adventures. I certainly felt the burnout of consistently producing content every week and when I stepped away from the blog in 2020, it was the right decision. I knew it was in good hands. Now, I know that the timing is right again to put things on hold.

To be honest, I don’t know what the future holds for this site that has meant so much to us for almost a decade. I don’t know if this is really the end or just a pause to give ourselves time to rekindle the passion. The blank slate of possibilities is both scary and exciting. For myself, I’ll continue to follow the path my heart lays in front of me and do my best to ignore the voices of doubt that inevitably try and cast doubt.

Thank you for reading. It has meant the world to me.