The great Michelangelo uttered one of my favorite quotes when he said "the greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." When I look back at last year's resolutions I see a lot of missed targets, but that doesn't mean the year was a failure.
Of the four major goals I outlined a year ago, only one was really completed. I did indeed move out of the apartment, and am now working out of an amazing coworking space in downtown Oklahoma City. The network didn't come close to 500,000 users, I'm still a one-man-show (though this could be changing soon), and no new games are in the works. However, a very successful marketing channel has been introduced in the form of Leet Media, and I've learned an incomprehensible amount in all facets of business and programming.
All of these lessons and learning have set the stage for what I think will be an amazing year for GoldFire Studios, and I've got some exciting announcements coming over the next few months.
1,000,000 registered users: Like Michelangelo said, the danger is setting your aim to an achievable point, so I'm shooting for the stars this year. This will be my first full-time year, and now that I've had 6 months to adjust to post-school life, I think I'm ready to take the next step.
10 person team: Again, I'm not going to aim low, my goal has always been to make GoldFire Studios a legitimate game development studio, and if any of these goals are going to be achieved, I'm going to need a lot of help.
Third game: This is something that will make more sense over the coming months, and can become more of a reality as my 2nd goal starts to pan out.
Completely switch to Node.js and HTML5: From now on, any new games made by GoldFire Studios will be using Node.js on the backend and HTML5 on the front-end to make dramatically more engaging games. It is also my goal to slowly convert PokerRPG and BC Wars to use both of these technologies to vastly improve the gameplay and allow those games to finally reach their potential.
2-4 monthly blog posts: This more of a personal resolution, but I feel like I've been slacking on blog posts lately and would like to stick to a schedule of one post every 1-2 weeks. If anyone has any ideas for topics you'd like me to write about, I'd love to hear them.
As was seen in 2011, things will inevitably change (sometimes dramatically) throughout the course of a year, but this can serve as a general guideline for the current direction I'm steering the studio. I hope to see all of you along the ride!