Retro Dodo was founded in 2019 with the pure aim of educating and entertaining those interested in retro gaming.
Back then, I honestly had no idea what I was building, nor what the future held for this brand – but fortunately, our content was entertaining enough that many of you would return to this website to consume more.
This gave me the opportunity to leave my full-time job within the gaming industry and take the risk to build upon the Retro Dodo brand for a couple of years.
Now, in 2023 the brand and the team has grown considerably, evolving our small blog into a powerful, independently owned publication that competes with some of the largest media companies in the world, all thanks to a talented team of retro gaming creators.
Over the past 12 months, you may have seen that we have been publishing some content about card games on our website – with articles featuring Magic: The Gathering, the Pokemon TCG and more.
This then sparked an idea within the team to build a dedicated brand about trading and collectible card games, that overlaps with our current Retro Dodo readers called Card Gamer.
As much as card games could be seen by many as ‘retro’, it doesn’t really fit the ongoing strategy that we have for Retro Dodo. We want Retro Dodo to be a niche publication that sticks to its lane and focuses on creating high quality content about the retro gaming industry.
With that said, we want to use the same strategy but within the card game industry. We want to build and become a reputable source for card game news, reviews, guides and features.
Just as we’ve accomplished with Retro Dodo, we want to build a brand that sticks to its lane and eventually becomes the #1 source for those new to card games, as well as those that are expert level players/collectors.
I personally have had a passion for collecting trading cards ever since I was a kid, stemming from the launch of the Pokemon TCG in 1999. Even more specifically, I can pinpoint this passion to the day I pulled a holographic Machamp from a pack my father bought me from the local sweet shop.
Ever since then, I have kept up with collecting and even attempted to create card game YouTube channels in the past, but this time is different. I have learned a lot of things since the launch of Retro Dodo, from building brands, to SEO strategies and content creation.
This knowledge has pushed Retro Dodo content to over 2 MILLION viewers a month. With that same knowledge, I want to build a second brand, centred around my passion for card gaming.
I am also going to be fully transparent here. As we’re independently owned, we do not have a board of investors that can help us when things get tough, nor do we have a bank full of cash to pull us out of aggressive algorithm updates or changes within the advertising industry (which we have all seen recently).
So, from a business perspective, it’s a smart decision for us to create a second brand that allows us to be more resilient to market forces, and keeps our eggs in more than one basket, so to speak.
I pride myself in building brands that gamers enjoy, while paying creatives in the space better than our large media outlet competitors (as I too was once over worked and under paid in this industry), so having a second brand that can offer work to talent, supports charities and helps us survive in a market that is consumed by large media corporations is a decision that myself and the team have agreed on.
With that said, I am incredibly excited to officially launch the brand in the coming months and supply you with the best card game content on the web, written by human experts.
To begin with our team consists of Jason Brown, Brandon Saltalamacchia (myself), Emma Flint and Ryan Easby, all talented content creators with a history of card game expertise.
I hope you can support us on this journey. Building an independent publication from scratch isn’t easy, so any help, support and constructive feedback is beyond appreciated.
Make sure to follow us on Twitter and YouTube to be one of the first consume our brand new content.
We also have a newsletter – which will be stacked with news, reviews and exclusive discounts/giveaways.
Finally, I’d like to say thank you once more; you taking the time to consume our content means so much to me and the team – we couldn’t undertake this exciting new journey without you being along for the ride!
