25 years ago, two brothers from Brighton helped set up a video game website. They set up the site in their parents' converted garage and called it Eurogamer, a spin-off of a Quake 2 tournament they used to host, EuroQuake.
When I joined in 2010, Eurogamer was already a household name in the global games industry, and that small garage group had grown into a team that would soon fill a three-storey office in the city centre.
Eurogamer had built a reputation for fearless writing about video games and as a result had earned a brilliantly engaged, knowledgeable and loyal audience.
It had also retained something of that feeling of still being a family operation, of being a place where staff members and audiences understood each other and shared the same passions, enjoyed the same inside jokes and together anticipated the publication of the next great review.
Fourteen years on, I still think that's true. And I now have the privilege of serving as Editor-in-Chief as we collectively celebrate the next big milestone: Eurogamer's 25th anniversary.
This week, we'll be reflecting on the last quarter of a century with some faces that will be familiar to you if you've been following Eurogamer for any length of time. We'll also be keeping an eye on what's next for gaming (and hopefully 2025 is going to be an exciting year) and where we might all end up. other 25 years.
As for the present… well, we're also about to launch a major new project, The Eurogamer 100, an annually updated list of our top picks for what you can play right now. We hope you'll find it useful throughout the year.
For fun, we'll be unlocking the ability to read Eurogamer as it looked at different points in our history, thanks to a handy topic selector (yes, Eurogamer originally looked even more retro than it does now). And finally, we'll also be getting on with our daily work: doing what we've been doing for 25 years and many more to come: sharing our passion for video games with you.
Welcome to Eurogamer 25.
And thanks, as always, for reading.