We’ve hit 500 posts here at ninjarefinery.com!
Reviews, news, opinions, competitions, blog posts. There’s been a lot since the first post in October 2016. Nearly 10 years of doing this.
It started as a different name, covering more areas and I’ve just continued to push through, constantly changing and finding my way. 500 examples of things getting better, hopefully?
None of it is perfect, some of it is garbage. But it’s all a part of the history of the site. Learning to improve workflows, trying to get people to engage with posts and even work with advertisers.
Ninja Refinery has been a 9-year lesson in what works and what doesn’t. It’ll continue to be so, too. Just keeping it going in between work, life and everything else, is worth celebrating. 500 isn’t a small number!
Sister sites and platforms
Every now and then we get a bit clever and think we know better and go on to make new mistakes with additional sites. Side-stepping some lessons, and taking on entirely new problems.
With neverplayed.co.uk and npcmode.co.uk there were new ideas and there still are (time to give them both some more time and love! And no doubt, others will spawn over the coming months/years.
Beyond that, there’s over 200 posts gone up from me at fullsync.co.uk, too!
We’ve started to learn video editing and reviewing (I both love and hate it). Taken on streaming and tried to create content on the modern platforms that change regularly enough to up-end things, too.
Twitter is pointless now, it’s BlueSky. Instagram is tosh, Threads didn’t take off. TikTok was something I looked at with trepidation, but it’s slowly picking up and helping the site.
The future
Who knows if the site makes it to 10 years, or if I have to walk away from it for some reason? I hope not, I feel like I’m starting to get my head around it now.
Trying to contact publishers and developers. Even manufacturers of hardware is still hit and miss for me, but it’s getting better.
Coffee content needs more time, with some plans for that. New series of reviews, different perspective. It might not work or last long, but that’s the joy of being able to do it my way, right?
The domain is established, we’re slowly seeing increases in offers for sponsored work (I could write a whole blog about that mess of a world that is!). It feels like it’s just been a really slow start to getting ready for something bigger.
It likely won’t grow in any significant way, but at least it persists and it’s still interesting and fun. 500 will hopefully turn to 600, will end up being 1000, all being well.
Almost 10 years
It looks like we’re going to have to do something in 2026 for the 10 year anniversary. I have no idea what that would be, but there’s time, so we’ll see.
Giveaways are cool, but 1 isn’t enough and loads seems lame. 500 giveaways? Probably not.
There should probably a proper site re-vamp as well? No idea what that would look like, either. But it’s one to explore!
Just keep swimming
As far as I’m concerned, I’ll just carry on. Making mistakes, writing and thinking of new ideas/angles to do things.
More and more TikTok videos, more BlueSky posts and then it’ll be a case of flexing to whatever else pops up. Despite how uncomfortable it’ll be initially.
Ideally more consistent streaming will be a focus, but it’s so hard to commit when there’s so much (more important) stuff going on.
Play games, drink coffee, write about it and share some clips. It’s not rocket science!
500 cups of coffee, playing 500 hours of Monster Hunter. I could do that.