Happy first anniversary Ready Up!!

Ready Up is one year old and what a year it’s been. The management team of Dan, Simes and myself built the site in the early weeks of November 2007. My contribution to the process was to say “It can’t be grey. Grey looks crap. How about red? That’s jolly” and helpful things like “I don’t like that font”. The site launched and the first post was written by Simes. Now Simes is an amazing human; Dan and I live in a kind of constant awe of of him. He’s very clever, a precise chap. There’s no nonsense with Simes and he always manages to say things just exactly how they are with all the unnecessary chatter stripped away. In his test post he said it all and so our inaugural blog became the site’s motto.

Since then we’ve gone from strength to strength. The team grew larger as we found more and more gamers with passion, talent and eloquence to join us in creating a really great community site. Some of our staff writers have taken on responsibility for the new emerging sections of the site such as our Xbox Live Arcade reviews and our community contact with our thriving forum. One of the great successes of Ready Up and a section that we are all particularly proud of is the Ready Up Juniors. Our Juniors Manager Laura Rich has worked tirelessly to create a great body of work with the Ready Up kids stopping only to give birth to our newest Ready Up Junior, Rhys.

Over the last year we’ve written about our every thought and feeling on gaming, we’ve reviewed over 120 games, we’ve made several mini documentaries that have appeared on the cover disk of magazines and been screened at the Edinburgh Festival. We have also travelled the length and breadth of the country to festivals, game launches, previews, private viewings of games in development and we’ve run a couple of our own events including the Video Games Live Preshow and Europe’s first chance to play Guitar Hero World Tour. Every day I have worked on this site has been a pleasure and a privilege.

Thanks to our staff for all their hard work so far and here’s to many more years together. Thanks to our sponsor Retro GT for their trust, support and their extremely high quality clothing. Thank you to the publishers and PRs for their staunch backing and in particular to Leo Tan at Capcom, the whole team at Barrington Harvey and Tommy and Mike Tallarico from Video Games Live who’ve all been real friends to us. Lastly thanks to you the reader for your interest and support. Keep gaming and we’ll keep writing about it.

Here’s a look at our first year in a little gallery. Click on the thumbnails to see the full size versions.



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25 responses to “Happy first anniversary Ready Up!!”

  1. City avatar

    Yay for Ready Up!

    I only joined the team in May, but damn it has been fantastic and given me such a wealth of opportunities, as well as giving me some quite brilliant new friends.

    So thank you to the team for not only making me feel more than welcome, but for giving me inspiration to write, and making events just even more fun to be at!

    Ready Up Rocks =)

  2. Emily avatar
    Emily

    I had no idea it’d been a year, well done everyone ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. John.B avatar
    John.B

    Congrats to everybody! Such a great community being built and it can only go from strength to strength.

  4. John avatar

    I’m having nothing but fun being part of Ready-Up. Strength-to-strength is the direction we’re heading and I’m pleased and proud to be on board.

  5. Ben avatar
    Ben

    At times like this, there is only one thing to do…cake!

  6. Barry avatar
    Barry

    Well done everyone, its an awesome site ๐Ÿ™‚

  7.  avatar

    Congratulations.

    – Van-Fu

  8. Tony avatar
    Tony

    Pretty sure my first post was in January so you’ll have to keep the champagne chilled for me for a while longer…

    Happy Birthday Ready Up!

  9. Tommy Tallarico avatar
    Tommy Tallarico

    Yay!! Happy Birthday to Ready-Up! Was great working with you all and I hope to see you again in 2009!

    Rock On!

    Tommy

  10. Paige avatar
    Paige

    Never knew it was a year either! Been lots done in that time though, woot!

  11. Laura avatar
    Laura

    We Rock, Yay Us!

  12. Scott avatar
    Scott

    I’ve only been with the site since July, but I can quite confidently say I already have a lot of fond memories associated with the events I’ve been a part of, and I appreciate the opportunity to write about gaming and review games that I’ve been given by Kirsten and Dan. I also want to thank Kirsten in particular, for the time and writing advice she has given me. The whole team have been awesome and very welcoming towards me.

    Here’s to the continued success!

  13. TequilaClint avatar
    TequilaClint

    Well done to the Ready up creators on an amazing site.
    I havnt been here long and yet to make many friends but its allways a joy to visit.

  14. Shaz avatar

    “We’ve come a long long way together,
    Through the hard times and the good,
    I have to celebrate you baby,
    I have to praise you like I should…”

    w00t Ready Up!

  15. TequilaClint avatar
    TequilaClint

    Oh and where do i get me one of ’em t-shirts?

  16. Laura avatar
    Laura

    Lolz @ Shaz 8)

  17. Jake avatar

    It is possibly the fastest year ever! But it’s been absolutely great, and very memorable for the huge number of crap games I have reviewed, but strangely loved every minute of it!! ๐Ÿ™‚ Here’s to the next twelve months!

  18. arc14716 avatar
    arc14716

    Congratulations guys. You’ve done good work so far on the site and blogs. Keep up the good work.

  19. Donna avatar

    YAY! I’m with Tony. Keep the bubbly chilled til January for me too.

    Happy Birthday RU!

  20. Michael avatar

    A year? Wow… I’m fairly sure I’m another January one!

    “Thereโ€™s no nonsense with Simes and he always manages to say things just exactly how they are with all the unnecessary chatter stripped away”

    Tch, Simes can talk some quality nonsense! But, yeah, he’s also very good at the “saying stuff after thinking” thing.

  21. James avatar
    James

    Somebody let me into this crazy circus already XD

  22. NorfolkNChance avatar
    NorfolkNChance

    Congratulations and well done on having such a great first year ๐Ÿ™‚

  23. Martin avatar

    HAppy belated day to us all. Ready Up! is a great thing to be a part of and I’m sure I share all of our sentiments that we are privileged to be a part of it. I look forward to the future and hope to be a part of it for many years to come. Well done all.

  24. Retro Boy G (Games Centre Manager) avatar
    Retro Boy G (Games Centre Manager)

    I thought you guys were actually over a year old?.. weird. Ach well Happy Burfday! I’m just happy that one of my pictures was used in this post! YeY x

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