Whacky dates time:
My account was registered May 14, 2008
The sites OG domain name was registered 1 month later June 2, 2008
The site became The Tech Game March 16, 2009

But before all of that, the site itself started life on my laptop using XAMPP January 12, 2008

That date is super important to me I've found over the years the biggest misconception about me or this site is that it was funded or I had money to start with or something along those lines I get asked that pretty often. about a week ago I was chatting with a few members on discord they asked about the start of the site and the 10 years so I told them the quick story and they said I really should post it for 10 years. I'm not trying to do the feelsbadman I'm posting it because maybe if someone out there is having the same issues I did maybe it could give them some hope so that's a pretty cool 10 years milestone to me anyways even if we feelsbad for the start.

Believe it or not, I had a bad start I had a very unstable home life alcoholics not just happy with destroying themselves, but anything they come into contact with. Sadly it's more common than people think, I've seen and given advice before to members on TTG privately if I've seen the subject come up it sucks when you're powerless to do anything but watch.

I was young and part of a small family there was nowhere else to go myself and my younger brother packed our stuff up a few times and crashed at friends the result would always be the police would come and find us and drag us back home no help was offered or given they didn't want the problem there are only so many times you can play hide and seek with police before they and the people they search start seeing you as a problem too.

This kept up for about two more years with the home issues becoming worse and worse at this point I was 17 I was in college I had a 7 day a week side job working for an Arcade (loved it) and what I did was saved my money so I could attempt to rent myself somewhere and go it alone I had no idea how I would do it but there was no way I could handle it anymore living in an environment like that watching the house get smashed up night after night trying to stop them from fighting as alcoholics almost always move into domestic violence it was not uncommon to be asleep and get woken by glass smashing and shouting at 2am there is only so much a person can take before it starts to mentally crush you. As you can imagine I started to suffer from severe anxiety and depression it was impossible to relax you're on the edge at all times anything at any moment could be a trigger for them.

I put myself on a few watch lists with agents for cheap apartments because my budget was so low there really was not many places to pick from you just take what you can. some days later a letter was sent to me about an apartment becoming emply the issue was I never got that letter my mother and step dad had it during one of their nightly alcoholic rages they opened the letter and saw I was trying to move out so at 3:30am they rushed into my bedroom pulled me by one of my legs out of my bed punched and kicked me a few times you name it they shouted it at me and told me I had 30 seconds to throw as much stuff as I could into a bag because they were throwing me out.

When they said I had 30 seconds they really did mean it I rushed around throwing all the clothes I could grab even in the panic I had the sense to grab mostly heavy stuff because it was mid-winter at this point I walked out the door with the bag that night I spent just walking around until the morning.

The next morning I dropped my stuff off at a friends house and went to grab details about the apartment and was able to get into it one week later it was small but it was mine I had to take on a 2nd job to help cover the bills so sometimes I would work a night shift come home in the morning get ready for college get home from college and start the Arcade job at night this clash happened 3 days a week but because my college 2 year term was coming to an end soon I just did it because I didn't want to waste the almost 2 years I had spent there. I saw my college results as my future it was how I was going to move on from here I just needed to push on.

My college ended I did really well I had the results I wanted but I started to become really depressed because I felt that I had been robbed of my chance to go to university I'm still working 2 dead-end jobs just to keep a roof over my head all my friends were out having fun getting their 1st cars and I'm looking at myself comparing how little I had for so much struggle with no clear path of what I could even do to improve beyond my point.

This went on for some time as many of you may have had yourself it's really hard to get a job even if you've passed college or university because almost everywhere requires you to have 2 years experience this only fueled my depression because now I felt like I had wasted my time, I'm going nowhere, I have no family if I screw up or lose one of these jobs I have nowhere to fall back to. in the UK the state will help you if you end up totally homeless but you will just end up in some halfway house with alcoholics and drug addicts this was not an option for me I'm trying to get away from that and messing up would put me back with that all over again just with different people.

Anxiety was building I had more than I could carry on my shoulders in my eyes I had no forward path only the risk of falling all the way back down to where I came from. It was December of 2007 I spent Christmas day on my own as the friends I would normally go to where away and I had to work Christmas day too. At this point words cannot express where I was mentally I was over it the new year was coming and I didn't want to enter that new year my life to me was pointless, it was an endless struggle I seriously wanted to end my life when you end up in a place like this you won't see a positive in anything nothing anyone says to you will help and for me no one could even relate to what I'd been or going through.

I did the best I could to suppress this dark cloud it at points was an hour to hour fight with myself trying to keep myself level because all I did was work and I didn't have much money for anything else so I had to get my mind off where I was because it felt like I was a ticking time bomb my life had no value to me. so I did what every 18 year old does I stole my neighbors WiFi using a half broken laptop I had gotten for working over Christmas.

Because I had little money and I was unable to really go out or do anything I decided the best thing for me was to have a hobby of some kind and designing and setting up websites was something I was learning at college to me I could take my mind off my problems, have something to put time into and I'm using my years at college that I felt was wasted it gave me some balance. The connection was not the best but I could get on sometimes a friend of mine setup XAMPP so I could set up websites on my laptop without the need for the internet so January 12, 2008 I said to myself that I will put as much time as I can into setting up a website. don't get me wrong I'm not even 10% of what telli is but I knew enough to get the ball rolling.

The Tech Pit Baby!
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During these early days, I loved the challenge it gave me the motivation to keep wanting to live forward I would go to work come home and work on what are now TTG's embarrassing baby photos. I started to get messages from people saying 'Hey I love your site keep it up' or that the site made their day these messages gave me a purpose in a dark time it was motivation to keep pushing forward so I did.
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Even years later when people thank me I still message them back when I can because you guys saved my life as far as I'm concerned. I hate all this emotional stuff because it's stupid really but understand I never take this for granted I may be a moody dickhead sometimes but we're all human I have also **** up over the past 10 years but I always try and learn from my mistakes.

My message really is if you're having problems if your path forward seems unclear no matter what issues you ever have in your life you can overcome them and you can make even the worst cards work. I hope my badly written story helps someone.

Life may seem like its always on the down but use it to give yourself motivation my PM's are always open if you're dealing with similar issues and want to chat.

Thank you for 10 years see you at 20.