What was I doing before getting involved in the game design industry?
Webdot Studio, LLC was the web development firm I owned and operated for seven years from 2010-2017. Located in Hopkinsville Kentucky, the company served the web, intranet, and software development needs of small and medium businesses, industries, and local, county and state governments within the Kentucky-Tennessee region.
How it Started
The formation of Webdot Studio was more of a necessity than it was an intended goal. The company was founded in 2010 when Cornerstone Information Systems. Inc., the IT firm where I worked for half a decade as lead web developer, decided to transition their business model to focus entirely on government IT contracts—mostly hardware and networks. This meant that the CIS business web division would be closing and web support and development coming to an end.
The existing customer base for the CIS business web services was not insubstantial, and none of us wanted to leave anyone in a tight spot due to the closure.
Several months were invested in the attempt to find workable solutions to provide ongoing support for the existing clients. This included several frustrating rounds of unsuccessful negotiating with other area IT firms that ultimately couldn’t provide the level of support needed to maintain the accounts.
After considering a new position on their network team that was offered by CIS, I ultimately decided instead to found my own web development company. That was the decision that provided the firm with a solution, maintained support for clients, and secured my own employment. With blessing from the CIS owners, I took ownership of their entire business web services and all associated accounts and started a new business. That was the genesis of Webdot Studio.
I set up an office at 104 Forbes Drive in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Since I was already the senior developer for CIS, was familiar with the clients, and had developed nearly all their websites, web applications, and intranet applications anyway, the transition was seamless.
I continued support, and grew my client base to a peak of 250 active clients. The firm continued to operate until I started to wind down operations in 2016 when I made the decision that I wanted to pursue my passion for game design and development as a career.
How it Ended
About closing Webdot Studio… It was a stressful decision, but not a particularly difficult one to make. An ongoing joke in my social circles was that I wanted to “retire” before I turned 35 years old. So, I did! Technically.
I spent six months carefully transitioning every client to appropriate third party services, with the exception of a handful of clients with services based in charity, community service, and public assistance. Several of those I still maintain free of charge to this day.
In early 2017, I officially went “full time” as a game designer, and shifted any future web design and development projects to be gaming-centric or for game publishing companies.
Domain Redirection
Since I spent so many years utilizing the domain name as an identity, it continues to be a point of contact for many who communicate with me over the internet, my webdostudio.com associated e-mail address will remain active indefinitely.
Also, more than a few of those old websites are still live out there after all these years (with a footer notation linked to the domain). So, I maintain this stopgap page here on my game design blog and website as a redirect for the webdotstudio.com domain.
Some of the Websites I Designed & Developed as Webdot Studio…
Some of the Other Projects I Designed for Webdot Studio clients…
