{"id":9213,"date":"2017-12-31T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead"},"modified":"2017-12-31T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T14:00:00","slug":"site-news-thanks-for-playing-thomas-whitehead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2017\/12\/31\/site-news-thanks-for-playing-thomas-whitehead\/","title":{"rendered":"Site News: Thanks For Playing, Thomas Whitehead"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"picture embed centered picture-900x img-900x\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"Tom and Damo @ EGX 2012\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/0\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/0\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Tom and Damo @ EGX 2012\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Hopefully by now you&#8217;ve heard the news that our illustrious editor Tom\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_a_fond_farewell_from_nintendo_life_editor_thomas_whitehead\">will be leaving Nintendo Life<\/a> in a mere matter of hours. It&#8217;s been quite an adventure over the last <strong>6.9 years<\/strong> and it simply wouldn&#8217;t be right to not take a dive into the numbers, <em>Tom style.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>In The Beginning<\/h3>\n<p>It was <strong>Saturday, 22nd January, 2011<\/strong> and a fresh faced Thomas decided to complete the &#8216;Join The Team&#8217; contact form we had put up on the website with an unusually thorough and lengthy application.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the application form was a subtle but important question, <em>Why do you want to write for us?<\/em>\u00a0His reply:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I am a daily visitor to Nintendo Life and enjoy reading Nintendo related reviews and articles. It seems that the coverage given to the Wiiware and DSiWare on this website is far more comprehensive than elsewhere. I also appreciate the community elements on the site and post regularly (as ThomasBW84) on the Goldeneye thread for online matches, and playing with fellow Nintendo Lifers is always good fun. I want to extend my writing to games journalism and think that the environment on this website will help me to do that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>An internal conversation between myself, Darren, Jonathan, Zach, Corbie and James then happened and it was decided that we would give him a shot.<\/p>\n<p>Within only a few days Thomas had his first review published of the mediocre WiiWare (remember that?) title\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/2011\/01\/spot_the_differences\"><strong>Spot the Differences!<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0which received a harsh (but fair)\u00a0<strong>6\/10<\/strong>. A slew of other DSiWare and WiiWare games followed before moving on to some meatier 3DS and Wii retail titles throughout 2011.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/1\/original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/1\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Tom and Ant @ the first ever NL meet-up, 2011\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Tom and Ant @ the first ever NL meet-up, 2011<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<h3>6.8<\/h3>\n<p>In total, Tom has had\u00a0<strong>237 reviews<\/strong> published on the site and ended on a high with <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/xenoblade_chronicles_2\"><strong>Xenoblade Chronicles 2<\/strong> for Nintendo Switch<\/a> which received a &#8220;Excellent&#8221; <strong>9\/10<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>While this final game didn&#8217;t quite get the top score, Tom dished out only <strong>7 reviews<\/strong> with a <strong>10\/10<\/strong> score. They were:<\/p>\n<p>The majority of games reviewed scored <strong>9\/10<\/strong> (46 times) with <strong>8\/10<\/strong> (40 times), <strong>7\/10<\/strong> (43 times), <strong>6\/10<\/strong> (43 times), <strong>5\/10<\/strong> (33 times), <strong>4\/10<\/strong> (11 times), <strong>3\/10<\/strong> (7 times), <strong>2\/10<\/strong> (7 times) &#8211; and never did Tom score a game <strong>1\/10<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Add all that up and you&#8217;ll find that Tom&#8217;s average review score was <strong>6.8\/10<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>Beyond Reviews<\/h3>\n<p>Whilst Tom was initially taken on for reviews, he quickly cemented himself in the wider team and started to write his trademark long-form &#8220;Talking Point&#8221; features on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<p>He became <em>the<\/em> features guy and took on a new role of &#8216;Features Editor&#8217; as he developed new ideas while also starting to post more news articles in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013 Thomas went full time for Nintendo Life and <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2014\/03\/site_news_tom_has_evolved_into_a_new_form_editor_tom\">shortly after in 2014 became our top dog, the Editor<\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/2\/original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/2\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Mario &amp; Luigi do the Edinburgh 10k\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Mario &amp; Luigi do the Edinburgh 10k<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<h3>4.8 million<\/h3>\n<p>As of today, <strong>31st December 2017<\/strong>, Thomas has written a total of\u00a0<strong>10,571 articles<\/strong>, which doesn&#8217;t even include any that were published under our &#8216;Nintendo Life&#8217; team author.<\/p>\n<p>He won&#8217;t appreciate me saying, but he&#8217;s written <strong>4,790,745 words<\/strong> during his time here. Which at an average reading speed of <em>200 words minute<\/em> for <em>8 hours a day<\/em> would take you around <strong>50 days to read<\/strong>. Eek.<\/p>\n<p>His articles have also caused you guys to react with a comment\u00a0<strong>626,507<\/strong> times. I think it&#8217;s safe to say he hasn&#8217;t read all of them, though.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/3\/original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2017\/12\/site_news_thanks_for_playing_thomas_whitehead\/attachment\/3\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Tom, Damo, Jude (you don't know him)\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Tom, Damo, Jude (you don&#8217;t know him)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<h3>Leaving On A High<\/h3>\n<p>Thomas has had an unmistakable and unforgettable impact on Nintendo Life, he&#8217;s been involved for over half the time the site has been online and for an entire console generation, with Wii U and 3DS.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s no secret that 2016 was a difficult year for Nintendo fans (and especially for writers), it&#8217;s safe to say that Nintendo Switch has gone a long way to restore the losses suffered by Wii U. Thomas worked <em>extremely<\/em> hard during the Wii U era to keep the faith for you guys and retain the traffic levels of the website. His commitment and effort will never be forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re not even one year into Nintendo Switch but 2017 has been incredible for Nintendo Life and Tom will be leaving on a high; the\u00a0<strong>best ever year<\/strong> in our history.<\/p>\n<h3>See You Again&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>On behalf of all the Nintendo Life team and readers, Thomas, <strong>Thank You For Playing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>On a more personal note, I&#8217;m happy to say that I won&#8217;t miss Tom&#8230; because I know we&#8217;ll remain close friends long, long into the future.<\/p>\n<p><em>~ Ant<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hopefully by now you&#8217;ve heard the news that our illustrious editor Tom\u00a0will be leaving Nintendo Life in a mere matter of hours. It&#8217;s been quite an adventure over the last 6.9 years and it simply wouldn&#8217;t be right to not take a dive into the numbers, Tom style. In The Beginning It was Saturday, 22nd [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}