Dag Dag!

‘One door closes, another opens’ or ‘there is nothing permanent except change’.

These are classic sayings and everyone is probably fed up of hearing them but they are true, especially for me right now. I will no longer be involved in the running of Platinum Simmers, because another door opened for me.

In 2011 Heather, Maureen, Laura, Deb and I had an idea, why not start our own website, it is 2011 – owning a website is not hard it would give each of us the freedom to share what we like in The Sims community. We did not think it would grow so big or get us anywhere really, we just wanted to share what we thought was fun about The Sims (and SimCity).

What turned out to be really fun for me are the social media, community management, business and even the analytic sides of having a website. I loved it so much that it made me change career paths completely in life, if you had asked me in 2011 what I was going to be when I was done with my studies/settled in life – get really far in Chemistry and cure Gluten Intolerance (completely selfish). Then I realised, doing Research in Chemistry was not giving me the satisfaction that employment/work should.

Through The Sims community and Platinum Simmers I learned Social Media and Community management and that talking about/sharing things with a community I love is something I am so passionate about that I want that to be my job full time and then some.

I took a step in the right direction professionally and hit the point that I feel that by turning my hobby (and passion) into a career, it makes it really hard to still do the hobby for many reasons. I know that I haven’t gone into much detail about why, and that it’s rather vague, but there are some things I want to keep private which I hope you can understand 🙂

I’m not sad; I’m excited and immensely proud. I started this road so many years ago, did not give up and had more support and encouragement from family and friends than you can imagine.

The one thing I learned, do not give up. Figuring out what you want to do is not the hardest part. When you figure it out, actually making the decision ‘I will do that one day’ is the hardest part as long as you stay smart and do not end up on the street, you can do it. Second hardest part is to keep going even when you don’t immediately succeed. Ask the person you respect the most, they will tell you they did not immediately succeed either at whatever they are doing.

The friendships I made in this community will continue and they are the things I treasure the most. I still cannot believe The Sims events I have been invited to and that I’ve met complete strangers who have visited and know of Platinum Simmers. This was just a place to share our love and views of the game and it gave all of us much more than that. I’m so proud of this site, what it has grown to be and what it will be in the future.

Platinum Simmers will continue, Heather, Maureen, Laura and Annabel (and maybe you?) will continue to share what they love about the games.

Only thing I am sad about, I have so many ideas that I wanted to do on Platinum Simmers, so many to-do lists and I don’t get to finish those myself.

Dag Dag <3
Maaike, find me on twitter @maaikesww – I will still be sharing my gameplay pics and will still be playing The Sims 🙂

PS. I encourage all of you, if you want to start a site, blog, vlog, youtube channel, anything – just do it. It will give you skills and experiences that are invaluable. It was easy in 2011 and in 2015 it is much easier, you just have to start.