Complaining would have been easy. Turning the situation into a new excuse to bitch and rant against the evil super-companies that were using us for a revenue cattle call was the old reflex, nothing new. What wasn't quite so easy was the decision that Dave Wishnowski made next: that instead of simply being content to tell stories about the time we tried to make a panty-play at Big Wrestling, he was going to take the next step. He wasn't going to fall back into old, tired habits.

He was going to make his own game.

Without any experience in programming, without any background in animation or modeling, without even so much as a foot in the door of the industry at large, Dave announced that it was his intention to make a wrestling game. A game that was built by the people, that didn't have its basis in some billion-dollar license and the constraints that came with it, a game that was everything that the current spate of titles weren't. He'd find the people, he'd find the way to get a concern going, and he'd bring the genre back to where it belonged: Back in the hands of the fans.

People scoffed. They called him a sensationalist jackass, a guy who was putting on a big con to cover his failures at knocking down the doors of those in charge. They rolled their eyes with the kind of free-flowing bitterness that often meets someone looking to rip the doors off convention. They said that he was wasting his time, and that he should be happy in the same bread lines of disillusioned fans who were waiting for the next big wrestling game release. Surely it would be better, right?

But Dave wasn't content to do that, and he didn't give up. For three years, the guy's sacrificed his tears, his money, his precious time. He's taken a simple premise of discontent and turned it into a cause, through the kinds of vicious ups and downs that a lot of us will be fortunate enough to never sample. Investors have dangled millions and shot down the deal on the contract table because of creative control issues, entire crews have been put together and then falling apart like a house of cards when the money didn't materialize. He's watched the big companies that originally flipped him the bird turn around and implement the features he was pulling for in the first place, bringing in fresh profits while still showing that they still have no dedication to making their games better as a whole.

But he never gave up.

The WGU is still here. It's still breathing fire and kicking ass. The only difference is that now, the goal of making a game built on the shoulders of fan support isn't just the stuff of pipe dreams.. it's a reality. It's happening. And when all's said and done and the smoke has cleared, every fatback grossero and corner-cutting pissant working in that big company is going to see what the hell a real wrestling game looks like.

Because you, the community, the fans, those who snap their necks to scrape up the fifty bucks that pays these asshole's salaries, have demanded it.

Our Mission:

We're more than simply a company, we're a cause. A movement founded on behalf of gamers who refuse to settle for less, for whom the same old games repackaged every year with a few half-assed new bells and whistles just aren’t good enough. For fans and players who believe that the strength of a title isn’t blind faith in a license, but the heart that goes into making the best damned game possible. For gamers who have had enough of being taken for granted.

This is their voice. This is their demand for a higher standard. This is the fruits of a unified gaming community who aren’t satisfied with the status quo, whose tireless rally for something better has resulted in the first project of its kind. Built by the fans, built for the fans.

We are the WGU
and this is wrestling gaming -
built for the people, by the people.

We're the Wrestling Gamers United, and our business is making your game.

-M. Hauser
3.28.2005