In 2004 I made a deal to acquire the scenario.com domain for $1,200. That felt like a lot of money back then for an indie game maker like me. But in March 2023, I sold it for $100,000 and replaced it with scenario.org for $3,995. I only wish I had acquired scenario.org back when it could be had for $1!

This was a very challenging move, much like packing up and moving to a different house — all while the clock is ticking against you to meet your escrow deadline. That involved updating 19 years worth of website accounts that were tied to scenario.com email aliases. Around a thousand in total, each business with their own Draconian rules for how to go about updating a simple email address in their databases. And then came the challenge of waiting for the Registrar transfer, convincing my bank this wasn’t a fraudulent charge, waiting for the DNS records to update, then updating all the pages on this site, plus its SQL database, my hosting contract, and the WordPress admin settings — which was like pulling teeth to get any help tracking down all the things that got broken. Again, it’s a simple global string change. Or at least in theory.

But now here I am, having achieved my stated goal of swapping three letters of the alphabet for a pile of cold, hard cash during a global recession. Sigh…

As for the new owner of scenario.com, check ’em out! They have a pretty cool business, producing AI-generated game assets. And I’m so glad they weren’t a porn site, given that their identity was kept anonymous until their site appeared at my old URL. I wish them all the best.