1229: What’s Next

Those of you who have me on some form of social media will know this already, but I’ve started my new job. Excitingly, this is the first ever new job I’ve had that was accompanied by an official press release. Yes, really — check it out.

For those of you too lazy to check out that link I’ve so graciously provided for you, allow me to explain as much as I’m able to at present.

You may be familiar with the video games website Eurogamer, home of some fine commentary on games, the games industry and all manner of other things. Eurogamer is one of the few European (specifically, British) sites that has risen to prominence amid the dominance of primarily American publications such as Gamespot, IGN, Kotaku and Polygon. However, one thing Eurogamer lacked — as you might expect from the name — is a presence in the US.

Enter USgamer, a new site set to launch into beta next week, and a site on which I’m officially acting as News Editor, but in practice will be contributing a whole lot of lovely stuff to on a regular basis. USgamer will be more than just a reskin of Eurogamer — it’s going to be a great, very distinctive site, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see exactly how and why it’s great.

I’ve been preparing some content this week in preparation for the site’s launch, and I’ve been surprised how refreshing it’s been. After over a year of writing about mobile and social games — a good 80% of which were total bobbins — it’s an absolute pleasure to be able to get my teeth back into writing about the industry as a whole, and specifically to explore, criticise and wax lyrical on the parts I’m truly passionate about.

It pains me a little to admit, but there were times when I was ashamed to be associated with the mobile and social side of things. There are too many companies out there peddling products that are just flat-out sleazy in the ways they attempt to coerce their audience into paying exorbitant amounts of money for “consumable” digital goods; in the way they shamelessly clone other people’s work (or even, in some cases — *cough*Kabam*cough* — their own); or in their gross, misleading, often sexist or otherwise offensive advertising (Hai, Wartune!). I made a point of calling out these objectionable titles whenever possible, but I fear my criticisms may have fallen on deaf ears in most instances. So long as you keep pulling in the monthly and daily active users, it seems, it doesn’t matter if you steal a bit of artwork here, outright lie about your game there, charge £70 for in-app purchases everywhere.

The mainstream games industry isn’t free of sleaze and anti-consumer practices, of course, but at least it’s easier to avoid, whereas it’s fast becoming the norm in mobile and social, disappointingly. But I digress. My thoughts on social games and how they fail to cater to lifelong gamers have been well-documented.

No, the thing that is nicest about my new position at USgamer is the fact that I get to write about things I truly care about. I’m currently preparing a feature on the history of a particular game genre (find out what soon!), for example, and I’d forgotten quite how enjoyable it is to research and put together pieces like this. Gaming is a rich and diverse art form, and it’s exciting to look back on how far things have come since the inception of the medium. It’s also exciting to look forward to the future and imagine where we might be in a year or two — and it’s also exciting to explore the sheer breadth of content that’s available now. For every Call of Duty, there’s an Ar Tonelico, a Fez, a Dungeons of Dredmor, a Long Live the Queen, a Deadly Premonition… there’s certainly more to talk about than one person could ever manage in a lifetime, and new things happening all the time.

As you can probably tell, I’m very excited about this new position and about the site as a whole. I’m aware of the irony of me — an Englishman in, well, England — writing for a site called “USgamer”, but I’m extremely happy to be working with the team that’s in place, which includes some industry veterans as well as some old colleagues from my days on GamePro. It’s going to be a fantastic site once it’s up and running and available to the public, and I can’t wait to show it to you when it goes live.