On the 19th of June 2015, I published my inaugural Blog Post. Until I checked, I honestly hadn’t realised how long ago I started my little site. Reading through a few of my older posts has stirred some deep emotions inside my ever-swirling thought cabbage. I have been struggling to engage with the site now as both my parents are having serious health issues, so this combined with other aspects of life, has been absorbing my spare time. This blog post is me just sticking my head above the surface to say I'm alive and the embers of life are still glowing.
When you flip the switch and your site is born, you are the only person who knows you exist and it is very easy to stay that way. I left Facebook years ago, so the only social media platform I have used to promote myself is Twitter. That was going well until a billionaire man-baby got his mitts on it and it is now unclear if Twitter even has a future. Watching on as he inflicted his petulant tantrums on the Twitter infrastructure (and identity), Elon Musk has done immeasurable damage to social relationships in the games industry. However, that’s a whole other topic for another time.
So in eight years of writing reviews, what have I learned? Well, for one thing, the written word is still not top of the pops; but I knew that before I started. I do know there are people who like nothing more than to sit back and get absorbed into a well-written review. Those folks have been my bread and butter, but they also seem to be a dying breed.
Once I get people on my site they seem to like what they find, the clean template and a rather quirky review wall have received the most praise. However, in the age of shortening attention spans and drive-by reviews, I’m finding it increasingly hard to get a slice of people's already saturated attention. Another aspect I like about my site is there are no adverts hijacking your hypothalamus and stopping you from seeing the content you came for. I’ve had many advertisement agents offering lucrative partnerships, but then my site would look just like PC Gamer.
When I started there was this whole catalogue of games I wanted to review and most were historic. Games like the Bioshock, Half-life and XCOM were all in my sights and I cannot express fully how fun it has been to write about them. As I progressed through my list, I started moving on to more current games and even started sending the odd email to publishers. For a time, I was making great strides and building up some good contacts. Attending Gamescom as an independent member of the press was a real highlight. I even had Activision send me the ultimate version of the latest COD through the post. However, for reasons I do not fully understand, when Covid hit everything changed. All of my time was funnelled into home learning and Rigged effectively shut down. As the world went dark many people's lives were being irrevocably changed.
I will say this to anyone who is thinking about starting a game review site: getting hold of publishers and developers is a soul-destroying process. Most don't respond and those that do often tell you, in a nice way, you are not worth the bother. This access is something that the bigger review sites covet because it is what separates them from the rest of us (as Dan Stapleton once told me in no uncertain terms). Once you are a member of the club, life gets a lot easier as a reviewer. In a way, you are also treading a symbiotic line between PR and hype-fluffer-in-chief. Breaking through that barrier, for many reviewers, will be the deciding factor in how (or indeed if) you move forward.
So this may sound like a goodbye post but I am very happy to say it’s not. All the domain names have been paid and I’ve settled another year with Square Space. However, I have decided to divert some of my time into YouTube and finally start making some video content. I am considering a new name for the YouTube side of things as my idea for the channel is a little bit radical. Video content is also more agile (in theory) and maybe I can even make some reaction videos to industry news. In between current reviews, I can also start looking at doing historic video reviews for games that people may have missed. There is still a ridiculous number of people who haven't played Subnautica and that my friends needs to change.
In a year that has been so rich in game releases, it has, unfortunately, also been a terrible year for PC ports. For a good few months, it seemed like there was some sort of conspiracy against PC gaming with titles like The Last of Us Part 1 and Jedi Survivor landing in a properly shocking state. What was even more unnerving was that the former was coming from a studio like Naughty Dog, who really should know better. Thankfully, as we entered the second half of the year things seemed to calm down, leaving PC gaming to lick its wounds and get ready for the next bout of releases. I do hope that developers and publishers have learned something this year and moving forward treat PC gamers as more than an afterthought. It is encouraging that the news of a PC port of Horizon Forbidden West came with the confirmation that Nixxes will be handling the game. I loved this game on PS5 and cannot wait to review it for PC.
To finish off I'd just like to say what a genuine pleasure it has been to see Baldur's Gate 3 do so well this year. Not only is it one of the best games I have ever played, but all the circumstances around the launch are so inspiring. The people who made this game are disarmingly humble and in being so honourable, they emphasise how greedy other parts of the industry are. It will be no surprise that it took my game of the year, like so many other sites. So with that let me wish you all a wonderful holiday and a very happy new year.