Goodbye, From All of Me to All of You
By now, you’ve probably all heard the news that 61FPS is no more. If not, I’m sorry you had to hear it from me–I’m no good with these kinds of things. But for now, we have to move on and face facts: this blog is yet another Internet casualty.
When I first started writing for 61FPS back in August of 2008, I had no idea how I was going to post twice a day and manage to keep up with the rest of my writing/schooling/living duties. Then I discovered the solution to this problem: rip off news relentlessly from Kotaku. Of course, I kid–I did most of my ripping off from Joystiq. But, given the small audience and limited powers of 61FPS, we were never about up-to-the-minute news, hard-hitting exclusives, or the black, soul-destroying magic that somehow makes websites profitable. 61FPS was just a bunch of crazy kids who really loved video games, and I’m sincerely going to miss being a part of it.
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Tags: 61fps, bob mackey, games journalism, goodbye
GameSpite Quarterly: Keeping Print on Life Support
Print’s had a rough couple of years–at least the [games journalism/enthusiast press/whatever the hell you want to call it] side of print. Since EGM capsized in January, there hasn’t been much light at the end of the tunnel, especially for folks who grew up with gaming magazines and planned on writing about video games for a living one day. Even on the online side of things, positions are drying up, wages are going down, and soon bloggers like me will have no choice but to be paid with promotional DVDs and key chains. And until grocery stores start taking such items in exchange for food products, giving up on the games writing gig is starting to sound more and more sensible.
But if there is hope, it lies with GameSpite Quarterly.
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Tags: bob mackey, game boy, games journalism, GameSpite, gamespite quarterly, journalism, magazine, nintendo, retro
Bitmob Is Go
The 1UP/Ziff-Davis/EGM/UGO debacle of January made all of us just a little more depressed during those grey winter months; but mere days after the implosion, we saw a few good projects emerge from the rubble, like Rebel FM and CO-OP. But amidst all of the new activity, some notable games journalism figures were missing; namely, Dan Hsu and Crispin Boyer, two EGM veterans who left the magazine shortly before it folded (and I’m not implying foul play here). Don’t think the two were off vacationing in Hawaii or anything; they were actually hard at work on their new site, Bitmob, which launched on Tuesday.
There’s not a lot of content there right now, but one look at their stable of writers (almost entirely made up of EGM/1UP alumni) tells me that Bitmob has some serious potential.
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Tags: 1up, bitmob, bob mackey, dan hsu, egm, games journalism, ugo
Talking about Talking About Games
Lots of interesting scuttlebutt is going around the digitubes about gaming commentary and where its place is now and going forward. This is a little bit inside baseball, but if you’re reading about games now (and there’s a 100% chance you are) this is the sort of stuff you’d want to know about.
- Jeremy Parish has decided to turn his personal online magazine GameSpite into a quarterly print magazine, with articles appearing on the website following the dead trees publication. This is not the triumphant return of print magazines, but that’s not what makes it interesting. What makes it interesting is that this is a targeted, passionate effort that is already being deeply appreciated by the select few that miss books like EGM not just for its content, but the feel of its pages between their fingers. It’s an announcement that dovetails nicely with this article at the Times on the print offering of supernerd webcomic XKCD. It states that the future of the printed page is that of an artifact, prized for its permanence but still prized. Note to self: buy Mylar bags for first year issues of Next Generation.
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Tags: 1Up.com, GameBizBlog, games journalism, GameSpite, inside baseball, joe keiser, next generation
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
