It is a publish that I’ve identified was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to write down. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade shall be closing its doorways and shutting down operations. There could also be an extra publish right here or there within the coming weeks as we attempt to honor any beforehand agreed to obligations, and a correct farewell publish is within the works too, however as of now our regular every day operations have ceased. The rationale we’re shutting down in all probability isn’t a shocking one: Cash.
A lot of you who’ve adopted TouchArcade for a very long time are effectively conscious that we’ve had monetary troubles for a few years now, and to be frank I believe it’s a miracle that we’ve been capable of final so long as we’ve got. The reality of the matter is {that a} web site like ours simply doesn’t earn a living anymore. To our personal detriment we’ve resisted issues like obnoxious in-your-face promoting, egregious clickbait headlines, or ethically questionable sponsorships, which sadly are the forms of issues that really nonetheless earn a living within the web of at the moment.
There are a selection of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d moderately not get into all that proper now. TouchArcade was an establishment for a lot of tens of millions of individuals over the previous 16 years, and it was my full-time job for the final 14+ years. A stable third of my life. In some ways it’s like considered one of my kids, and having to say goodbye to it is extremely troublesome to do. I’d actually moderately concentrate on all the nice occasions we had than dwell on the issues which we can’t change.
Additionally, as a person with a spouse and two younger kids, and a mortgage, and all that different enjoyable grownup stuff, that is the top of my livelihood, and regardless of them being “freelancers” in a technical sense that’s true for the opposite two individuals who have been the beating coronary heart of TouchArcade, Shaun Musgrave and Mikhail Madnani. Which brings me to my subsequent level…
PLEASE HIRE US!
The job market is just not nice wherever, and discovering new work is hard, particularly within the video games trade. If you’re studying this and you’ve got a necessity for very succesful recreation trade veterans similar to ourselves, please attain out.
Jared Nelson – That’s me! Clearly I’ve greater than 14 years of expertise working proper within the very thick of the cell gaming growth right here at TouchArcade. Writing, enhancing, managing workers, touring to conventions. I’ve just about accomplished all of it. I even have a fairly diversified work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe provides me a very well-rounded set of abilities. You’ll be able to contact me on LinkedIn or by e mail at jared [at] toucharcade [dot] com.
Shaun Musgrave – Shaun has been with TouchArcade for a bit over 11 years, however has been in skilled video games media for greater than 25 years total. He’s fingers down one of the gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a evaluation for an enormous, necessary recreation and wanted it by a really tight deadline Shaun was at all times reliable. He additionally makes use of his huge, virtually uncanny data of online game historical past to seek out attention-grabbing angles to write down about video games that solely he might discover. Shaun lives in Japan and is fluent in each Japanese and English, making him an important candidate for localization work as effectively. Please attain out to him at muzkind [at] hotmail [dot] com.
Mikhail Madnani – As a part of TouchArcade for greater than 7 years, Mikhail has been the workhorse of our workers. Posting the majority of what you’d see on a each day foundation, there isn’t any attainable approach our web site might have stored working for thus lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An professional at sniffing out attention-grabbing information tales after which posting them in a well timed vogue, but additionally capable of put collectively enormous options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform evaluations. His coffee-laden header photos are legendary as effectively. For those who want somebody who can reliably and constantly publish video game-related content material, then I can’t advocate Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at good day [at] failgunner [dot] com.
So What Occurs Now?
If there may be some kind of silver lining to all of this, it’s that for the foreseeable future the entire content material that has ever been posted to TouchArcade will stay on-line and accessible to all. Greater than 33,000 revealed articles, together with greater than 4,000 recreation evaluations, to not point out all of our yearly Finest Of content material and Recreation of the Yr picks. These ought to hopefully all proceed dwelling on into the longer term for reference functions and simply to look again and see how drastically the cell gaming panorama modified during the last decade and a half.
We’re additionally hoping to proceed with our Podcast, The TouchArcade Present, which very not too long ago simply celebrated its 600th(!) episode. There are a pair co-hosts who’ve come and gone throughout the course of the podcast (shout out to Model and Mike!) however myself and Eli Hodapp have been a relentless presence on the present for the reason that very starting, and it’s actually loopy that we’ve each spent 13+ years of our lives placing out hour-long podcasts on a (practically) weekly foundation.
Associated to that, chances are you’ll be questioning about our Patreon. The assist from our Patreon has far and away been the largest contributor to TouchArcade persevering with to exist since we launched it in June of 2015, virtually a decade in the past. Our ideas are to pivot the Patreon contributions in direction of retaining the podcast going, and maybe occasional posts or particular options written by the workers right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a evaluation a couple of notably high-profile cell recreation launch. Possibly we might even squeeze in a Recreation of the Yr for this 12 months? It’s only a nugget of an thought proper now, however it could be fairly cool to see TouchArcade have the ability to stay on even in that small approach.
Regardless of the case finally ends up being, I’ll explicitly change the verbiage of our Patreon to state that it’s not about supporting the web site, and if folks select to cease contributing then that’s completely comprehensible. If individuals are giving us cash month-to-month I need to be completely clear about what it’s going in direction of. Anyway, search for extra information about this within the coming weeks, and on the very least make sure you observe alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally you probably have any questions or considerations, please be happy to achieve out to me at suggestions [at] toucharcade [dot] com or go away a remark under.
Properly, that about does it, I believe. I converse for all of us who’ve contributed to working TouchArcade over the previous 16 years–from the co-founders Arnold Kim and Blake Patterson, to the primary full-time rent and future Editor in Chief Eli Hodapp, and to the handfuls of different writers and freelancers who’ve helped make TouchArcade what it’s–we simply need to give a honest thanks for ever studying our website, listening to our podcast, or attending considered one of our occasions. It has been an absolute pleasure to have such a beautiful viewers who appreciated what we did a lot and we are going to all perpetually be thankful for the time that we had been capable of spend collectively.