TouchArcade is Shutting Down – TouchArcade Leave a comment

It is a put up that I’ve recognized was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to write down. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade will likely be closing its doorways and shutting down operations. There could also be a further put up right here or there within the coming weeks as we attempt to honor any beforehand agreed to obligations, and a correct farewell put up is within the works too, however as of now our regular every day operations have ceased. The explanation we’re shutting down in all probability isn’t a stunning one: Cash.

Lots of you who’ve adopted TouchArcade for a very long time are properly conscious that we’ve had monetary troubles for a few years now, and to be frank I feel it’s a miracle that we’ve been in a position to final so long as we’ve got. The reality of the matter is {that a} web site like ours simply doesn’t generate income 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 kinds of issues that truly nonetheless generate income within the web of at present.

There are a selection of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d relatively 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 certainly one of my kids, and having to say goodbye to it is rather tough to do. I’d actually relatively give attention to all the nice instances we had than dwell on the issues which we can not 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 tip 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 will not be nice wherever, and discovering new work is hard, particularly within the video games business. In case you are studying this and you’ve got a necessity for very succesful sport business veterans reminiscent of 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 increase right here at TouchArcade. Writing, modifying, managing employees, touring to conventions. I’ve just about completed all of it. I even have a fairly diversified work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I feel offers me a extremely 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 palms down one of the crucial gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we would have liked a assessment for an enormous, essential sport and wanted it by a really tight deadline Shaun was at all times reliable. He additionally makes use of his huge, virtually uncanny information of online game historical past to seek out attention-grabbing angles to write down about video games that solely he may discover. Shaun lives in Japan and is fluent in each Japanese and English, making him an excellent candidate for localization work as properly. 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 employees. Posting the majority of what you’d see on a each day foundation, there isn’t any doable method our web site may have stored operating 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 trend, but additionally in a position to put collectively enormous options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform critiques. His coffee-laden header pictures are legendary as properly. For those who want somebody who can reliably and constantly put up video game-related content material, then I can not advocate Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at whats up [at] failgunner [dot] com.

So What Occurs Now?

If there may be some form of silver lining to all of this, it’s that for the foreseeable future all the content material that has ever been posted to TouchArcade will stay on-line and accessible to all. Greater than 33,000 printed articles, together with greater than 4,000 sport critiques, to not point out all of our yearly Greatest Of content material and Recreation of the 12 months picks. These ought to hopefully all proceed dwelling on into the long run for reference functions and simply to look again and see how drastically the cell gaming panorama modified over the past decade and a half.

We’re additionally hoping to proceed with our Podcast, The TouchArcade Present, which very lately simply celebrated its 600th(!) episode. There are a pair co-hosts who’ve come and gone in the course of the course of the podcast (shout out to Model and Mike!) however myself and Eli Hodapp have been a relentless presence on the present because the 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, you could 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 protecting the podcast going, and maybe occasional posts or particular options written by the employees right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a assessment a few notably high-profile cell sport launch. Perhaps we may even squeeze in a Recreation of the 12 months for this yr? It’s only a nugget of an thought proper now, however it will be fairly cool to see TouchArcade be capable to stay on even in that small method.

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 individuals select to cease contributing then that’s completely comprehensible. If persons 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 when you have any questions or considerations, please be happy to succeed in out to me at suggestions [at] toucharcade [dot] com or go away a remark beneath.

Properly, that about does it, I feel. I converse for all of us who’ve contributed to operating 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 web site, listening to our podcast, or attending certainly one of our occasions. It has been an absolute pleasure to have such an exquisite viewers who appreciated what we did a lot and we’ll all perpetually be glad about the time that we have been in a position to spend collectively.