It is a publish that I’ve recognized was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to put in writing. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade might 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 day by day operations have ceased. The explanation we’re shutting down most likely isn’t a shocking one: Cash.
Lots of you who’ve adopted TouchArcade for a very long time are nicely 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. The reality of the matter is {that a} web site like ours simply doesn’t generate profits 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 varieties of issues that truly nonetheless generate profits within the web of as we speak.
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 one among my kids, and having to say goodbye to it is vitally tough to do. I’d actually relatively give attention to 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 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 shouldn’t be nice anyplace, 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 sport trade 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, enhancing, managing employees, touring to conventions. I’ve just about achieved all of it. I even have a fairly diversified work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe offers me a very well-rounded set of expertise. 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 general. He’s fingers down probably the most gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a evaluate for a giant, necessary 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 search out fascinating angles to put in writing about video games that solely he may discover. Shaun lives in Japan and is fluent in each Japanese and English, making him an ideal candidate for localization work as nicely. 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’ll see on a everyday foundation, there isn’t a attainable manner our web site may have stored working for therefore lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An professional at sniffing out fascinating information tales after which posting them in a well timed trend, but additionally capable of put collectively large options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform critiques. His coffee-laden header photographs are legendary as nicely. For those who want somebody who can reliably and persistently publish video game-related content material, then I can’t advocate Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at hiya [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 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 Finest Of content material and Recreation of the Yr 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 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 continuing 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 (almost) weekly foundation.
Associated to that, it’s possible you’ll be questioning about our Patreon. The help 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 the direction of holding the podcast going, and maybe occasional posts or particular options written by the employees right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a evaluate a couple of significantly high-profile cell sport launch. Perhaps we may even squeeze in a Recreation of the Yr for this yr? It’s only a nugget of an concept proper now, however it might be fairly cool to see TouchArcade be capable of stay on even in that small manner.
Regardless of the case finally ends up being, I’ll explicitly change the verbiage of our Patreon to state that it’s now not about supporting the web site, and if folks 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 the direction of. Anyway, search for extra information about this within the coming weeks, and on the very least you should definitely comply with alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally when you’ve got any questions or considerations, please be at liberty to succeed in out to me at ideas [at] toucharcade [dot] com or go away a remark beneath.
Nicely, 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 web site, listening to our podcast, or attending one among our occasions. It has been an absolute pleasure to have such an exquisite viewers who appreciated what we did a lot and we are going to all ceaselessly be glad about the time that we had been capable of spend collectively.
