This can be a submit that I’ve recognized was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to jot down. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade shall be closing its doorways and shutting down operations. There could also be an extra submit right here or there within the coming weeks as we attempt to honor any beforehand agreed to obligations, and a correct farewell submit 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.
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 believe it’s a miracle that we’ve been capable of final so long as now we have. The reality of the matter is {that a} web site like ours simply doesn’t earn cash 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 sorts of issues that truly nonetheless earn cash 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 in all my kids, and having to say goodbye to it is rather troublesome to do. I’d actually relatively deal with 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 shouldn’t be nice anyplace, 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 equivalent 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 cellular gaming growth right here at TouchArcade. Writing, enhancing, managing workers, touring to conventions. I’ve just about performed all of it. I even have a fairly diverse work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe provides me a extremely well-rounded set of expertise. You may contact me on LinkedIn or by electronic 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 arms down one of the crucial gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we would have liked a evaluation 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 search out fascinating angles to jot 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 workers. Posting the majority of what you’ll see on a each day foundation, there is no such thing as a potential means our web site may have stored operating for therefore lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An skilled at sniffing out fascinating 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 critiques. His coffee-laden header photographs are legendary as properly. For those who want somebody who can reliably and constantly submit video game-related content material, then I can’t suggest Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at good day [at] failgunner [dot] com.
So What Occurs Now?
If there’s some form 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 sport critiques, to not point out all of our yearly Greatest Of content material and Sport 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 cellular gaming panorama modified over the past 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 through 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 (almost) weekly foundation.
Associated to that, chances are 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 conserving the podcast going, and maybe occasional posts or particular options written by the workers right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a evaluation a few significantly high-profile cellular sport launch. Perhaps we may even squeeze in a Sport 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 be capable to stay on even in that small means.
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 individuals are giving us cash month-to-month I wish 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 make sure to observe alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally when you’ve got any questions or considerations, please be happy to achieve out to me at ideas [at] toucharcade [dot] com or depart a remark beneath.
Properly, that about does it, I believe. I communicate 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 wish to give a honest thanks for ever studying our website, listening to our podcast, or attending one in all our occasions. It has been an absolute pleasure to have such a beautiful viewers who appreciated what we did a lot and we’ll all perpetually be glad about the time that we have been capable of spend collectively.