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 might 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 each 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 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 forms of issues that truly nonetheless generate profits within the web of right now.
There are a variety of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d slightly not get into all that proper now. TouchArcade was an establishment for a lot of hundreds of thousands 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 slightly give attention to all the nice occasions 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 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 recreation trade veterans akin 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 increase right here at TouchArcade. Writing, modifying, managing workers, touring to conventions. I’ve just about executed all of it. I even have a reasonably different work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe offers me a very well-rounded set of abilities. You may 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 probably the most gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we would have liked a assessment for a giant, vital recreation and wanted it by a really tight deadline Shaun was all the time reliable. He additionally makes use of his huge, nearly uncanny data 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’d see on a each day foundation, there isn’t a potential means our web site may have saved working for thus lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An skilled at sniffing out fascinating information tales after which posting them in a well timed style, 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. If you happen to want somebody who can reliably and constantly submit video game-related content material, then I can not suggest Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at whats up [at] failgunner [dot] com.
So What Occurs Now?
If there may be some type 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 recreation 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 longer term 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 Show, which very just 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, chances are you’ll be questioning about our Patreon. The help from our Patreon has far and away been the most important contributor to TouchArcade persevering with to exist since we launched it in June of 2015, nearly a decade in the past. Our ideas are to pivot the Patreon contributions in the 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 assessment a few significantly high-profile cell recreation launch. Perhaps we may even squeeze in a Recreation of the 12 months 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 of 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 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 you comply with alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally if in case you have any questions or issues, please be happy to succeed in out to me at ideas [at] toucharcade [dot] com or depart 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 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 are going to all without end be glad about the time that we had been capable of spend collectively.
