It is a submit that I’ve identified was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to jot down. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade will likely 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 stunning 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 feel 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 become profitable 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 become profitable within the web of at this time.
There are a selection of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d somewhat 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 strong third of my life. In some ways it’s like one in every of my youngsters, and having to say goodbye to it is extremely tough to do. I’d actually somewhat give attention to all the good occasions we had than dwell on the issues which we can’t change.
Additionally, as a person with a spouse and two younger youngsters, 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 isn’t nice anyplace, and discovering new work is hard, particularly within the video games trade. In case you are studying this and you’ve got a necessity for very succesful recreation trade veterans comparable 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, modifying, managing employees, touring to conventions. I’ve just about executed all of it. I even have a reasonably assorted work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I feel provides me a extremely well-rounded set of abilities. 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 fingers down one of the vital gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a evaluate 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 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 amazing 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 employees. Posting the majority of what you’ll see on a everyday foundation, there isn’t a potential approach our web site may have stored working for thus lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An knowledgeable at sniffing out fascinating information tales after which posting them in a well timed style, but in addition capable of put collectively big options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform evaluations. His coffee-laden header photographs are legendary as effectively. Should you want somebody who can reliably and persistently submit 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’s some type 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 Sport of the Yr picks. These ought to hopefully all proceed residing on into the longer term for reference functions and simply to look again and see how drastically the cellular gaming panorama modified during the last decade and a half.
We’re additionally hoping to proceed with our Podcast, The TouchArcade Present, which very just lately 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 (practically) weekly foundation.
Associated to that, it’s possible you’ll be questioning about our Patreon. The assist 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 employees right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a evaluate a couple of notably high-profile cellular recreation 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 might be fairly cool to see TouchArcade have the ability to reside 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 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 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 observe alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally if in case you have 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 under.
Nicely, that about does it, I feel. 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 in every of 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 endlessly be thankful for the time that we have been capable of spend collectively.
