It is a put up 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 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 day by day operations have ceased. The rationale 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 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 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 really nonetheless generate profits within the web of at the moment.
There are a variety of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d quite 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 every of my youngsters, and having to say goodbye to it is vitally troublesome to do. I’d actually quite concentrate on all the good instances we had than dwell on the issues which we can not 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 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 is just not nice anyplace, and discovering new work is hard, particularly within the video games business. If you’re studying this and you’ve got a necessity for very succesful recreation business 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 cell gaming increase right here at TouchArcade. Writing, modifying, managing workers, touring to conventions. I’ve just about finished 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 extremely well-rounded set of abilities. You possibly can 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 arms down one of the crucial gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a evaluation for a giant, vital recreation 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 attention-grabbing angles to jot down about video games that solely he might discover. Shaun lives in Japan and is fluent in each Japanese and English, making him a terrific 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 day after day foundation, there isn’t a potential means our web site might have stored working for thus lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An skilled at sniffing out attention-grabbing information tales after which posting them in a well timed vogue, but in addition capable of put collectively big options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform opinions. His coffee-laden header pictures are legendary as properly. Should you want somebody who can reliably and constantly put up video game-related content material, then I can not suggest Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at hi there [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 all the 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 opinions, to not point out all of our yearly Finest Of content material and Recreation of the 12 months picks. These ought to hopefully all proceed residing 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 throughout 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, it’s possible you’ll 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 the direction of maintaining 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 notably high-profile cell recreation launch. Possibly we might 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 will be fairly cool to see TouchArcade be capable to reside 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 individuals select to cease contributing then that’s completely comprehensible. If persons 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 if in case you have any questions or issues, please be at liberty to achieve out to me at ideas [at] toucharcade [dot] com or depart a remark beneath.
Effectively, that about does it, I believe. I communicate 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 every 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 thankful for the time that we have been capable of spend collectively.
