This can be a put up that I’ve identified was coming for fairly a while, however that doesn’t make it any simpler to put in writing. After greater than 16 years TouchArcade will likely be closing its doorways and shutting down operations. There could also be an extra 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 each day operations have ceased. The explanation we’re shutting down most likely isn’t a stunning one: Cash.
A lot 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 in a position to final so long as we have now. The reality of the matter is {that a} web site like ours simply doesn’t generate income 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 kinds of issues that truly nonetheless generate income 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 relatively 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 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 troublesome to do. I’d actually relatively give attention to all the nice 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 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 sport trade veterans similar 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 performed all of it. I even have a fairly assorted work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe provides 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 general. He’s arms down one of the crucial gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a assessment for a giant, essential sport and wanted it by a really tight deadline Shaun was all the time reliable. He additionally makes use of his huge, virtually uncanny information of online game historical past to seek out attention-grabbing 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 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 employees. Posting the majority of what you’ll see on a day after day foundation, there isn’t a potential approach our web site may have saved operating 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 in a position to put collectively big options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform opinions. His coffee-laden header photos are legendary as properly. If you happen to want somebody who can reliably and persistently put up video game-related content material, then I can not suggest Mikhail extremely sufficient. Attain out to him at howdy [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 printed articles, together with greater than 4,000 sport opinions, 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 residing on into the long run 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 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, you might 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, 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 assessment a couple of notably high-profile cellular sport launch. Perhaps we may even squeeze in a Recreation of the 12 months for this yr? It’s only a nugget of an thought proper now, however it will be fairly cool to see TouchArcade be capable of dwell 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 individuals 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’ll want to comply with alongside as a free member on our Patreon to remain within the loop. Additionally you probably have any questions or issues, please be happy to succeed in out to me at ideas [at] toucharcade [dot] com or go away a remark under.
Nicely, 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 need 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 a beautiful viewers who appreciated what we did a lot and we are going to all endlessly be pleased about the time that we had been in a position to spend collectively.