This can be a submit 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 a further 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 explanation we’re shutting down most likely isn’t a stunning one: Cash.
Lots of you who’ve adopted TouchArcade for a very long time are nicely 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 earn a living 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 really nonetheless earn a living within the web of right this moment.
There are a selection of different causes which have contributed to us reaching this level, however I’d fairly 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 among my kids, and having to say goodbye to it is extremely tough to do. I’d actually fairly give attention to all the nice instances 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 isn’t 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 recreation business veterans resembling 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 employees, touring to conventions. I’ve just about finished all of it. I even have a reasonably diversified work historical past earlier to TouchArcade, together with in administration roles, that I believe provides me a extremely well-rounded set of expertise. You possibly can 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 general. He’s fingers down one of the crucial gifted writers I’ve ever encountered, and if we wanted a overview for a giant, essential recreation and wanted it by a really tight deadline Shaun was at all times reliable. He additionally makes use of his huge, virtually uncanny data of online game historical past to seek out fascinating 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 incredible candidate for localization work as nicely. 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’d see on a daily foundation, there is no such thing as a potential approach our web site may have saved working for therefore lengthy with out Mikhail’s contributions. An professional at sniffing out fascinating information tales after which posting them in a well timed style, but additionally capable of put collectively big options like in-depth interviews and multi-platform opinions. His coffee-laden header photos are legendary as nicely. 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 howdy [at] failgunner [dot] com.
So What Occurs Now?
If there may be some kind 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 recreation 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 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 Show, 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 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 (almost) 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 direction of preserving the podcast going, and maybe occasional posts or particular options written by the employees right here. Maybe a random “SwitchArcade” or a overview a couple of notably high-profile cellular recreation launch. Possibly we may even squeeze in a Recreation of the 12 months for this yr? It’s only a nugget of an concept proper now, however it might be fairly cool to see TouchArcade be capable of stay 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 wish to be completely clear about what it’s going in 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 when you have any questions or issues, please be at liberty to succeed in out to me at suggestions [at] toucharcade [dot] com or go away a remark beneath.
Nicely, 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 among 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 perpetually be thankful for the time that we have been capable of spend collectively.
