Hi y’all. A month ago on the dot I stepped away from No Escape on an indeterminate basis. My reasons were personal, but they amounted to an uncertainty for the future stemming primarily from my living situation, but significantly-if-secondarily, just from the general unease I feel about… everything. I am relieved to say that at least for the next two years, I don’t have to worry about the first problem. And the hope is, by the time it comes back up, I’ll have a much better solution lined up for it.
The second problem is… unsolvable, at least on an individual basis. I can’t unfuck the economy or reverse the blood tide of a fascist movement taking over every seat of power they can get their mitts on. Not by myself, and absolutely not by retreating into silence. I think I’m ready to fully come back, but No Escape is going to have to be different than it currently is. Some of the changes are positive and will result in this site lasting longer. Other changes are decidedly less positive, but necessary to make until such time as I can unmake them to my satisfaction.
Let’s start with the first big change: As of today, all content over on the No Escape itch page is free/pay-what-you-want. If you didn’t pick up issues one, two or three of the magazine because of the cost, now you can simply download them. this will be a permanent change. In that vein, I will also say this: the “magazine” – the constructed, designed PDFs that I spent six full months making last year – is dead. In its place will hopefully be a more dynamic “magazine” in the form of this website breaking out of its confines and covering more interesting digital culture-flavored shit over the next year.
On a positive note, No Escape will be branching out somewhat into new areas, both in terms of written content and multimedia content. My hope is to add more interviews and reported pieces to the stuff that goes out on the feed. Additionally, throughout the spring and summer we’ll be playing with streaming gameplay to Twitch and possibly building that up as a new platform to leap from.
This leads to the next big change. It’s a change that genuinely sucks, but one I have to make to simply ensure that nobody is unclear about the situation. I cannot accept pitches from this moment forward and for the foreseeable future. This includes from returning contributors or even the very nice people who have offered to write for No Escape on a volunteer basis. Financially and with regard to my own energy levels and mental health, I simply do not have the ability to support contributors at this time. The hope is that the economy gets better, the Patreon grows, or some of my debts get knocked down – or some combination of the three – and I can go back to supporting contributors. But until then, No Escape is going to be a solo operation once again.
On my break I realized that I loved doing this – not this, in terms of writing posts like this, but “this” in terms of the site, criticism, writing about cool shit in general – and it would take literally dying for me to stop doing this voluntarily. But in my desire to see cool shit get out there I pushed myself too quickly to be something I can’t currently sustain. I want to thank all of the contributors to No Escape over the past couple of years for making some excellent criticism. Hopefully we’ll be able to get back to it after not too long.
So: what’s on No Escape’s plate after this?
Well, that all depends on how the rest of the spring shakes out. Year of Games will probably make its return in some form next weekend, as I maybe hopefully finish a game or two (or three). I’ll be returning to the world of Destiny-posting in a little over a month as I write about my experiences playing Destiny 2 “as intended” for the better part of March, April and May; it’ll be kind of a follow-up to the post I wrote for Eurogamer about the game’s Lightfall launch. I’ll be writing about Final Fantasy and Dark Souls and how I’m smacking them together like action figures hopefully in some capacity soon. Some big games are coming out; I don’t know how likely it’ll be that I’ll be at the front of the line playing them, but we’ll see. Oh, and E3 died, so I’ll be getting ready to cover Geoff Keighley’s Summer Feighleys yet again towards the end of May/beginning of June. Interspersed throughout all of this, I’ll of course be Posting, Chosting, Tweeting and Tooting at various social media platforms and at varying degrees of hingedness.
Thank you for the support over last three years.