HELLO and welcome to 2023. We’re choosing to be optimistic about how things will go this year, so to that end, let’s talk about the plan for the new year.
Magazine
No Escape Magazine was an unexpected success in 2022. Folks seemed to dig it, the feedback was positive, and a few of its features were even shouted out in Critical Distance’s year-end review. It was a daunting challenge to put together, but every time the end result was so worth it I can’t even fucking begin to tell you. I learned so much this year. I had such a good time working with the writers who helped make each issue possible. So what’s the plan in the new year?
Well, uh. It’s essentially “more of that.” Now that it’s been proven that a thing like No Escape Magazine *can* exist, the task is simply to help it *keep* existing. That’s really it.
This week we’ll have a special announcement, to that end. Also, if you haven’t picked the mags up, they’re on sale in a bundle now.
Website
Last year was kind of rough, posting-wise. The work on display from contributors like Alvin Meatman, Taylor Hicklen, Jess Haskins and Jeremy Signor was top-notch, and we wanna bring more folks on this year, but I feel like I kind of fell off in between doing freelancing, taking on large projects, producing the magazine, and my day job. I didn’t play a lot of video games in 2022, relative to previous years. So here’s a New Year’s resolution, of sorts: I’m going to try and play a game a week and write about it here. This is in addition to whatever big projects or freelancing gigs I pick up.
And I’m going to make a tradeoff: in order to realistically accomplish this goal (or at least come close) I’m swearing off big AAA live service games (again, aside from any related freelance gigs or projects I pick up). Sorry, Destiny 2. I want to play more phone games, especially. That being said, if I don’t or can’t do this for whatever reason, I’m not holding myself to it: we are practicing good work-life balance standards in 2023, motherfuckers.
Social Media…?
God, what even to say about this one. Okay, now that the vice grip that Twitter once held on us all has been loosened significantly, No Escape has a presence on various social media and newsletter websites. We are still on Twitter (for now)[1]pending any further developments in Elon Musk’s tomfuckery but, listen, nobody’s on there anymore. We’re on Mastodon, Kolektiva[2]an explicitly anarchist federated Masto/ActivityPub instance; I plan to be spicier there than elsewhere, but not, like, too spicy, Cohost, Tumblr, Substack, and Medium, I guess.
My “social media strategy” in 2023, if you will, is going to be to post less, and post better. Twitter was seductive in the sense that it really did make you feel like you need to get every waking thought onto the timeline. Not that people would magically care about your thoughts, just that they needed to be there at all. Hey! Hello! That isn’t the case! Especially as many of the social media we’ve moved to don’t rely on algorithms in quite the same ways as Twitter, part of this year is going to be learning how not to post, but when you do post, make it good.
Money Nonsense
I’ve saved the thing I hate talking about the most for last, especially because it feels like I’ve done nothing but talk about money for about six months, and (paradoxically) I don’t think I’ve actually explicitly talked about the state of things here.
Here’s the least surprising thing you’ve ever heard: doing a magazine and a website costs money. Even if I stopped doing all the things that I think make No Escape special, the site would still cost money to host. And ever since opening the Patreon a few years ago, I’ve maintained that my main goal is to “pay more people more money” to write about the things they love/hate/need to talk about. As it is, we’ve been slowly working towards that goal. But the addition of a magazine has – predictably – increased costs. What I didn’t expect at the outset of last year was how big that increase would be. If you’ve ever wondered why game and tech sites big and small all seem to be riddled with advertisements, here’s why: every little move we make towards expansion comes at a new cost. If we want to do more, be more, say more, reach more people, we have to pay more for it. It’s capitalism, right?
So about a month or so ago I started a GoFundMe to cover No Escape‘s operating costs. Thanks to the extremely, extremely generous donations of a few folks, we’re already past 25% of the goal. We’d like to get as close to 100% as we can by the beginning of February. If you can donate, thank you; if you can’t (and you are absolutely not obligated to – money is hell right now for so many folks), please consider sharing this on whatever socials and chat servers you’re still active on.
Otherwise, the normal avenues to support No Escape are still open. There’s Patreon (linked above), Ko-fi and Itch (link to the No Escape Magazine sale above too). We appreciate any help you’re able to provide. Hopefully we never have to talk about money again[3]this year lmao.
The Community(s)
If you want to hang out in a chill space, I have some good news: we have a Discord! Join it! Also, if you remember, we made a forum like eight months ago that we haven’t touched in seven months or so. Maybe we’ll be more active on there……… Otherwise, you can stay connected with what No Escape does by subscribing to our RSS feed! it’s https://noescapevg.com/rss! Copy and paste it into your favorite feedcatcher!
I’m excited and nervous for what’s going to happen in 2023. No matter what does happen, though, I believe we can make it through. Thank y’all for being here. See you soon; we have some wild Content™ ideas for this year.