A New Year, A New Site

Published on by Josh Bray

0e682660-3aa1-4608-9205-68901c81d11c

I feel a sort of wel­come let­ter is in or­der. I would like to in­tro­duce you to a taste of the new blood. Call this our mis­sion state­ment, or our rea­son for start­ing on this endeavor.

As the events of the past year boiled over, we just could not take it any­more. We’ve seen out­lets that do not have their au­di­ences best in­ter­ests in mind pro­lif­er­at­ing. We’ve seen web­sites that pre­fer to lead users on a click-fest though crap in­stead of of­fer­ing any­thing sub­stan­tive. We’ve seen ide­ol­o­gy forced down the user’s throat in the guise of cri­tique and re­view. We’ve seen con­de­scend­ing at­ti­tudes com­ing from an “en­thu­si­ast” press that seems to only want to be en­thu­si­as­tic about dump­ing on your face when you ques­tion them. We’ve seen ob­jec­tiv­i­ty and stan­dards in the en­ter­tain­ment press be shat on by the peo­ple de­mand­ing our trust.

We’ve seen that it is as im­por­tant as ever to lead by ex­am­ple and show­case how things like gam­ing and tech­nol­o­gy are help­ing to bring the world to­geth­er.  We are here to build a plat­form that re­spects and en­gages its au­di­ence; a place that works to build up com­mu­ni­ty, not tear it down with di­vide and con­quer tac­tics in­tend­ed to in­cite read­er en­gage­ment through outrage.

2014 was a hel­lu­va year for gam­ing, tech­nol­o­gy, and is­sues re­lat­ing to the geek space we in­hab­it. We have a con­sumer re­volt that has been rag­ing for months — a con­sumer re­volt with no signs of stop­ping.  Next gen­er­a­tion con­soles are fi­nal­ly start­ing to of­fer a glimpse of why peo­ple should pur­chase them. PCs are work­ing up to a sort of crit­i­cal mass, where price, pow­er, and ease are com­ing to a point that more and more users want to ex­pe­ri­ence what the PC en­vi­ron­ment has to of­fer. The greater spread and speed of broad­band in­ter­net and ser­vices that use it have made ac­cess to books, TV, and movies eas­i­er than ever.

All of this is gath­er­ing into a per­fect storm of cre­ation, so to speak. It’s one thing to be fed up with how things are op­er­at­ing. It’s an­oth­er to do some­thing about it. This is our “some­thing.” We want to en­ter this new me­dia space with pas­sion and a promise — a promise to our­selves and a promise to you. There is a rea­son you sit here to­day read­ing our words across your screen.

We are so dis­ap­point­ed that pas­sion has seemed to es­cape the grasp of some of the sites that call them­selves en­thu­si­asts. We are sad­den that it is com­mon­place to stereo­type and in­sult wide swaths of a com­mu­ni­ty. We are pissed at need­ing ac­cess to the right echo cham­bers to even get ac­knowl­edged by most en­ter­tain­ment press outlets.

We are mad as hell, and we aim to lead by example.

So what does this mean? This means cov­er­ing things with in­tegri­ty and stan­dards. This means dis­clos­ing any­thing we feel may in­flu­ence cov­er­age. This means grace­ful­ly ac­cept­ing crit­i­cism and work­ing to be as fac­tu­al as pos­si­ble. We have cre­at­ed a Code of Ethics that we are proud to fol­low, and we are here to make the best damned con­tent we know how to make.

We want­ed to cre­ate a site that we would want to read and with con­tent we would want to watch. Because we are you, we are every­day peo­ple who hap­pened to get to­geth­er at the right time in me­dia history.

These are hum­ble be­gin­nings, though, as we are not the largest staffed site. Even though we are all vol­un­teer staffers at this time, a pay­check does not equate to qual­i­ty.  We love our nich­es, and we adore cov­er­ing them in any­way we can. That is what we are here to do to the best of our abilities.

We are work­ing on a small but re­spectable start. To give you a small pre­view of con­tent com­ing in the fu­ture. We are pri­mar­i­ly work­ing on games cov­er­age at first with PC and con­soles re­views, im­pres­sions, let’s plays, and ret­ro­spec­tives. We also have cov­er­age on tra­di­tion­al games com­ing as well, and I am very ex­cit­ed about that. We also will be look­ing into tech­nol­o­gy news and in­ter­est sto­ries.  After our launch, and as we grow, we are look­ing to add cov­er­age for comics, books, TV, and movies as well, since all of these have helped mold the peo­ple that we are today.

There is a say­ing that is a bit trite these days but fits so very well:

“There is no bet­ter time than present.”

Now is the time we show what new me­dia can do, and what com­mu­ni­ty means. You are not just a page view, unique click, or im­pres­sion for an ad ban­ner. You are the rea­son we are here, and you are the rea­son we will work to be the best damn site we can be.

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.
My Twitter profile

Josh Bray

Josh has worked in IT for over 15 years. Graduated Broadcasting school in 2012 with a fo­cus on A/V pro­duc­tion. Amateur pho­tog­ra­ph­er with a pas­sion to make things work… by any means nec­es­sary. Editor-in-Chief and do-er of tech things at SuperNerdLand
My Twitter profile

Latest posts by Josh Bray (see all)

Scroll to top