Blood, sweat and buckets of coffee.

Landslide

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Sure, we make it look easy.

I can't tell you how often we've had visitors to the office who, after meeting the modestly-sized magazine team, wonder how the heck we manage to produce a few dozen pages of content every week. Piece o' cake. By cake I mean triathalon. Yes, piece o' triathalon (this is why I'm not on the writing staff)...

What I'm trying to say is that it's a difficult process each week. All rewarding accomplishments are challenging by nature, so I'm happy to say The Escapist falls into this category. Challenging (like a triathalon!). It's not uncommon for some of us to show up at the office from anywhere between 7:30am and 10:00am, but then we'll trickle out starting around 7:30pm - some even wrap up at 10:00pm or later. In this industry 10 hour days aren't uncommon at all, and we're no exception. Personally, the longest 'day' I worked straight was about 18 hours (Even longer at E3). Everyone here consistently runs at 200%. It's exhilarating, exhausting and extremely satisfying.

Why/How do we do it?

How does anyone accomplish anything difficult? Two ways, really. They hate it, but realize it's gotta get done and push through anyway, hoping somewhere down the line it's worth it or proves something poignant. Or they love it, and the rest doesn't matter. I love what I do. I never get up in the morning and loathe the idea of heading into the office. I believe what we do really matters (And the feedback we get seems to agree). I think the topics we discuss here are the important ones that people are thinking about right now. I think some of the people who read this magazine are the same ones who will be driving gaming (and everything games touch) in the future. I think if I can have some small part of that, some ability to inform or inspire some of the decisions made for our gaming future then - Hell - even deal man.

So here's your job: Take what you can from this place, and go make a difference.
 

Landslide

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Original Comment by: Zeke

Hey guys -- I like the idea of a glossy internet mag on gaming, and you have come up with some interesting ideas to discuss. I've noticed that most issue themes revolve around sort of existential questions, like "can women be respected as gamers?" or "is [pick aspect of MMOG] like the same thing in real life?" or "what is the problem with modern game devs that keeps them from innovating truly new games?" I wonder, though, if these sorts of questions will give way at some point to less self-conscious themes. To illustrate, imagine a themed football mag at the beginning of that sport. The first couple issues might be "what is this crazy new sport with a pigskin and why is this craze sweeping our nation's youth" but have long ago given way to "what about dem Coyboys?" Not that you'll run out of more intellectual themes, but I would think that gaming is well enough established at this point that you could have a couple regular columns that track a single issue (for instance, following competitive gaming) without re-examining the very existence of gaming with each article of every new issue.
 

Landslide

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Original Comment by: Mark

You work hard? Well, rest assured: it's appreciated.

P.S. It'd be appreciated slightly more if the authorization codes were a bit more legible.... I had to refresh the page to get a new that would accept my code. "What?" I said. "What do you mean it's not B01K2R?"
 

Landslide

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Original Comment by: Dustin Hubbard
http://www.spookytornado.com
You guys amaze me with the content you able to create in just a week. I look forward to reading each and every issue as each article I can take something meaningful away with instead of the worthless dribble in say EGM and other similar magazines. Really only Play and Games TM are worthwhile when I think about it. Have I just gotten older or has EGM just really gone down the toilet in the past 5 years?
 

Landslide

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Original Comment by: TechDock
http://www.techdock.net
Agreed, you guys do a terrific job putting together an excellent publication. What I can't believe is you produce something of this quality every week! After finding your publication, I went back and got every issue from the first, and enjoy every one. Very refreshing to read something about the culture of gaming, as opposed to just game reviews and advertisements. And I agree with the comment above, the timing is perfect as the print magazines I read seem to be declining in quality. Keep up the good work, guys!
 

Landslide

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Original Comment by: Ortwin Regel
http://gamefreaks365.com
Don't you have any good print mags in America? We have got a whole two of them in Germany and that's not even counting the crappy translated version of EDGE...
I absolutely love the Escapist. I've read every page, you guys are doing some awesome work! :)
 

Landslide

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My perception is that the majority of North American gaming magazines (print) have worked themselves into a pretty stagnant corner. That's not to say they aren't entertaining and fun to read, but they're all nearly identical in style and content. I'm the last person who should call anything immature, but really that's the problem. We lack mature gaming editorial here. Until now of course (hopefully).

As for print - well there are several obstacles there, but nothing I would classify as insurmountable, and trust me when I say the thought has crossed our minds. I will say we enjoy trying our best to do things right the first time, so the road to print - if travelled - will not be rushed.