Consoleation Status Report: Changes
As many of you have undoubtedly noticed, regular updates here at Consoleation have been on hold for a little while.
I have been carefully considering and reconsidering my future writing, and I feel that a lot of what I’ve been writing about over the last few months has been largely on the negative side. Indeed, I’ve had my reasons for being so angry as I personally don’t agree with a lot of business decisions and trends that I’ve seen… but I think that I need to change focus, at least for a little while.
I have decided to start sending feelers out for possible reviewing positions and to try and return to my writing roots. I think that writing about individual games and going to a review or impressions format keeps me on a good pace and away from repeating the same criticisms that I’ve had with regards to the industry for months now. I’ll also try to update here once or twice a week with impressions or reviews of games that I have been playing, in order to hone my skills and maintain a regular writing routine. I will be resuming NPD analysis and predictions next month, starting with an analysis of August’s NPD figures, which will likely be out during the second week of September. I think that my sales analysis pieces are more neutral than some of my other work, and stats show that you like reading these pieces… so I wish to continue doing them.
As an aside, I think that it’s important to establish the fact that I’ve always loved video games. I know that I’ve been harsh at times in recent months, but it’s because I’m passionate about console gaming. There are things that I’ve had a hard time accepting, and I think that I’ve become more than a little cynical… and that can make for biased and repetitive reading when I hit on the same topics more than a couple of times. I will admit that this console generation has really brought out the cynicism in me, but it’s not all fire and brimstone. There are games that I’ve really enjoyed, like Bioshock and Borderlands, and high-definition visuals really have become the norm. It was jarring for me to play Burnout 3: Takedown recently; an original Xbox game in standard definition really sticks out like a sore thumb. At the same time, Burnout 3 still excels where it’s the most important… the gameplay is still as sharp as ever and I can still easily play the game for hours now like I did six years ago.
I’m going to try and start over again. It’s been a difficult decision to make, but I think I’m not only making the correct move… but also an overdue move, at that. I’m still going to get my feathers ruffled at times, but my aim is to balance that with a better variety of topics and blog entry formats. That way, if I’m really fired up about something, it’s going to resonate more with you as readers than when I’m just writing angry all the time. There are so many things that I can write about… whether it’s lamenting the loss of a former independent game store, reminiscing about some early experiences with the PSX, or just picking random games and writing my two cents about them. I hope that you will continue to read and react to my work as you have been for over two years now. As I have always mentioned, the ultimate payoff for me when it comes to writing is knowing that someone out there is reading my work. That makes it all worthwhile.
I thank you all for reading Consoleation, whether you’re new visitors or have been following me for a while. Suggestions and feedback are always welcome; I think I’ve turned aside maybe two comments in two years. I also want to thank Mitch Dyer (freelance writer extraordinaire) for being a sounding board and also my Twitter friends for their feedback and input on this focus change. I’m looking forward to this fresh start, and I sincerely hope that you’ll follow along with me. I have a feeling that bigger and better things are on the writing horizon for me, and this is a big and important first step.
