Hey everyone.
It’s been a while. Some would say too long, while others may not have even noticed our absence. So what happened and—perhaps more pertinent to some—what the fuck is going on with the podcast? Well, sit down and let me take you on a journey.
Born From Humble Beginnings
I eagerly and hastily started Pixelrater some four or five years ago because I wanted to write about games and have an outlet where others could as well. Not too long after, I met some peeps that are now part of my family (my wife refers to them as my “pixels” or “pix” which I enjoy) and I brought them on board. I was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and eager to pump the site full of content. I wanted more and more readers and for the site to become known, not to the level of IGN (that’d be nice) but maybe to the point of Push Square or Nintendo Everything. The thing is, that’s a tall order with four people—all of whom are unpaid.
Burnout Baby
My desire to keep churning out content lead to the creation of the news segment that’s gone through various name changes like Rewind, Weekly Recap, Weekly Retro, etc. Somehow, I managed to crank out a fresh news article every week, with the exception of maybe two or three, for quite a few years. It got to the point where I felt dread due to a deadline I was putting on myself. It doesn’t help that I also decided to start the next Pixelrater phase which was……
Pump it in my Ear Holes
The podcast! Shortly after creating the site I expressed my interest in starting a podcast, and start one we did! LAN Party recorded its first episode that next day with horrible mics and Will literally baking cookies live during recording. Somehow we managed to make it up to episode 170 before our abrupt and unplanned hiatus over the past couple of months. In the cast I’m sure things seemed jovial and lighthearted, but behind the scenes Pixelrater and the pod were eating at me. It got to the point where it all started feeling like a job and I started resenting it. All of this lead up to a pivotal moment……
Going Dark
Like I said above, the pod suddenly stopped coming out as well as news and any form of content. Since then I’ve been able to step back and reflect on Pixelrater. I told the pixels and my wife that I was officially finally calling it quits. This happened once last year where I took another hiatus from writing but kept recording the cast, so everyone heard this before. This time was different though. This time everything stopped. In the past few months since pulling the e-brake I got laid off and quickly found a new job, Will moved out-of-state, and other adult shit happened. Life happened, to all of us.
In that time I also found one of my favorite video games ever—Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I redesigned my wife’s website, Little Paper Flowers, Will and his wife launched their own small business, Sarah Lou Too, and I’m working on opening up my own online storefront—more details on that soon. 😉
I kept chasing this dream of being big like IGN or being known like Greg Miller. I wanted to feel like I was somebody and I wanted Pixelrater to be known as something. I imposed artificial and meaningless weekly deadlines that offered no form of monetary gain since we don’t run ads on the site. I tried Patreon, but that flopped. So what’s the plan now? Is it all dead?
Coming into Focus
Nope. Throughout all of this I wanted to keep creating and keep writing. That’s what creators want to do—just keep creating. So here we are and here’s what’s going to change:
The site is going to be opinion based.
Our content is going to significantly drop news-related articles moving forward. You can find gaming news anywhere and I want us to write about shit that excites us, not PewDiePie latest fiasco.
Which means it may not always be about games.
I want to write about tech and maybe Omar wants to write about movies or comics. So you might start seeing us branching out into new areas.
The return of LAN Party is unknown.
While I can’t say for certain the podcast will make a return, it’s something we’re in discussions about. Ultimately I think we’d love to see it continue, but we have some kinks to work out.
I may set up an affiliate store to help offset the various fees that come with running this site.
Maintaining a website requires some investment such as hosting fees, plugin fees, podcast fees, etc. I think this would be a way our fans and friends could help support us by purchasing the things they normally would—games! That digital storefront I teased earlier will also offset costs.
So god damn it, Pixelrater lives on but in another form with a renewed focus on our opinions, what we think about games, or our thoughts on other geeky topics. I have a few articles queued up myself and am excited to share them with you.
For those of you who put up with me and/or cheered behind the site and myself: thank you! You’re the best and I love each and every one of you. Here’s to more pixel talk in the future!
❤️💚💙 😘
Tony (now @tonez0ne on twitter)
