Mr. Harris,
On behalf of gamers both casual and hardcore, lovers of print media, and aspiring game journalists everywhere I thank you for repurchasing the rights to EGM and for your plan to re-open the magazine.
For almost as long as I have been alive, and definitely as long as I have been a gamer there has been a monthly issue of EGM to help fill me in on the gaming industry. Before I had an income to spend on games, and long before there was an internet to keep me up to date on everything I could want to know, there was a certain comfort in knowing that all I had to do was stop by the nearest corner store and Electronic Gaming Monthly was there to sate my hunger for news about a world that I dearly love.
Living in Nova Scotia, Canada presents certain problems in chasing the dream of becoming a games journalist. My location is so removed from anything (both in terms of location in the country as well as the country itself) that it seemed almost impossible to ever become a proper writer in the field I want. EGM was always a beacon to keep working for it. “If my writing can evolve enough I might be able to see my name in EGM someday,” I often thought to myself. Your magazine was always the end goal for me.
Sure, in today’s age we have the internet and being a blogger is another path to follow, but there is a distinct difference between a magazine and the internet. I could write for a Joystiq or a Kotaku, and while blogs like those are a fantastic source for up-to-the-minute news they lack tangibility. I can’t pick up a monthly edition of Joystiq and flip through the pages while sitting on my couch or casually scrutinize a column in Kotaku just before I fall asleep.
When Ziff Davis closed down EGM back in January it suddenly seemed like the dream had come to an end. Here was another casualty of the information age, never to be seen again. It didn’t come as a surprise, really. Accounts from former Ziff Davis staff say that they saw the end coming a mile away, and I’m sure the fans saw it coming too. When we saw Ziff offering subscriptions at $12 a year we knew it wasn’t going to last, but there was always a hope that EGM would find a way to pull through.
During the period between the closing of EGM and the announcement that you had purchasing the rights and were planning to relaunch the magazine I had to look at my options, few as they were. I could give up on trying to break in to the field I had been aiming towards for years, I could start trying to land a position on one of the blogs, or I could start writing on my own blog.
They say we are our own harshest critics, and the truth of that is why I write on my own blog for the time being. I still don’t think my writing is good enough, so I publish as much as I can to make sure it keeps evolving. But the flame was starting to flicker after what I thought was the end of EGM. I still loved to write, but I suffered from a lack of focus. It felt like this dream I had been working toward for so many years had been snatched away, and I didn’t know what else to aim for. When I read the announcement that EGM was coming back I found the flame was burning strong again, and improving my writing had once again become my top priority.
It isn’t even just because it’s a magazine, or even the magazine. It’s the idea of EGM that keeps me writing. EGM isn’t just a monthly publication about video games to me, it’s home to some of the most talented writers in the industry. It’s the White House of games journalism, the end goal for all of us who love games enough to want to dedicate our lives to writing about them. It’s a family that I want to someday be a part of.
Thank you, Mr. Harris. Thank you for taking back the magazine you started years ago to give it a second chance. It’s giving me back the thing I’ve been working toward for almost half my life.
- Erron Kelly
