No Time To Play

Two gaming publications have just announced that they’re closing down. That in itself is no big deal, except perhaps for the timing. What is interesting is the different ways it was handled.

On the one hand we have the GamePro magazine issuing a press release a mere week in advance (which promptly drew the ire of Internet archivist Jason Scott). On the other hand, we have GameSetWatch explaining their reasons in a very personal manner, and explicitly promising to keep the website online.

Their respective reasons for closing down are interesting to compare as well. See, nowadays there is so much of everything that “why am I doing this?” may well be the single most important question to keep in mind. GamePro was apparently doing it for the money. Not that GameSetWatch didn’t need money! I’m paying to keep my websites up, you know. Everyone does. But there’s a difference between needing money as means to an end, and wanting it as your goal. Take the latter path, and I assure you that everything else will be secondary.

What’s wrong with that, you’re going to ask. Well, even if you are one of the few people who is genuinely motivated by money (and those are a rare breed indeed), how long is your resolve going to last when riches fail to materialize month after month?

I’ve abandoned more than one project myself. An experimental wiki engine ended up powering a handful of websites, simply because it’s still available, and hackable, and I’m still around to answer questions. An unfinished game turned into a series of tutorials, and the assets ended up on OpenGameArt. And you know what? I don’t regret it for a moment. I’ve had fun, built up a little reputation, and learned things that are bound to serve me well sooner or later. As for money, I’m making enough from web development. But money comes and goes. Other accomplishments stay.

(Illustration: Circuit City by Ed Yourdon; CC-BY-SA)

How (not) to close down by Felix Pleșoianu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.