Unfortunately, this blog doesn’t get updated much any more – largely due to the amount of things happen involving me elsewhere on the Internet. (I still have a somewhat active Twitter account, btw, & it’s not shouty, if you want daily updates.)
But I wanted to draw attention to some of the things that happened in 2019 that I was involved with:
- Both of my main newsletters – the 2,000-subscriber Video Game Deep Cuts (top longform game stories/videos of the week!) & the already 1,100-subscriber Game Discoverability Now! (data & insights on how to get your video game noticed) are getting near-50% open rates and good feedback. [Niche newsletters are the way out of the mess of yelling on the rest of the Internet & everyone should make one!]
- My regular day job responsibilities at Informa seemed to tick on just fine, with both Black Hat & GDC having record attendance in 2019, woo. (I’m proud of the reach of the GDC YouTube channel, too, with nearly 300k subscribers & 32 million videos viewed – it’s a great free source of game dev education.) I was also primarily involved in the company I work for acquiring a really good Canadian information security event, SecTor – excited to keep working with the founders in 2020 & beyond.
- I’m still enjoying behind-the-scenes advising Mike Rose’s indie game publisher No More Robots, which has had a pretty successful 2019, with Descenders hitting Xbox Games Pass & Hypnospace Outlaw making it to a whole bunch of ‘end of year best’ lists – and damn, that Chowder Man Xmas video. More to come in 2020, and I’m especially excited for ‘Game Of Thrones meets Reigns’ kingdom simulator Yes, Your Grace, which is racking up a lot of Steam wishlists.
- My other major spare-time project, Prisoners Literature Project, which I run online operations/fundraising & financials for (as well as do some hands-on co-ordinating sending books to prisoners!) continues to go from strength to strength. It’s amusingly decentralized, but that’s most of the point of progressive organizations like it – and it’s ended up sending more than 12,000 packages and 35,000 free books to U.S. prisoners in 2019!
- Lots of other things happened, of course, but I’m also thankful for my wife & son for giving me a stable and happy family life, my co-workers & business partners for being considered and passionate about what they do, & a whole host of other people who let me express myself personally and in ‘unique’ ways.
Other goals for 2020? More of the same, I reckon. I really like the mix of passions I have in my life right now, so no reason not to keep working on them further. Thanks for supporting me through them!