Oh the times they are a changin’. Throw on some Dylan and crack open a bottle of something because things are about to get maudlin.
Back in 2009 eGamer started; borne out a passion for writing, gaming and that’s all we needed back then. I came into the picture a year later, having been an avid reader and long-time friend of original member, Azhar. This despite having a penchant for typos and blatant disregard for grammar. And they say it’s not about who you know. Pfft. Back then we were content to just write about games with the barest semblance of structure. Laissez-Faire doesn’t even begin to cover it.
As we grew so did our team and subsequently the site’s focus became less obtuse. We wanted to be different, speak our minds and most importantly start a dialogue. We developed a structure, a schedule, regular original content and our own review system. However, it wasn’t until 2011 that we really hit our stride with some new acquisitions who brought a whole lot to the site, helping it grow in bounds.
eGamer found itself growing fantastically. We developed a distinct voice, we had a presence. We also had diversity before it was cool.
Since then we’ve never stopped growing, changing, adapting and trying to be better. It’s hard to believe that when this all started out we were all little more than kids. A good number of us still in high school or fresh-faced uni students. This site has been built on the hard work of people who love gaming, people to whom it is more than just a hobby. I’m extremely proud of what we’ve managed to do in nearly seven years.
Sadly, it’s time to say goodbye. Consider this eGamer’s final post. Well, you don’t really have a choice. It is our last post whether or not you choose to regard it as such.
There are a few reasons why it’s come to this but really we’ve taken this dream as far we could. We may not have realized it fully but we’ve done our damndest to get close. Everyone is growing up and this site, as much as we care for it, is something we can’t maintain as we move past simple student life. At least not at the level of quality we expect of ourselves.
You may be indifferent or you may be a little blue at our term coming to an end but I can confidently say that we don’t regret a minute of the time we devoted to this site. It’s helped all of us develop invaluable skills, (hopefully) lifelong relationships and so much more. We see it as the end of a chapter rather than the closing of a book.
I feel compelled to thank everyone who left their mark on eGamer and contributed to making it what it is. We couldn’t have done it without you all. Thank you to Husain for being there in the beginning to get this site off the ground and butcher the English language. To Tahir for making the rumours of our being an Al-Qaeda front more credible. To Ebrahim for being that tech guy. To Jake and Duncan for telling us incredible stories. To Deshni and Bianca for adding some feminine diversity. To Imran for not being exactly like Azhar. To Bracken for bringing a high IQ and decidedly unique perspective. To Peloma for always being there. To Dom and Tim for being indie. To Adam for the weirdness. To Rudolf for being the most pleasant human in existence. To Marko for being there till the very end. To Paul and Paul for confusing us. To Brendan for always good to review a game. The Sherwin for being one hell of a community manager. To Marco for being a master of beard care, tech but not media studies. To Alessandro for the journey. To Azhar for the micro-aggressions. To Cavie for the controversy. To Dean for giving us all this opportunity.
Most importantly we need to thank all of you. The human beings (and others) who have read our site, supported it and helped us improve.
As you might expect, everyone on the team has a little something to say. Because these reprobates always have something to say.
Paul “no, the other one” Roux
Even though I may have been with eGamer for only a couple of months it’s still incredibly difficult to say goodbye. I may have learnt quite a bit during my short time with the site, but nothing can ever prepare you for something like this.
Saying goodbye as a writer is one thing but it’s something else to say goodbye to something you’ve been enjoying for the past few of years. From ‘delightful’ Twitter interactions to games of Dota with some of the staff, eGamer has been an incredible presence locally. While I’m sure most people who ever picked up a NAG magazine have desired to write about video games, it was only after reading and interacting with eGamer that I decided to give this pipe dream a shot and oh what an incredible experience it has been.
In the few short months that I’ve been with eGamer I’ve managed to not only grow my interests in gaming, but grow as a person. Thanks to the guidance of the incredible team here I’ve been able to gain some invaluable experience that I will cherish going forward. Thank you to each and every person who has ever been involved in eGamer for providing something that would be impossible to get anywhere else.
While thinking back on the site I remembered something that I might as well take the time to confess here. When I was in grade 12 our English teacher set us an assignment where we had to find an article or a column and provide a response to it. Now when we initially got this I had no idea of what to use but I remembered to keep an eye in order to not have to pull something together at the last minute. Well, I obviously ended up having to pull something together at the last minute but inspiration came from the last place I expected it to. I actually ended up using one of Cavie’s columns for this assignment which managed to impress my English teacher, who really didn’t like video games. When I say “didn’t really like” I mean he was dead against them, but the insight managed to change his views. Even though the exact column eludes me, it’s a fond memory that I have of the site and should stand as testament to what eGamer and its’ writers were able to produce.
Just remember that while the Game Over screen may seem final, it’s always followed by the ever hopeful Continue? screen. Or whatever, Avril Lavigne probably says it better. RT if u cri evritim.
Marco “The Beard” Bozza
I joined eGamer back in 2013, after answering the call for a tech writer. I hastily put together a mock review of a headset I had won, submitted it and was chosen, hopefully from a pool of other candidates, but probably not! Without eGamer I would have been a terrible writer instead of only mildly entertaining and I would probably not have painstakingly learnt the intricacies of amateur video editing, Adobe Premier and film technique required for recording some of the tech reviews I was lucky enough to do. If I can say only one thing about that, it’s that you always NEED FOR MOAR B-Roll.
I can honestly say that I’ve not been at eGamer for as long as I wanted, but the pull of life and responsibility has seen reality take hold and free time once dedicated to eGamer eventually morph into time dedicated to earning cash to pay for the game of life, instead of gaming for life.
AG, you’re the most diligent worker of all time, and you will make a bomb vest very happy one day. Paul, your time with us was short, but so great. You will turn into a great Paul Snr one day, Tody is by far the craziest potato-cum-human being, but he was the first to show me the reins at eGamer and for that I am always grateful. Dean was the father figure who went out to buy cigarettes, and came home. Cavie was the guy who said that thing about Destiny one time, and proved to the world that being right doesn’t mean shit. Marko, you are the most passionate gamer I’ve met, please buy a PC and put that passion to use with the master race.The last person I would like to thank is someone who also sacrificed her time for me while I was knee deep in reviews or articles–Cassandra, the other person behind those video unboxings.
To all the past and present members of eGamer, I want to thank you for one time holding the title as “eGamer Author”. I will remember my time at eGamer fondly and to those those few who commented and read our labours of love, thank you from the depths for allowing us to occupy time on your monitor.
Marko “least racist of us all” Swanepoel
I joined EGMR way back in early 2012 with a twinkle in my eye and high hopes. Thanks to English not being my first language, I wasn’t very good at writing just yet, but one of my all time dreams was to write about games and I was willing to give it my all. Cavie and Dean presented me with the opportunity to make that dream come true by taking me in and showing me the ropes. My first few articles were, by my standards now, abysmal. I didn’t have half a clue what I was talking about, it was written poorly and the internet attacked me from all sides, deservedly so.
But throughout my years working for the site, I’ve grown substantially. I found my voice, I found my writing style and everything fell neatly into place. I went from a dim 18 year old with little writing skills to a slightly dim 22 year old with a newfound love for writing. I’ve experienced the best and worst times in the gaming industry and I’ve even been on the forefront a couple of times. It was a humbling and enriching experience to say the least.
I will miss this place dearly. It has given me so many great memories, new friends and enabled my growth as a person and a writer tenfold. I will forever be grateful to the lovely bastards that I shared my time with, the late nights and us taking over rAge just by sheer numbers.
As for everyone who popped in and read our ramblings, thank you so much for everything. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for you all. This is indeed the end of a chapter, and it was nice sharing it with you all.
Still don’t pre-order games though.
Azhar “Potato” Lorgat
Goodbyes are never nice or easy (unless you dislike the object or person you’re saying goodbye to), but this one is especially trying.
I remember in 2008 when I first joined this website, aspiring only to write about games as I had been doing on various forums just to get into it. It was just me and Dean back then, and I’ll never forget our earlier conversations where I bombarded him with ideas and my excitement for where the website could go – perhaps jumping the gun in doing so. It was at that point a bewildered Dean told me “you seem to know what the fuck is going on here, so I’m making you an Editor.”
As the Uncharted series would have you believe, greatness does indeed come from small beginnings, and from there we just continued to go up. I brought my best friend, AG, to the table and many new members came to the party.Of which there are too many to name and each brought a special contribution of some kind, that stays in our memory up until today.
However, I have to pick out members AG, Caveshen, Dean, Marko, Marco and even Alessandro (that LazyGamer hipster) who each contributed not only to the growth of the site but to my own personal growth. I never thought that in simply wanting to write for a gaming website I would gain so much more through working with such an excellent team of people.
I did a lot of growing up on this website, I gained a huge amount of skills that will be invaluable moving forward, I gained a mad family, a dedicated, motivated team, a group of people who I can constantly learn from and honestly a bunch of potatoes who made talking about games with other people much less fun because the best conversations were all here.
There have been fights, make-ups, break-ups, crazies, reunions and friendships and betrayals and rollercoasters but in the end we stuck together as a team and even will continue to do so long after this website has ended. We’ve got the WhatsApp group to show for it.
While I am sad that EGMR is over due to us all just growing up and having too many real-world responsibilities and life changing events, I can’t say I have any regrets. We did things the way we wanted to, we never pandered to anyone or lost our integrity and we created our own offensive and unique voice.
To all those we may have offended along the way, know that we take pleasure from it. Especially when the internet exploded with rage at us.
But on a serious note, thank you to everyone who made this possible, most importantly to the people who read this site, raged at us, supported us, joined us, commented on our articles, fought with us on Twitter, chatted to us like friends and advised us. I’ll never forget what EGMR meant to me, and what it was like to make it happen with all of you.
Thank you to everyone, especially Dean, for giving me the opportunity to live a dream for 5 years. It didn’t matter that we weren’t getting paid, it didn’t even matter whether we were getting games or not. All that mattered was that we were a team and we were passionate about our hobby: gaming and writing. I’ll never forget that as I move forward.
As far as last words go, mine should be obvious at this point.
Caveshen “Destiny’s Child” Rajman
This is where we put in our goodbyes, right?
Oh boy… how do you say goodbye to one of the best things to have ever happened?
I remember our first rAge representing eGamer, back in 2011. We were these upstarts, these nobodies, these wannabes to the South African games journalist guest list. Five years later, we’re amongst the most well-known, recognisable websites in South African games journalism. That in itself is monumental.
Back in 2011 I was this newbie with strong opinions and a passion for writing, whose only claim to gaming fame was having read many issues of gaming magazines, and played many games. The eGamer team welcomed me like one of their own; we pooled our passion, our determination, our energy, and together we raised eGamer up and gave the name meaning.
And then we changed it.
Being part of eGamer meant making peace with always being the underdog. I cannot overstate how liberating that was, for us. We didn’t have sponsors or advertisers to keep happy, and our head editor fought tooth and nail to ensure distributors had zero influence on our work. We kept trying new things, and doing whatever the hell we wanted. We removed review scores, added them back, changed our name, migrated our entire server, migrated it again, redesigned our site, I even posted pictures of cake as my 1,000th article (seriously) — and if you only knew the plans we had in store for 2016…
Unfortunately, as with many adventures, life happened, and forced a brutal reality check. We’re all getting older, and with that comes extra pressures. And importantly, less time availability. It should be noted that nobody on eGamer got paid for their work, which also meant nobody on eGamer worked full-time. Further, none of us were coding gurus, WordPress experts, or even qualified journalists (yet). What we did on the site came purely from passion, willpower, and endurance. You know, things you’ll find on an RPG character creation sheet.
Everyone loves a good underdog story, but eventually the hare catches up.
Looking back at the times we had, is there anything I regret? Changing our name? Removing viewcounts? Perhaps being too harshly opinionated on contentious topics? … Nah. I can’t say I regret a single damn thing. Because when all is said and done, the most important things to come out of eGamer are as follows:
We gave our absolute 100% all to this site, and its beloved readers
We did our own thing, unashamedly, unabashedly, unequivocally
Throughout all the drama, controversy, and outrage, we endured like family
It’s for these reasons that saying goodbye (again) is one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do, but also why I am so endlessly proud of what we’ve achieved here. I really, truly, sincerely hope that this site managed to provide you with entertainment, intrigue, and most importantly, food for thought. If we managed to achieve that at the very least, even once in your lifetime, then I think I can consider all of this a great success.
Thank you so very much for giving us a chance to fill your lives with our passion, and talk to you about games. I’ll never forget our time together.
Dean “Forza” Oberholzer
Can’t believe this day has finally come. Yet, I am happy. Over the past years there have been many ups and downs. Many fights and many laughs. At the end, everyone came back together and kept moving forward. We are a team, and everyone invested what they could (at the time) to make it better. With our team, small input counted volumes, where large input is indescribable.
I sincerely appreciate each and everyone’s help. Everyone who ever published an article on eGamer: from regular authors to community articles, and even comments. It seriously means a lot. I thank you for that.
This experience was a unique one, I learnt a lot about how to deal with all aspects of people and “business”. A lot of my work was about keeping cool when heated and fighting back when needed. While towards the end of the life of eGamer my involvement diminished, it did so for good reason.
The team supporting eGamer towards the later months was so passionate, motivational, helpful and diligent that I became quite redundant. It was honestly very refreshing to work with a bunch of people for a common cause. While I would like to mention everyone individually, we have had so many people pass through our doors, I don’t see it possible without potentially forgetting someone (which isn’t what I want because any contribution has been important).
I would also like to apologise to the newer members of the team who would have liked to write a bit longer. Unfortunately, things change–and I am sure that you will have a bright future nonetheless.
To everyone else out there, thank you very much for reading this and reading eGamer (whether once or often). Thank you for being apart of this community (locally), irrespective of how porous it can be at times. eGamer will remain online for an indefinite period moving forward. All the old articles will be available for viewing and reminiscing.
If you would like to contact us in the future, all of our old email addresses will be available. We always love to chat. Maybe we’ll band together in the future for something new and different. For now, it won’t be this.
To everyone who supported us: thank you.
To everyone who I met through this venture: nice to meet you! Hope to see you again sometime.
To all the friends I made: although we don’t talk often anymore, I still know you exist. Stay cool!
To the team, I wish this could be a handwritten note of appreciation. Just know I’ll always be grateful and remember what you do, what you have done and what you have taught me. I’ll always make myself available to you whenever I can.
It’s certainly been a crazy six years between the Peloma scandal, that time Journey magically nabbed GotY and whatever madness we concocted in our weekly podcasts while never failing to discuss Assassins Creed). We ditched review scores before it was cool (and then brought them back), we somehow made it onto a GamerGate white list and we pissed everybody off on numerous occasions. For a rag tag assemblage of amateurs I think we did alright.
Au revoir, it’s been incred.
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