By – Adam Ames (Owner/Editor-In-Chief)
TPG owner, Adam Ames, pulls down the curtain to offer up some insights on the past, present and future of True PC Gaming.
Publishing Frequency
Let’s take care of the obvious first. The frequency and number of published articles have taken a downturn as of late. Our review cycle is one reason behind this. Right now, our review team is on a 10-14 day cycle. During the lulls of that cycle, we do not have a whole lot to publish. Sure, I could post news pieces every day, but the last thing I want is to become a news aggregate. If that happens, I might as well just shut down and do something else. Yes, everyone already knows about the big Steam sale or bundle promotion. In addition, I want to bring news you rarely see elsewhere which can be hard to find at times. In essence, this entire issue is a Catch-22. In order for TPG to be successful, the site must show activity, but at what cost? I am certainly not going to flood the front page with meaningless regurgitated drivel just to make sure something is posted.
Some would remind me of the “quality not quantity” mentality. While this is completely true, TPG will never become self-sufficient by relying on one review or feature every few days. Those numbers would simply not add up. In my mind, this all goes back to the inability to pay my team. If I could throw at least part-time money at this problem, things would be much easier to handle. Everyone gets to keep the games they review so there is a bit of compensation to that end. Still, I do not think a landlord would take a copy of Postal III as payment for rent.
You then have to worry about those times when hardware failure pops up at the wrong time. Over the last three months, four of our columnists, including myself, have been hit by complex computer issues. When your PC spontaneously begins to blue screen for no good reason, and every troubleshooting step taken leads to nothing, TPG becomes a secondary concern.
TPG Cast/YouTube
Aside from TPG Dual Reviews, we have not posted any video or audio content since mid-June. There are several reasons for this, most of which can be chalked up to a perfect storm of scheduling, time limitations, staff changes and personal issues. I always had the intention of providing, at the very least, one TPG Cast episode per week. However, the events listed above made it extremely difficult to make that happen. For those of you interested, depending on the running time, a show can take anywhere from 4-6 hours for me to produce. This includes the time needed for pre-show, show itself, post, editing, conversion and upload. Phil is still a very important part of TPG. As my co-host on the show, he has the ability to think one step ahead and keep the conversation flowing nicely. TPG Cast will be back – you can mark my words on that one.
As for other content, while I have a ton of new ideas, the recent tribulations of Totalbiscuit and NukemDukem have given me pause. With Restore Point, we already had to endure two Content ID strikes and many e-mails back and forth to get those resolved. We never dealt with Copyright Strikes, but those who issued the Content IDs could have easily done so. I suppose we were lucky. Video reviews, commentary and live streaming would all greatly benefit our brand, but is it worth the hassle if one rogue developer/publisher decided to play hard ball? That is the question we need to answer amongst ourselves.
TPG At Gaming Conventions
One way to help get word out is attending the various gaming shows and expos. Our staff has the ability to cover Utah, Colorado, Washington, Toronto, California, New York along with some areas of Germany and the UK. Ticket prices to these events are flat out obscene in most cases so there was no way anyone from TPG to attend. We are talking anywhere from $500 to $900 for just one pass. Of course, the cost of travel, hotel and food adds to an already incredible amount of money. However, this year TPG was represented at GDC Next, Gamescom, Los Angeles Indie Mixer and New York Gaming Convention as we were able to get press passes to each of those events. The reason for this sudden change is decision makers are taking us seriously. We plan on attending as many shows as we can next year.
It’s Time To Say Goodbye
Mike Bezek left TPG in September to pursue schooling. He had a huge part in TPG and will be missed. Mike was responsible for creating most of our thumbnail and header images dating back to early 2012. He also developed our logos for Restore Point, Dual Reviews and the site itself. Above all else, he was a good friend. It has been difficult for me to take on this role in addition to everything else, but life must go on.
Special Thanks
I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank Andrew Tsai and Forrest Fuqua. Andrew is the owner of PC Gaming Wiki while Forrest takes care of all back-end server maintenance. Andrew offered to host TPG on its server earlier this year. At that time, TPG was on a shared host which saw unbearable site speeds and performance. After the switch, the site become blazing fast and performance increased ten fold. I am extremely grateful to Andrew and Forrest for their generosity.
The Future
For those of you who may not know, my job at TPG is more of a list than one title. I am solely responsible for all editing, news pieces, image creation (thanks to Pim and Josh for helping with business cards and a few advanced image-related projects), publishing, PR, marketing and pretty much every other aspect that goes on behind-the-scenes. Every so often, I even write my own reviews. The hours needed to properly run TPG is more than I would see working a full-time job. All the while getting zero pay. Yes, other than a few dollars for ad space, and I do mean a few dollars, TPG makes no money. Why do it if there is no financial compensation? Easy. I want TPG to be my career. Not only for myself, but for each and every one of our writers who spend hours upon hours creating professional content. The only way to do that was a start from the ground up and make the site attractive to potential partners and/or sponsors. I knew from the very beginning making TPG a career for myself, let alone 10 other guys, was going to be extremely difficult. Unless something extraordinary happened, it would take a while for us to get noticed on a high level and then parlay that success into a business.
I think we have come a long way since launching what some called, “a typical WordPress blog” in 2011. So far this year, we have served up over 700,000 pageviews. This had been done with a marketing budget of exactly $0. I usually send our content to various news sites like Blue’s News and occasionally we find ourselves on Sunday Papers. Other than that, it has been word of mouth along with proper SEO tags and social networking activity. Not a bad number when you factor in our circumstances, however, I know we have the ability to compete with Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer and the rest. I am not saying anything bad about those outlets. I simply think TPG offers PC gamers a distinct and separate voice within our industry. I also believe TPG is the best designed gaming site on the internet. We do not present our content in an obtrusive manner. We do not beg for social networking followers. We do not run annoying advertisements which pop up, play music or animate in any way. The only “ads” you ever see are promotional images hosted on our servers. These sidebar, article and background images will always be static and simple. They will always relate to PC gaming and usually are indie in nature. In the end, all you get is a peaceful and enjoyable reading experience.
I feel TPG is on the right track. We have been presented many obstacles this year and handled each scenario the best we possible could in that situation. TPG will become synonymous with professionally driven content within the PC gaming industry. Once that happens, not only will we become a massive success, we can take that success and offer indies a grand stage to have their game be displayed for the world to see.