Happy New Year to one and all!

First, let me start out by apologizing for my absence from social media lately. I was either at family or had family over until Monday, so I’m just now getting my life back to a sense of normalcy. Now that things are back, you are going to soon start seeing content here on the site and you’ll see me on Twitter again. I also have some further updates.

The Book

Ah, the book. It is both my life’s current great work and my biggest nemesis. In late fall of 2016 I set a public deadline for myself of having it done by the end of the year. Obviously that didn’t happen, and I owe you all an explanation. Put simply, writing about Gamergate is harder than normal writing. Normally, I can write thousands of words on just about any given subject in a quick amount of time rather easily. The Tyranny review, for example, is around 2,000 words, I believe, and I was able to pop that off in about an hour or so. Writing about GamerGate, however, requires abnormal consideration.

For example, let’s talk Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and to a lesser extent Randi Harper. Media refers to them as “the victims of Gamergate”, usually alongside some indeterminate number of women, minorities, and transgender people. When writing, do I refer to them as the victims of Gamergate? Most, if not everyone, involved in Gamergate will insist that they’re not victims, that they either manipulated the situation to make them appear as victims or that the threats came from trolls. The media doesn’t care. They consider Gamergate a great hurricane, and anyone caught in the breeze is a part in this fight of evil vs. good.

For my part, calling them “victims of Gamergate” is a half-truth. Yes, they were threatened and felt threatened – whether by Gamergate or not doesn’t matter nearly as much as Gamergate supporters believe. But every one of the women I mentioned has indeed manipulated the situation to their advantage. They have all gained fame, notoriety, legitimacy, and even vast sums of money as a direct result of Gamergate.

And that’s just the consideration that goes into the phrase “victims of Gamergate”. Everything in Gamergate is up for debate, including whether or not it should even be called a movement. That makes writing about Gamergate extremely difficult and much slower than normal writing.

I will get this book out, even if it kills me. I am determined, and I am putting in good work on it. This site is proof of that – it is a necessary step in order to host whatever does not go into the book. It’s just taking time that I never expected and I am truly sorry for the delay and the missing of deadlines. I will post no more deadlines and will instead let you know a couple weeks before it comes out.

Patreon and Game Objective

My patrons, I am so thankful to you. Your contributions created this site. I am going to make some changes for this year, which I mentioned in my last Patreon update. Instead of being paid by feature with a goal of one per month, I am going to change it to a monthly contribution for this site.

Game Objective has done surprisingly well, though it is not yet at the point where it catches the eye of major advertisers, like Google’s AdSense. Advertising revenue has not exactly been rolling in, but it is something, which is a whole lot better than the nothing I was previously making!

In order to take the site to the next level I am now searching for a partner or two to add an article or two a week. Any partners I take on will have to adhere to the basic standards of journalism that govern the site, and they will earn whatever ad revenue they bring in, along with a percentage of the Patreon donations – in other words, not much. If a writer comes in and brings in 90% of the traffic, they’ll get 90% of the money. If you’re interested, let me know and we’ll talk.

Final Thoughts

2016 was a hard year. A week after the death of my half-brother (rest in peace, Russ), I hit an obstacle with health concerns and have had to turn my life around as a result.

2017 will be better.