Nate Dogg III

Ah bless you, thanks. I wish they could all be that much fun to write!

The closest analogue is more like Defector. The Athletic was very corporate from the start, raised a lot of funding and invested heavily in tech and so on, and as such is built on that VC model of focusing on growth and not worrying about profits until much much later, if at all. Defector was just a bunch of people who used to write for a website people liked (Deadspin) who started their own thing behind a paywall, and have made $3.2 million in their first year. They wrote about it here and it's really quite inspiring. Shows that you don't just end up with better content, but a better company: And honestly it's not like there aren't analogues for this stuff in games media already. It's all those video bods that went off to do Patreons, but with words.

I think the value proposition of The Athletic is much stronger in the US than over here. Their initial plan IIRC was to effectively give a home to all the local sports journalists, covering local teams, that had lost their jobs when the regional newspaper market collapsed / consolidated. When it came to expanding overseas they basically chucked a load of money at national newspaper talent because that's the only land there really was to grab. I agree a lot of it is overwritten and far too long — and the football stuff I've read over there is no better than you can get for free elsewhere (though the basketball stuff is great) — but I do like that it exists. I think a videogame version could potentially be a lot more successful, if only because it seems to me that games media is wayyyy more SEO driven than sports coverage (outside of the transfer rumour stuff anyway) and so there's a lot more to be gained from a quality-of-content POV by removing search algorithms, ad revenue and ecommerce from the equation. Convincing people to pay is another matter, of course, but is there a media audience on the planet more accustomed to and accepting of subscriptions and micropayments than people who like videogames?

That's a fair point about the GaaS stuff. There's a lot of traffic in it. The EIC of one of the Future websites used to load up Destiny 1 at 10am on a Friday to find out what Xur was selling because the Xur post always did huge numbers. I totally see the sense in it. When I get stuck on something I just get my phone out and google it and click on the first result, unless it's a website I can't abide for whatever reason. And most sites are smart enough to bury this stuff behind the scenes, keeping it off the front page, so it doesn't get in the way of the day-to-day browsing experience. It's not sexy work but it's probably more important for keeping the lights on these days than a news desk etc.

These days it works much like the rest of online media — one person at one outlet does the work and then everyone else aggregates it, then it's just an SEO competition to see who gets the traffic for it. Alex Donaldson, who runs RPGSite which has been doing guides for years, routinely puts little tell-tale mistakes (mis-spellings, mis-namings and so on) into their guides so he can tell who's been ripping them off.

They used to effectively have two pools for adblockers, I think. Regular posts like news, features and reviews, you’d just get the pop-up asking you to please turn it off. For guides and deals posts — the drive-by stuff that comes from Google and isn’t sticky in terms of audience building — you allowed ads or fucked off.

That's fair enough really, they just don't want to give a platform to the knuckle-draggers. I'd do the same.

I have a lot of friends over there and I wish them the best with this, but I don't think this cake-and-eat-it approach to subscriptions really works. (I am biased, admittedly.) I think this will bring in a few quid, but not enough to make a real difference and maybe not enough to even justify the extra work the team are taking on. The traditional online media model is fucked, and I don't believe that an optional, additive subscription model will in any way un-fuck it. -you still get a website that's designed for ads, which means paying subs get a layout that's like 60 per cent white space -the majority of the website's coverage and commissioning decisions are still made based on what will traffic, and therefore bring in ad revenue. The overwhelming majority of what the website does every month will be about what google likes, rather than what subscribers like -In this specific case I don't think the offering itself is that attractive, except maybe the podcast if you're into that sort of thing Having a subscription model as an alternative to an ad-funded one only works if you stop doing the ad-funded stuff, imo. It's all-in or nothing. I do believe that the first big-ticket game site to do what The Athletic or Defector have done will absolutely clean up, and I considered doing it myself after I left Edge until I realised I was too old and tired and selfish so started a newsletter by myself instead.

THE DREAM. Pretty sure I've posted about this before but it's just the best and I go looking for it so often and it so very rarely comes together. Rupture for +2 Strength whenever you lose HP playing a card. Blue Candle to exhaust a curse at the cost of 1 HP. Necronomicon to play your first 2-cost attack each turn twice, and the accompanying Necronomicurse, which pops back into your hand after you exhaust it. Two Feel No Pain for block, and Calipers to sustain it. Runic Pyramid to retain your hand between turns. Get a Rupture or two and the Feel No Pains in play, get Necronomicurse and a Reaper in hand, then just play the curse over and over and watch your strength tick up. Keep going until a single Reaper attacks for half the remaining HP of the beefiest enemy on screen, then play the Reaper, kill everything and move on with full health. Hope you don't get Time Eater, but if you do just manage the split and kill with Heavy Blade or Bludgeon instead. Behold: I reinstalled the game, yes. Day off today, isn't it. Glad I did.

Just tried this myself, haven't done a daily in ages but five Coolheaded seemed like a fun time. Also died to Time Eater. Would have been fine if I'd been able to find any Focus whatsoever at any point at all. I had a Focus potion and used it on the first boss, thinking I'd of course get some more. Was pretty plain sailing until Time Eater but when he started properly hitting after enrage I had no chance really. Darnit.

Ah, is that so? I've uninstalled StS for a bit because I am too willingly distracted by it when trying to work, but kinda need something similar for actual downtime. Might give it a spin. As for all-claw decks, this is tremendous fun:

Don't you dare do Akabeko like that. What if it all comes together and you have Bag Of Marbles, 5 Energy, Mutagenic Strength, Pen Nib and Necronomicon, and like two Offerings, a Flex+ and Whirlwind+ in your starting hand, eh? Then you'd be like, man, I wish I had me some Akabeko. I do quite like Akabeko honestly. I'll take it over a key most of the time. I have no idea why Ceramic Fish exists, though. I like 35-card decks too, just to keep up with the recent discourse while I'm here. Throw in Apparitions and I'll take 40 no bother.

Achilles sets the whole hidden aspect thing off so make sure you talk to him at every opportunity. Think you need to have invested a certain amount levelling up the existing aspects first but I assume after 70 hours you've got that sorted already.

Xur's selling a delicious Bottom Dollar this week FYI. Outlaw and Dragonfly, just like the good old days.

Oh my god that's hilarious. If anyone hasn't got time for the whole thing, you can just watch the Heart fight. Quite something.