My First Escapist

In other news, the article I mentioned earlier ran here today.

I love the way The Escapist crafts their pages and they did a great job with this article in particular. I like the quill on paper with a computer screen in the background. In fact, that actually looked like my room when I was in Montauk (except I was using a stylus on a clay tablet but who's counting?)

Take the oppurtunity to look at the whole magazine, there are some good pieces in there. Mark Wallace's piece is intriguing for anyone who has lived through a beta-test and/or an economics class. There's one piece in there about the American Girl phenomenon and why there should (or should never) be a video game based on those buxom ladies of history. There's even a meet-the-press kind of section in which all the contributers were asked a question. I won't spoil it, but my answer involves tranmogrification and forever altering the space time continuum.

There's also a mini-debate surrounding this issue's inclusion of full-page advertisements (for beer!? how could they?!) I personally don't know what the hell these "irate" readers are talking about. The Escapist is a magazine, albeit an online one, how do you expect it to make any money (or pay me any) if it doesn't sell something? And the only thing it can sell is space. These guys who are writing into the editor, saying that advertising doesn't effect them and that beer ads shouldn't infect their precious independent games magazine (saying that only ads for games would be acceptable) need to step back and look at publications as a whole. Does the New York Times selling of its advertising space make it any less credible? Publisher Alexander Macris makes a good point, it's probably BETTER that The Escapist sells advertising to other products besides video games lest the advertisiers begin to expect favorable reviews. To all the naysayers, fuck off.