I’ve a variety of conversations with lots of people about what RPS is, and after years of attempting to sum this dumb web site up, I’ve settled on utilizing the identical reply every time. I say: ask ten folks to explain what RPS does, and also you’ll get ten completely different solutions. One will say we’re that web site which writes silly, in-jokey nonsense about PC games. The subsequent will say we’re some weblog which is all the time going off on another consumer rights diatribe. Another will speak about how we’re about championing indie games and giving everything a fair shake if it pursuits us. The subsequent will say we’re a games website that’s residence to strident feminism, whereas one other factors out that we write in-depth, researched pieces taking down mainstream media misreporting about games.
Someone will all the time level out that we’re about holding developers accountable.
Someone will all the time level out that we’re about some sort of unfathomable endless bear.
Look at that listing and take a look at the creator of the posts. Jim had the ambition and the drive to make RPS occur. Kieron was the well-known title that introduced in early readers. Alec was the breakout hit. But it was John, wasn’t it, that outlined virtually all the pieces that RPS is. Today’s his final day on the positioning – come say goodbye.
Of course, this makes it equally troublesome to sum up John’s work. There are a handful of games journalists who’ve had careers so long as him, however I feel John is the one one whose profession has eras. As a teen, I learn PC Gamer and beloved him for his daft, irreverent evaluations of funds games in ‘They’re Back’. They have been a delight – a high-wire act of silliness and self-indulgence that you just learn for the writing, not the games. My favorite writing in games magazines all the time made the creator seen to you, and They’re Back did that within the excessive.
Throughout my time studying PC Gamer after which in my early years engaged on it, I considered John primarily as a critic. Being seen as an creator is helpful for a critic as a result of it’s how the viewers will get to know your tastes, and due to this fact how your tastes may align with their very own. John all the time had unusually well-defined tastes. Likes: journey games (he’s a pro), RPGs, story, comedy. Flipping loathes: all technique games, administration games, most multiplayer games. That his coronary heart was all the time seen on his sleeve made you belief him.
By the time RPS launched, I used to be residing with John in a home share in Bath. (It’s an odd expertise, having somebody go from a headshot in {a magazine} to an individual arguing with you about whose dishes have been left within the sink.) He all the time appeared to be enjoying two games without delay: one on the PC, that he was most likely reviewing for PCG; and one throughout loading screens on the DS, that he was most likely reviewing for Eurogamer. (When he wasn’t portray one of many freezers in our kitchen to look like a Companion Cube.)
I feel Jim and Kieron largely used RPS to proceed to do what they’d been doing for years, and I’ve already mentioned that I feel Alec used RPS to emerge from a cocoon as a stupendous butterfly. To me – and I haven’t mentioned it with him – John appeared to undergo a type of rebirth at RPS. From “the funny one” to somebody involved with severe journalism, developer interviews, and social justice. And as John went, so RPS went with him – and arguably, the remainder of games journalism adopted. I’ve linked lots of these articles above and you may most likely consider many extra.
But it’s the evaluations that I’ve been excited about. I feel John could be higher recognized for different issues, however he by no means stopped being a games critic. Our evaluations class at present incorporates 1,545 posts, of which John wrote 432. No one else comes near that many. And whereas a handful of these evaluations are about constructing a word-coffin for a nasty mainstream game, the overwhelming majority are about OK-or-better indie games – and infrequently tiny indies at that. Games that may have by no means obtained any protection from us or anybody else if John hadn’t had a glance to see what new games have been out, given a bunch of them a strive, and determined that the worthy few have been deserving of the time to play and write about.
I do know from expertise that that is usually tiring, thankless work. These aren’t high-trafficking articles and also you’re not usually remembered or recognised for it. I additionally know this work is vital, as a result of with out critics keen to champion the brand new, the brand new falters and dies. No one has had the urge for food to do it as totally or for so long as John has, or the fervour and writing chops to do it as efficiently. Who will strive now that he’s going?
We’ll strive, in fact, as a result of we’re what John constructed us to be. Maybe the subsequent time I’ve a dialog with somebody about what RPS is, I ought to simply inform them that.
As John himself may write: good GRIEF this submit is lengthy and maudlin. Get within the feedback, say farewell, sing your praises, and share a few of your favorite John posts. There are 4400 of them to choose from.
