Editor’s Choice

Once upon a time, I recall saying to myself that there’d be no greater pleasure, no greater honor, than to be the Editor-in-Chief of a videogaming magazine. As with all things, the aphorism that one should be careful what one wishes for also applies here.

Making a magazine is hard work, especially here at The Escapist, where we publish more content in a week than most print magazines publish in a month. From sorting through pitches to proofing the finished product for misplaced punctuation, every step of the process of publishing our magazine can, at times, be excruciatingly tedious (especially when a late summer thunderstorm kills both our off-site data center and our local file servers, leaving the team stranded in the office, in the dark, waiting for hours to hit “publish”), but it is always absolutely necessary. We don’t cut corners at The Escapist, and it shows in our product.

Our feature articles have been called “the most edited writing in games” and for good reason. Our articles are rigorously edited, fact-checked, then edited again, leaving some of our freelance writers dazed at the destruction wrought on their prose. We’ve heard from some of our writers that they’ve never been so brutally manhandled as they are by the editors of The Escapist, but more often than not they thank us for the treatment. Our goal is, after all, to make every article published in The Escapist as good, as compelling and as meaningful as it can be, and I’m proud of how frequently we hit our mark.

At a time when the sluggish economy is forcing many online publications to cut costs, and many print publications out of business, The Escapist remains firmly devoted to its founding principles of quality and timelessness. Our weekly feature articles have long been the foundation of this enterprise, and I’m pleased, as EIC, to continue that tradition.

This week, it’s time for another “Editor’s Choice” issue, and we’ve invited some of our oldest friends back to the writers’ table to share their keen insights. Brenda Brathwaite talks to game design luminaries about the attachments they form to their characters; Pat Miller uncovers the creation of a new language, created by gamers for gamers; Ronald Meeus exposes the real genius behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band; and Erin Hoffman explains why your game idea sucks. Enjoy!

/Fingergun