Letter From the Staff

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’ve been publishing The Escapist for three and a half years now.

When we first launched The Escapist in July, 2005, we wanted to create a different type of game publication – one that wasn’t afraid to tackle the hard issues facing the game industry. Since then, we’ve covered the economics of used games, piracy, Abandonware, addiction, gender diversity in gaming, sexual content and censorship, and more in over 180 issues and thousands of news posts and discussions.

Looking back at our record of published material, we began to see that certain core values, unexpressed but ever present, had shaped which articles we’d published and which topics we’d covered. We resolved that in the New Year, we would compile and publish these values in a written statement. We’d clarify our biases. We’d express our positions. We’d be open about what we stood for, and encourage others to be, too.

And so, in the interest of transparency to our audience, and in hopes of creating a conversation here and within the game media community at large, we are happy to formally introduce The Escapist’s Official Position Paper. The paper is also available in PDF format here.

Our Position Paper gives our answers to questions such as:

• Is the used games and games rental business good for consumers and game companies?
• Is piracy of games justifiable?
• Should companies use DRM to protect their games?
• Do game companies have a right to control gameplay within their games?
• What rights and obligations do game companies have in regards to user-created content?

Whether you are an industry professional, an entertainment consumer, or both, these are important questions for our industry, and we hope you’ll take the time to check out our positions and think about your own.

We suspect most of you will probably agree with most of our answers. Some of you will no doubt disagree with some. A few of you may feel the need to burn us down for disagreeing on one hot issue or another. We welcome any and all of you to let us know what you think in the forums, in a letter to the editor, or on your blog.

The long-time reader of The Escapist may well note that not every piece we’ve ever published agrees with the positions we outline today. Don’t be surprised if you see us publish something that disagrees with some of the positions above in the future, either. Op-ed – “opposite to editorial” – has a long and honorable history in publishing, and we will continue to welcome the contributions of writers and thinkers with views that may not agree with our own.

Speaking of writers and thinkers, The Escapist would like to offer a special thank you to Warren Spector, Hal Halpin, and Scott Foe for their insights and comments as we prepared the position paper.

Cheers,

The Escapist Editorial Staff

Alexander Macris, Editorial Director, Themis Media
Julianne Greer, Editor-in-Chief, The Escapist
Russ Pitts, Director of Video Content, The Escapist
Susan Arendt, Section Editor, The Escapist
Jordan Deam, Associate Editor, The Escapist
Tom Endo, Associate Editor, The Escapist
John Funk, Contributing Editor, The Escapist