Dear god why do I listen to people.

Well hopefully this won’t be a big mistake, but due to constant nagging from IRL friends who hear about my games writing and how long I work on it, along with me being OK doing it without pay, along with a few industry friends feeling it would be OK to do, I’ve come to make an announcement.

As of today, 8/17, I have… Urgh… Opened a kofi. I will link it at the bottom of this article so you can read my reasoning for it and be assured that I will not misuse it.

“Wait Connor why are you worried about misusing it aren’t tip jars good” Yes, and I had one for years that I still plan to deliver content to; the SFG Patreon has been a thing for years now and has been a fun motivation for getting Eternal Memories and Unscripted Memories episodes completed, and for hearing the occasional feedback on my videos when I did them.

Problem is, my videos were hyper niche and for the most part bombed horrifically. The last big video I made put me off doing videos until I fully finish my review queue and get way, way more free time. I also only charged for the Patreon when i finish a project I deem worthy of taking people’s money (ie, episodes or huge interviews like the Tomie one), so I’m pretty picky and transparent about taking in money and often reject such things. I’m more fine with donating to other people who need money (for bills and shit) more than I, who does not need it (I am financially responsible), but of course, more doesn’t hurt me. However, writing has been my bigger passion, as has the passion of covering retro video games or retro-like video games, thus as I work on my review queue, I also juggle some newer games now and then which are fun to cover. Generally for the longest time, I considered getting the honor of a early copy enough of a “payment” for me to be satisfied.

Well, something weird happened. SFG, the website you’re reading right now is blowing up more than I expected, and now we usually get 4K-6K views a month. Super rad for a site my size! All 100% solo, too. I’m thankful to all my peers and followers who help keep us strong and like my rambly opinion pieces from time to time. It’s gotten to the point when I tell my coworkers or IRL friends how many views my site gets and how I refuse to enable ad revenue, they get really confused on my anti money policy and not wanting to earn stuff from the site. You may think “oh well duh for stuff like the article about Toony that would make sense”, which is true, but I mean for everything in general. The stubborn truth of that is…

I don’t think my work is that special. Outside the interviews, I am a website that exists and writes reviews to provide feedback and thoughts on video games. If the devs are satisfied with feedback, then I did my job. That is the most I seek from a review, next to someone telling me they found it helpful or think my thoughts were interesting. The difference between SFG and a lot of similar sites, is that I do this 100% solo.

Outside of commissioning people when needed, nobody else writes for the site, nor is anyone else ever allowed to. I mainly did this for control more than anything else, but also to ensure I’d have access over my work rather than having to worry about a corporation or boss stepping in and causing trouble. You all saw what happened to Game Informer and how that selfishness led to the loss of so, so much history. I had it happen to me once, even! Though I at least have those reviews saved as text files, but I feel they’re pretty underwhelming and not worth putting out again, being from my earlier days.

Remember a site called Shigeru News? You haven’t, because it doesn’t exist anymore. While working on SFG in my earlier days, I “joined” the site to cover games for it akin to how I do here, mainly because the owner promised us access to early Nintendo review codes (lol) and dumb young reviewer me really wanted them. Problem was, the dude running the site had no god damn clue what he was talking about and clearly had no idea how to run with PR. We did a few reviews we liked on a whim, then got a couple of codes and then things went quiet. I saved my reviews out of precaution. Good idea I did, as a year or so later, the site quietly vanished from existence with the owner doing so as well.

The funny part is, that site led me to meeting the man who motivated me to take control of my own website and move it off of Freeforums to WordPress, and despite hesitations I did that and lo and behold, Freeforums doesn’t exist anymore either! Thank you Eric Warpjump, wherever you are, you really did help get me focused on not being stubborn and branching out. But yeah, all that time at Shigerunews, and I didn’t even get paid. I didn’t ask for it. Even now, I’m not too bothered, but I would have at least liked some sort of professional guy running the place, to say the very least. It’s more fun writing for my own site anyhow, but I do plan on pitching myself as a freelancer for guest articles once the queue is clear. As of now, I don’t feel my typical reviews are anything special to send me money over, but people still really like them and especially the opinion pieces, so…

Yeah! That’s kinda the rambly gist of it. I still don’t feel like I’ve done anything groundbreaking or anything worth much, and the one time I have been paid in this industry, it was for a book that never ended up coming out due to the guy behind it going off to join a company that I do not like, and said guy going real quiet after something he offered to send to me I offered to buy myself to support the IP attached to it. Hm, I wonder what that IP would have possibly been and what awful company would mistreat it. Hmmmm. Needless to say, I’d much rather have a book with my stuff in it than the money I had, since that would last longer and be something I could proudly show to my friends. Oh well. Being in a book just isn’t for me.

One last thing before I drop the link and leave to barely mention it further unless I make a big, worthy article to promote, is that I do have a goal for the Ko-fi. Since the random tips will be used to help me purchase assorted life stuff along with occasional stuff I’d review like retro compilations/ports/etc, I figured the only thing to make a goal would be something people have wanted me to write, but I kinda never wanted to because of backlash with the previous works I did which led to some un-fun harassment for a short period.

That’s right, $100 total to the Kofi, and I will write a new opinion piece on Limited Run Games’ quality control. Unless some major event happens that’s an emergency enough to write about it, this is the only way you’ll ever get me to talk about the company itself, how they manage their QC still, and yes, go into their hellish “Shipping Queue” saga. I really don’t want to write this, but people have pestered me to do so and I do have some insight that might make it a fun read, or at the very least, tell you who the hell to avoid in this industry if you don’t already know. Basically, consider it a stretch goal, and only donate to me if you want to support, not to achieve the article. I don’t plan on doing followup goals after this unless something critical in my life happens, but if that were to be the case, I’d prioritize selling off stuff VS begging for money. Again, wanting to be financially responsible and all.

So yeah, let’s get this going. My Kofi is right here. Donate if you somehow still insist, and I’ll be back with more reviews soon.