This being the time of year for such things, I have a little surprise that I hope some of you might really enjoy.
I get asked on a fairly regular basis whether this blog will ever become a book — or, more likely, a series of books. While I do have aspirations in that direction, producing even one proper book is a big task that’s hard to turn to now when I’m so focused on this chronological journey we’re on. In the meantime, I can now at least offer you a series of ebooks that simply compile my older articles. Their existence is entirely down to the efforts of reader Richard Lindner, who developed all of the tools to automatically convert the blog’s articles.
Despite his talents, the ebooks are inevitably a little rough around the edges. In particular, multimedia elements — pictures, screenshots, movies, audio — may display imperfectly or not at all on many e-readers. Nevertheless, I hope some of you will find them handy for reading in bed or taking to the beach without bullies kicking sand in your laptop. Richard and I couldn’t quite decide whether to include readers comments or not — they’re a huge and hugely appreciated part of the online experience, but arguably ruin the flow of the ebook versions — so we decided to let you decide, by offering versions both with and without them. You can also choose between Kindle and epub versions, whichever suits your device or software. More ebooks will be appearing as I finish writing about each historical year. I just have a few articles to go to finish up 1987, so you can expect that volume to be joining the others quite soon.
Thanks for being such amazing readers! Your support means the world to me. If you are a regular reader who’s made this blog a part of your weekly routine and you haven’t yet pitched in, please do think about starting the new year with a Patreon pledge or a one-time PayPal donation — assuming, of course, that your personal circumstances permit. For the price of a good cup of coffee each month you can support this ongoing serious, nuanced examination of the history of gaming, and contribute to my own slow crawl toward earning a living wage from what’s long since become as time-consuming as any other full-time job.
To the 160 of you (as of this writing) who have signed up through Patreon and the many others who have donated through PayPal:an extra special thank you! It warms my writerly heart to know that so many of you like what I do enough to voluntarily pay for it. I’ll continue to strive to be worthy of your support.
I wish you all a great Christmas or winter holiday of your choice, and a happy New Year to boot. And I’ll see you all again in a couple of days, with a proper article this time.
