EXP Update

It’s hard to believe, but the two-year anniversary of Experience Points is just over a week away! Before we go any further, let’s take care of the mushy stuff: Thanks to everyone who visits the site. That so many of you choose to spend your time reading our posts, listening to the podcast, and contributing to the site with your emails and comments is beyond amazing. We are both honored and grateful!

For nearly two years now, we’ve made it a priority to produce substantial, thoughtful material on a regular basis. Committing to Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates provided both a source of stability and the motivation to consistently think critically about games. When we started Experience Points, we were not far from our college years. On top of our naturally nerdy inclinations, we were both fairly serious students and the site gave us an outlet to use mental horsepower that would have otherwise gone to waste.

Now our studious nature is pulling us back into the strange world of academia, and we must adjust our schedules accordingly. Unlike the predictability of 9 to 5 routine, academic deadlines often manifest as droughts and floods. Also, routines are great, but sometimes familiarity and comfort can lead to complacency. With all this in mind, we’d like to introduce a few changes to the site in hopes of keeping things fresh:

1. First the big news: both of us will be writing a column over at PopMatters on the Moving Pixels blog. Long-time visitors will recognize PopMatters as a consistent source of inspiration for Experience Points and we are extremely excited to be joining their talented crew. We will start posting there in a couple of weeks and the style will resemble the kind of material you would find in our traditional Monday and Friday essays. The columns are currently slated to appear on Thursdays. When a column goes up, we will post a link to it on our website along with a mini-essay meant to supplement the piece or address topics we might have had to excise during the editing process. For an idea of what these might look like, check out L.B. Jeffries’ posts.

2. On Tuesdays, we will post material exclusive to Experience Points. These posts will follow a slightly different format than the current Monday/Friday essays. Specifically, we want to experiment with styles that contrast with the long-form essays you’ll find on Thursdays. These new Tuesday posts might be responses to current events, short commentaries on specific games, or think pieces that invite reader participation. Ultimately, these posts will be a more informal counter-weight to the longer Thursday features. These posts are partly inspired by Krystian Majewski of the Game Design Scrapbook and Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer.

3. On Wednesdays, we will post the ever-faithful Experience Points Podcast!

4. Friday through Monday will be reserved for further experimentation and miscellaneous thoughts. As of now, we’re leaving these days as unstructured, which means that some weeks may have multiple posts while some may have none. Since we will still be posting material on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Friday through Monday will be used like a sandbox to test out new ideas, post things that never made their way into other projects, and examine the various odds and ends of video games and culture.

We’ll be transitioning from our Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule to our new Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday schedule over the next few weeks. There shouldn’t be too much downtime, but don’t send out the rescue teams if the site is a bit quieter than usual. As you may have gathered from our writing and podcasts, it’s difficult for us to stay quiet. We’ll be up to speed in no time.

Thanks again for visiting the site! It’s been a great couple of years and we look forward to having you along for many more.

- Jorge and Scott