We don’t report on many Kickstarters, and we’re even more suspicious of Patreon projects. When the man indirectly responsible for Critical Gamer’s existence (he doesn’t know and possibly wouldn’t care) starts a fundraising drive to resurrect one of the world’s funniest and most fiercely independent gaming magazines, however, there’s absolutely no way we’re not going to try and help. So here we go.
Some of you in the UK will already know what Digitiser was; these people will either have already pledged moneycash, or are now very likely to simply because they’re aware Digitiser is on the way to a comeback. If you don’t know what Digitiser was, it was a daily games magazine in the distant past (in dog years) provided entirely for free via Teletext. If you’re too young to know what Teletext was… well… it was like the internet through your TV, in the days before you could actually get the real internet through your TV. Digitiser was the embodiment of the golden age of gaming journalism. Honest, funny, compulsive reading, and pretty consistently weird. Now and again so weird it got lost on the way to the punchlines, but there’s not really been anything to match it before or since.
The main force behind Digitiser (and the call to arms in terms of money) is Paul Rose, AKA Mr Biffo. If you recognise the alias, that may well be because he had a regular column in Edge until half a dozen years ago or thereabouts. In recent years Monsieur Rose has made his money from work on TV and film scripts, but it seems he’s decided that he wants to return to writing about games. No further proof should be needed that he’s the right man for the job. If you want a taste of what’s to come then head to Digitiser 2000, a sort of prologue to a fully-funded Digitiser.
Biffo-san has already made it clear that Digitiser will be free to read for everyone, whether you part with pennies or not. There is a Patreon campaign however, which we strongly recommend you contribute to. Amounts are disconcertingly in dollars, and the rewards are admittedly geared toward people who remember the old Digitiser. Even if you toddle over and pledge just a few dollars a month, however, we assure you that you will be doing A Good Thing. As long-time readers of Critical Gamer may be aware, we are as a site of the opinion that the vast majority of what passes for games journalism is extremely poor. Digitiser will go a long way to redress the balance.
Do you see?
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