Joystiq was my preferred video game news site for a long time largely due to the Joystiq Podcast. While I don’t always have time to play the newest games, I loved listening to Chris Grant, Justin McElroy, Ludwig Kietzmann, and sometimes Griffin McElroy talk about video games and their lives in general. I got to know each of them and began to understand their frame of reference for video games. I came to realize that Griffin’s top 10 list each year would give me more “oddball” choices, so I’d eagerly wait for his list.
When I learned that Chris Grant was leaving Joystiq, handing over the Editor-in-Chief position to Ludwig, I was happy for Ludwig but very sad to hear Chris was leaving. When I heard that Justin and Griffin were leaving, I actually got excited. No, not because I was glad to see them go. If all three of them were leaving, surely they were leaving together! They went to work for Vox Media, who owns The Verge.
Eventually it was revealed that the new game site would be called Polygon. And they forgot to hire web programmers for months and months (I can only assume).
Luckily, the wait is over. On Tuesday I received the following e-mail:
A long time ago, on a landing page far, far away, you ignored everything your parents ever taught you and entered your email address into a form on the internet. While normally we would join your parents in frowning on this kind of behavior, this one time it seems to have worked out! You asked to be notified when Polygon.com — the new video game website from Vox Media — was live and well, friend … today’s that day.
So fire up your favorite web browser, be it desktop, tablet, or mobile-based, and load up:
-Team Polygon
I’ll need to spend some time getting to know Polygon to get a feel for the writers and the type of content they provide. I’ve looked it at a little and already noticed that while I love the layout, I think the 20-point scale for reviews is too specific. However, their review policy is very interested. The reviewer writes the review but doesn’t score it. He or she then sits down with senior editors to discuss what numeric score accurately reflects the review as it was written. It’s a new of way of giving a numeric score, and I like it!
Anyways, go check out Polygon! Also, don’t forget about Joystiq and of course Game Boyz, the site for which I review iOS titles (and once in a while PC titles).
Polygons and Pixels 