Pocket Tactics died the second they gave me money to write things.
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Just so it’s clear, I don’t hold anything against Joe for posting a sponsored article. I’m guessing this came from his bosses and wasn’t his idea, and, even if it was, well, I’m not against making money doing this. I’m just really bad at it. 
(I should note that everyone’s correct, the fact that it’s clearly labeled as sponsored is to Joe’s credit. After all, I know a little something about dishonesty and Pocket Tactics and this is far more transparent than I was until that fateful December post two years ago)
What struck me when I saw it is that Pocket Tactics is now dead. At least my romanticized memory of it. I know it has been for a while, but this just drove it home. The past is the past and things will never be the way they were. Hence, my Ozymandias jab (it wasn’t really meant as a “fuck you” to Joe, more as a sadness for things that were…in retrospect, it was probably a dick move to post it). It’s not Joe’s fault that things have moved forward, it is what it is and old empires crumble and fall (turns out this happens a lot faster when the king abdicates and goes underground).
Seeing a sponsored post just convinced me that it’s time to move on. The site I used to work for and love doesn’t exist anymore, at least not as anything I can recognize. I’m okay with that and I hope Joe keeps the lights on over there for a long time. I’m just probably not going to visit anymore.
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If you hadn’t made your Ozymandias post then Joe wouldn’t have had the chance to very dryly thank you for your input. I think that tickled me almost as much as your post did, and seemed like the perfect response when someone starts quoting 19th century sonnets at you.
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What ever happened to Owen? I remember him dropping off the map after his personal life had some rough bumps, but he promised to be around for a bit and…nothing.
I hope he’s doing well
I must admit, I didn’t unfollow Pocket Tactics for this. It’s been hanging out in my RSS feed and Twitter for a long time. But today I saw a headline I read as “non-wargaming spouse? Here’s how to prioritize your hobby over your spouse’s preferences and wheedle them into playing with you, at least until the divorce”. That did it.
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Yeah, oof.
Where was this? I can’t tell if you’re being serious or if this is parody.
I dunno, over at the wargamer it’s “The Wargamer’s Guide To: Wargames with the Wife”:
Need some last minute entertainment ideas for you and your significant other? The other Joe is here with a list of table-top games you can introduce your spouse to this holiday season.
He did disappear, but he’s back around now. He’s a patron! Hoping he comes to the forums one day, but we’ll see.
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I exaggerate; it was this tweet, which advertises the article @Falkenstein referenced:
https://twitter.com/wargamercom/status/1077198849243054080?s=21
I get the appeal of sharing our hobbies with our loved ones, so I understand how you can write that. But it scares the bejeezus out of me, because it seems oddly oblivious to the more problematic tendencies of many gamers and the potential for harm that comes from advice like this. Read by mature readers who are able to keep their interests in perspective and respect their spouse’s boundaries, it has the potential to be quite a nice resource. But, if you write for gamers, you ought to understand that a lot of us are not superb at unstructured human interaction. What that makes me fear is that it sets some readers’ mental anchor at “my spouse/family isn’t doing enough for me if they don’t try at least each of these games”. I hate the idea of giving people reasons to feel aggrieved.
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I go over there every now and then to check their top lists and to get my F2P news. I don’t mind a F2P game now and the
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The final letter of this comment is available via iap. If you buy a bundle of final letters then that’s the best value 
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Shut the site down, we’ve peaked.
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Surely winner of comment of the year, very late but nevertheless the best.
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I tried hard to enjoy the comment without the IAP but somehow it felt like it wasn’t designed for that.
One thing in PT’s defense: losing the money for Apple referrals seemed to hit hard. And it’s not like they were flush with cash before that.
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That’s actually a key point with regard to referrals. Toucharcade has been very much hit the same way. Where does the income come in?
Ads. Paid content. Subscriptions. Not sure there are a lot of models for revenue at this point beyond that for that kind of site.
A number of us support this site via the Patreon, but I have not/would not do that for any other site that I frequent. Boardgamegeek takes donations, which I give because (if you ignore the forums) I get a lot of valuable use out of that site for reference function. It’s the same for wikipedia.
But I don’t think BGG, wikipedia, or this site are for-profit or out to be a “business” exactly. Whereas the other sites mentioned are trying to be businesses (or parts thereof). So they need a serious revenue stream or it’s lights out.
I came as quickly as I could - someone told me Pocket Tactics was dead!? Was it peaceful? Was anyone with them at the end!? What do we do now?
But seriously… hello. I’m here just to say a couple of things, and I will leave you all be. You all left PT for a reason and it wouldn’t be right of me to follow you to your new digs like some clingy spectre, trying to get you all to play F2P games with poor spelling.
@Neumannium can even delete my account if he wants when I’m done. The amount of times he’s done drive-bys on the PT forum though, I think I can be forgiven one post
I would just like to say thank you to everyone here who still reads us - it’s been nice chatting to people every now and then and having some semblance of an engaged community. I’d fight anyone who says PT is dead in the literal sense (nostalgia sense is fair enough), but the forum is well and truly on life-support. I don’t really know what to do about it. Also it’s a GDPR headache.
If anyone see’s the Langrisser content as the final straw, including Dave etc… then I’m sorry. As people have noted, this kind of content is labelled as much as I can. From my POV it’s no different to an advert, and so people should treat it as such. I will pursue more opportunities as they come up because they give me the breathing room to focus on the important content. Like I doubt you’ll be seeing more than one a month, maybe two if we suddenly become hot Sh*t or something.
I would implore you to re-think. I mean, as much as I can’t live up to PT’s glory days, I would defy anyone who thinks we don’t cover the same topics as before. The frequency is lower, we’ve diversified on talking points for sure… but this idea we’re some kind of F2P trash bag is unfair, and you’re all better than that.
Speaking of… recently we reviewed two big releases - C&C Rivals and _Kingdom Rush Vengeance. It’s easy to take a dump on Rivals because it’s EA, F2P and a bastardisation of a beloved franchise. I wasn’t really interested in the easy route - I’ve got all you guys if I want to populate my site with anti-F2P sentiment. Brandon had been playing the closed beta a lot and was genuinely trying to champion it as a game worth playing so I allowed him to review it on his terms. I did stress that I wanted him to take the monetisation to task as much as possible, but there’s only so much I can influence a reviewer in their review. I probably over-stepped just advising him as I did.
Kingdom Rush … well like I said to Biff, I don’t really know what to say. It seemed like a good fit and Richard honestly didn’t find the IAPs a problem. It’s not really my place to tell him he’s wrong.
I do kinda take it personally every time someone claims that an activity we do is a ‘cash-grab’. No offence, you have no idea what you’re talking about or what it takes to run a website - Dave knows, and Dave understands that sometimes we do what we must if we seriously want to keep something we love going. But to think we do anything “just for the money” I mean… wow. Thanks for having faith in me as a person, I guess.
I actually take Dave’s counter-take to heart, and I know that premium games should be supported as much as they can. But I also can’t ignore F2P’s growing role as a legitimate business model (as opposed to the trash that it’s known for). Like, Fortnite is not a trash game. Rivals ok… probably trash but time will tell on that one. And Vengeance is still a relic of an over-bearing IAP system. This is my job, guys, I can’t ignore this stuff.
Finally, @rinelk comments on the Wargamer article on wargaming with spouses - I had my concerns that perhaps something would go wrong with the messaging, but it was not my intent to offend anyone. If anyone wants to email me or something, talk over the piece, I would be very willing to listen to try and do better.
Again, one article shouldn’t erase years’ worth of quality wargaming content, but you each make your own choices. Sorry if we’ve lost you.
I will leave it there - thank you all for your time and you can always email me or w/e if you want to follow up on anything I’ve said. Out of respect for Dave and Kelsey, I will not be replying to any comments unless they give me permission. You know where I am, you are all welcome to hit me up whenever you want.
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For me it pretty much was because I stopped playing mobile games, more or less.
I still read Wargamer, though!
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Delete? Personally I think @Neumannium should give you some honorary title - Adjunct Contrarian, say - and carte blanche to come by and make reasoned comments in defence of the F2P title du jour.
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