At some point over the night, our Patreon rocketed past $7,000. We’re so close to our goal that I can taste it. You guys are amazing, and I know I’ve been saying that a lot recently but, I don’t know what else to say to express the immense amount of gratitude we’re all feeling here. The success of the Patreon is super validating to all of us here, as Shaun nailed it when we were talking about it last night in saying that site traffic statistics don’t measure how much people care about what you’re doing, Patreon contributions do. It’s awesome to be doing something people care about, which really, has been our goal all along.
Anyway, yesterday we heard from Jared Bailey of Nocanwin who sort of perfectly embodies the scrappy indie developer spirit that we try to foster so much around TouchArcade. Today, we’re going in the total opposite direction in hearing from Neil Young. He’s currently with N3TWORK working on things which have yet to be revealed, but you probably know him as the CEO of ngmoco.
While ngmoco very much was on the forefront of the switch to free to play, they were also single handedly responsible for elevating the iOS gaming platform from the late 2008/early 2009 games that basically could be described as “games that happen to run on the iPhone" to things you feel comfortable calling “iPhone games." While everyone else was trying to figure out how to do the least clunky virtual controls, ngmoco released Rolando which was super special as it was among the very first game that could only exist on touchscreen devices like the iPhone. When indie developers of the time were treating the iPhone as an experimental side project, ngmoco was devoting millions of dollars to catapulting the iOS gaming platform forward.
Here’s what Neil has to say about TouchArcade:
Late in October of 2008, shortly after releasing our first games at ngmoco, I spoke to Blake Patterson and Arnold Kim. I’ve been in video games all my working life and I’ve done countless interviews with websites & magazines, many of which I no longer recall anything about, let alone the content or the tone. This was different – what struck me was the enthusiasm and energy that Blake and Arn had for games and for the iPhone….it was infectious! So much so that you wanted to tell them everything about everything that you were doing and, more importantly, share the why. Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs with TouchArcade and the community that orbits around the great editorial from Eli & the rest of the team – those “Ups” always made me smile and the “Downs” always made me wonder what I could do better. The idea of our new company, N3TWORK, not getting to participate in that rollercoaster makes me more than sad.
The iOS gaming world is a better place with the TouchArcade team and the TouchArcade community intact. It’s places like TouchArcade that connect Fans & Gamemakers together into a single entity, that applauds, debates and sometimes decries what we do that ultimately makes it and us better.
Among the coolest things about TouchArcade is how we can merge these two worlds – the Jared Baileys and the Neil Youngs – into one platform that’s important to everyone. Neil is right here, in that at the end of the day we’re just excited about iPhone games, and I think that really translates to the vibe that makes this place so totally radical, and unlike anywhere else on the internet that’s discussing iOS games. If you too think that sort of thing is important…
