Hello reader! This is not a review. You probably realized that. 

We won’t bury the lede: Pixel Die will no longer be updated every week. We’ll get into the reasons and how we intend to move forward in detail below, but that’s the TL;DR. This decision hasn’t been made lightly, especially given our track record. Never missing a deadline in 5+ years with a team of two is something we take an immense amount of pride in! That said, now’s the time, and here’s why.

Believe it or not, this isn’t a burnout problem. Not yet, anyway. We both love writing, about games and otherwise, and intend to do so here and elsewhere going forward. Pixel Die was and is a passion project. We love indie games, especially the ones that often go by the wayside, and will always look to raise the profile of the little guy in our own small way. Seeing a dev light up our inbox with gratitude for our time, no matter how we felt about the game, means the world. Our mission was to provide games writing without being beholden to any financial pressures. No ads, no sponsorships, no affiliates or marketing BS, just games and words about them grown organically. And we succeeded! Our numbers are well above what we ever expected when we kicked off, and we’re grateful for every click.

That said, it also means that this project has required a constant drain of resources, especially time. To be frank, our day jobs and responsibilities have gotten to the point where completing a game and giving it the writeup it deserves just isn’t always feasible. We’ve dodged this in the past with editorials, small listicles, and season-appropriate multi-subject roundups, but those articles don’t age the best and have always felt like a compromise. Neither of us are tech execs that can play games on the clock! 

A little more from us:

Demetri: Something I noticed is that my professional games writing habits from years back began to creep into my work for PD. I would play thoroughly but sometimes at a quickened pace, rushing to the next thing the game had to show me out of obligation rather than anticipation. My sessions got more intense, often rolling credits in a single sitting despite that not being my personal preference, not allowing as much time to ruminate and reflect. I allowed myself to treat what was originally intended to be passionate and unprofessional play in the exact opposite manner, all in service of a deadline that we considered immovable despite the fact that we set it.

Aside from preemptively mitigating burnout, my goal in slowing our output is to give us the time and opportunity to create writing that ages gracefully. It would allow us to collaborate more, conduct more interviews, and write articles that offer more than just critique. We have a couple WIP drafts that are awesome, but require more time, research, and play than our site schedule has permitted up until now. Pieces like my UFO 50 ranking or the Kane & Lynch 2 retrospective required several late nights of constant effort to the detriment of future-Demetri, and while I’m proud of the end results, I also know that I would advise anyone who was putting in a similar level of effort to dial it back a bit. Articles like those are what I find most fulfilling and valuable to create; I want to give myself the time to make them the best they can be.

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Kyle: Back in late 2019, we were working for the love of reviewing and not having another platform to hold our hand in getting our words out, so we took the jump on WordPress and haven’t looked back.  But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how the amount of stuff between now and then has added some hours to my schedule.  I was a grunt in a corporate firm when we started PixelDie, now I’m managing that same department, and with it comes many more hours and weekends of work that pulls directly from my time to play games.

It’s just “Life” sometimes to get off of a long day of work and want to dick around and play multiplayer games with your friends, and having the looming deadline over your shoulder making you feel bad about just chilling and decompressing isn’t what we wanted when we started this website.  I’m confident that having articles come out “When They’re Ready™” will not only give us peace of mind we’re giving y’all our best, but also get us to where we won’t burn out.  I love writing, I love games, and I love the future of playing things and discussing them with y’all for years to come!

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We care about this site a lot. Building 5-and-change years of articles on our own time and dime doesn’t happen by accident. The hope is to keep this thing going well into the future, and the best way to do that, contradictory though it may seem, is to scale the post frequency back. When you see us next, expect something great.