8.5
Back before we launched in early 2012 we knew what we wanted to be but didn’t really know what we were about. We knew we needed an ‘about’ page though, so while developing the rest of the site we just stuck up the lyrics to Fresh Prince of Bel-air to pad the page out. Obviously we forgot that was there and it wasn’t until a few days later a reader noticed and pointed out we’d gone live with it. Then we had a problem, we needed to write ‘about us’ and it sounds odd but we still had no idea what we were about. Sure we could spout the whole “by gamers, for gamers” stuff, or even make a statement about how we weren’t going to bombard you with statements like “by gamers, for gamers” to try and seem cool. Hand on heart though, we really just didn’t know what we were about.
The name was the one we chose from a huge list; other possibilities included DiscTwitching – which we ditched because there’s a huge possibility discs wont be around in a few years, and PadTwisters or PushAToStart felt too bloggy. About 100 others just didn’t seem to fit. Nestled in at number fifteen on the list was ‘The Game Jar’; it came up in conversation between us when one of our writers (probably Joey) was showing off about how he had a game to review before anybody else or something like that. It’s something too many people on ‘our side of the fence’ do, and something that irritates one of the site’s editors (Lee) greatly. Following his show off moment he was told to put a pound in the jar, and it was at that moment the name, and in a way the tone of the website, was set.
The Game Jar means lots of things, and probably different things to many people -that core idea of there being an imaginary jar that you need to put a pound in every time you show off is one that we think keeps us grounded, and our writers in check. We want The Game Jar to become a place to interact and have conversations with people, maybe from time to time spark a little debate. We’re no better than our readers and won’t pretend to be; we’d much rather have a conversation with them than tell them how it is, and it’s that core belief we want to stick to.
The Indie Jar is something that kind of happened by accident; we knew we wanted to work with and cover as many indie games as possible but didn’t dream that so many indie developers would want to work with us. After our first article under TheIndieJar banner went up we were overwhelmed with responses, and made the decision to dedicate every Thursday to them. Gabe could offer us an exclusive on Half Life 3 on a Thursday and we’d say “Sorry Gabe… Thursdays are for indies” …although technically Valve are indies right? If you are an indie and happen to be reading this page we really want to hear from you. We don’t care what it is you have to show, be it early concept art, screenshots, trailers or maybe you’d like us to review your finished game. Just contact us and we’ll work with you to hopefully build as much buzz for your game as possible.
That goes for you big boys too, both advertisers and developers. If there is ever anything you’d like to talk to us about just swing by our contact page and get in touch.
So there you have it – that is start of the story all about how Jennifer, Ben and Lee’s lives got flipped, turned upside down and for now what our not quite popular video game website The Game Jar is about.
Editors Lee Williams & Jennifer Taylor.
