Man Bytes Blog Closes

Corvus announced yesterday that he was closing Man Bytes Blog, after nearly five years of publicly pondering the relationships between stories and games. He's not giving up blogging - a new blog will appear in 2010 - but he's scaling it back to something smaller and simpler.

It seems that change is in the air at the moment, as a huge number of people are reassessing their relationships with their blogs this winter. I started to reconsider my blog situation in September, and many other bloggers are in a similar boat right now. Among the many factors at work here perhaps a key issue is that intensive blogging is easy to do when one starts - when the thrill of the new keeps the endeavour buoyant - but harder to maintain for any length of time. In some respects, a lively blog might be (like the original assignment of the starship Enterprise) a five year mission, at most. However, I also suspect that it is Twitter which is causing a lot of the reconsideration right now, as Matt Mower muses in his contemplation of exiting the blogosphere.

Whatever the reason, I wanted to take the time to say a fond farewell to Man Bytes Blog, which as one of the first blogs to collide with Only a Game has a special place in my heart. Back at the beginning, Corvus and I were exploring similar thoughts concerning narrative in games but in entirely conflicting terms, and it was fascinating to argue with him about it. Alas, I now find narrative in games to be something I deal with solely in my work and have little to say about it in my free time. Corvus, on the other hand, remains dedicated to exploring his vision of the possibilities of collaborative storytelling, and it pleases me that he has not been dulled in his fervour by his practical experiences of the videogames industry.

The Blogs of the Round Table, which Corvus has run diligently for so long, has been a high point of my videogame blogging experience. Another blog is apparently going to take it over, which is good news, but since my blogging is increasingly philosophical and decreasingly videogame-oriented I will take this juncture as an opportunity to exit the table, and thank everyone who participated with me - in posts or comments - in the fascinating discussions that the Round Table has thrown up over the years, and especially to Corvus for being our virtual King Arthur for so long.

Farewell Man Bytes Blog, and best of luck to Corvus in all his future endeavours!

Comments

[Patrick]

Maybe you and Corvus you chip occasional guest reviews at Play This Thing!

[Chris]

To review a game, I'd first have to play one. :) I'm afraid I'm so off videogames right now it's not even funny... it's bad enough I have to work on them. ;) If I wasn't a judge in the IGF this year, I wouldn't be playing any videogames at all right now.