Unwinnable Monthly – September 2024
This is a reprint of the letter from the editor in Unwinnable Monthly Issue 179. You can buy Issue 179 now, or purchase a monthly subscription to make sure you never miss an issue!
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Dear Reader,
Doing things in an odd order this time: first up, an absolute fever of a piece on Final Fantasy VIII by Luis Aguasvivas.
For our cover (by Ellie Jo Livingston) Elijah Beahm learns how you get a disaster like Aliens: Colonial Marines. The schemes of Weyland-Yutani are not the only corporate misdeeds here: Elijah’s piece comes to us courtesy of the ashes of Game Informer.
GI published their final issue in July, then had their website and digital archive shuttered. Someone who was more concerned with ROI and Growth killed one of the most popular magazines in America. I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with many a GI writer and staffer, among them Kyle Hilliard, Elijah’s editor on this piece, who deserves special thanks here. And to the whole Game Informer team, you brought so much joy to so many, you all deserved better.
For this month’s Funeral Rites, brought to you by Exalted Funeral, Orrin Grey picks a path through the Ballads of Oræd.
As for the accounting of our regular rogues . . . we have Jay Castello with a recipe! Maddi Chilton is also interested in food…secret theme issue? Noah Springer is out of touch with the culture (okay good, balance restored.) Justin Reeve builds a room, fills it with enemies, shoots them. Rip and tear until it is done. Rob Rich looks obliquely into a mirror. Levi Rubeck watches Alone, together. Matt Marrone heads to everyone’s favorite folk festival! And Phoenix Simms brings us home on Game Informer (and didn’t even know about the feature).
The passing of Game Informer is indicative of the way that corporate parasites happily own the things we love while they’re profitable and just as happily destroy them when the tide turns. GameStop is a wildly mismanaged company, but for an unknowably large number of people their magazine brought joy. It didn’t deserve to end like this. It didn’t deserve to end.
See you all in the next Exploits!
David Shimomura
Chicago, IL
September 12, 2024
