This blog started life as the Shadow of a Soul development blog. But over the course of a month it has become a pretty desperate place. Why? Because of lack of publicity. I talk about lack of publicity in about 90% of my posts. As an independent developer, it’s crazy important for your word to stand out among the other 3 billion AAA titles. However, nobody gives a shit until you release your game. If they like it fine, they will be more open to posting some news on their websites… about your NEXT GAME. Which, to be fair, is perfectly understandable. But still, sometimes it makes me want to scream: Post my fucking news! Enough of the beautiful, fun, 5+ million selling AAA titles. Add some variety to the mix (like my news and trailer) so that people will appreciate those AAA titles more. It’s a win-win situation.

But, over the course of this month, I’ve come to realize the issue is much deeper than that. I asked myself: Who is not writing about my game? My research led me to some terrifying conclusions which I will share with you now. However, if you are a sensitive person, and an indie developer like me, be warned, you may find it difficult to handle the truth!

The News Editor. Sounds innocent right? That’s the title of the person responsible for writing news about games. These individuals are basically gatekeepers. It they don’t publish your news, nobody will know about your game. Why? Here’s the answer.

For gaming sites to review your game you need to send your finished game one month before its official release date. Now, considering they have 30 AAA titles waiting to be reviewed, the chances that your game will be a top priority are pretty slim. So you need some buffer. But here’s the problem: when the guy responsible for reviews takes your game in his hands and looks at the cover (or something else if it’s a digital download) he’ll probably say, “I’ve never heard of this game before.” And who will he turn around to and ask about it…? The all-knowing News Editor, of course. “Do you know anything about this game?” And the News Editor will answer innocently, “No.” Then the reviewer will say, “Fuck this shit.” and throw your game, and your dreams, into the trash. True story.

Based on these facts, I wanted to learn as much as I could about News Editors. Learning more about them could give me an advantage on my quest for publicity and blunt my insatiable desire for press coverage.

The first step on my journey was taken almost accidentally when I noticed this photo (see below). You probably won’t see anything wrong with it at first glance. It was posted on a News Editor’s blog (AHA!!!, so he hangs around mountains!). Looks pretty, doesn’t it?

I don’t know why but something in the photo caught my eye, so I decided to take a closer look.

Still nothing? Now, let’s look a little closer. I’m going to zoom into the photo.

At this point, I decided to use my special zooming software™ to enhance the image. The results speak for themselves.



What you see blow is the enhanced version of the upper image. At this point, I got very excited; I felt that I was on to something. So I decided to use the procedure above to zoom into the end of this tunnel.



I used my special zooming software™ to enhance the image still further. Watch closely! What you are about to witness will shake you to your very core.

This is the stuff of nightmares.

A terror of epic proportions.

Witness, the News Editors!!!

Thanks to my special zooming software™ I was able to penetrate into the very core of the World of News Editors™!

Here, you can clearly see two of them; probably hunting for independent game developers. There must be others around somewhere, with computers. Unfortunately, this is as far I could get with my special zooming software™.

From what I can tell from the image, they could very well be part of a gigantic colony! That’s the only way to explain why we always see the same news on all gaming sites! They must be feeding off each other! Those evil bastards.

The story doesn’t end here, unfortunately.

I recently received an email from a News Editor. Within seconds, I started to feel tense – like someone was squeezing me – then the feeling turned into confusion; I couldn’t understand what was going on with my mind. It was full of terrifying thoughts and images. Then confusion turned into intense fear, although, rationally, there was nothing around to fear. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I was sitting, as usual, in my underwear, in front of the computer. In the end, the intense fear became overwhelming, and I fainted.

I woke up three days later (true story).

And, at that instant, I knew exactly what had happened to me. I had been… mindfucked!

The mystical art of mindfucking is beyond the scope of this article, so I’m not going to get into that.

What mindfucked me was an email from a News Editor who shall remain nameless.

But how could this be? To answer this question, I went to the source of the problem, the seemingly innocuous email, and started to examine it very carefully. To cut a long story short, my research led me to a terrifying conclusion: News Editors had mastered the ancient art of subliminal messaging! This editor used a Trojan (in this case, the subliminal message you see below) to penetrate into the deepest recesses of my mind, and mindfuck me from inside!

What you see below is a video I recorded from my special zooming software™.

“Why would they do that?” you may ask. The purpose is clear my friends; they want to prevent you from ever approaching them again! and they want to send you and your game into the oblivion where you’ll be gangbanged by the psychotic gods collectively known as… AAA!

BUT still, the story doesn’t end here…

In part two of this article you will learn about the evil practices of Press Release Companies.

God bless independent game developers. Stay strong my dear friends.