Year 3

Three Years of B.A.T.G.R.: A Letter from Dustin – Shifting Perspectives

/ Dustin Murphy / Leave a comment

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At Blast Away the Game Review there’s always something unique happening here. Whether it’s us having the honor to work with new developers, working with big publishers, or even just finding some news of our own – or simply finding out what peaks your interests. As Blast Away the Game Review grows, so does our interest in what our focus is going to be, what our “niche” will focus on.

For the past three years Blast Away the Game Review has been an independent journalism website or blog, whichever you prefer to see it as, and we won’t argue that point. Our goal over the past three years has been to both expand with new companies, finding new writers, and finding new ways to cover games as well as the hardware that drives them. We’ve been doing unboxing videos via YouTube to ensure that you have a new variety of items to look forwards to and to save yourself the trouble of opening that collector’s edition. With our fourth year almost here, on July 13th, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking. There’s always that going on and let me tell you – it’s dangerous.

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For our third year active, we, meaning the team, and I have noticed our focus has been a lot on Japanese titles with a mix of big and little publishers. While that will remain our focus, our fourth year will bring interesting changes as we’ve been working with the wonderful teams at all the publishers we currently work with. For our fourth year you may see a little less expanding in the companies we work with and a focus pushing on the ones we work with now. While that, to some of you, may be detrimental, we feel it is for the best of interest on both parties. As we do align a focus to what our “niche” is, we want you to know nothing is truly changing in regards to most of the content you’ll see here.

This entire shifting of perspectives is because you are important to us, so is your interaction on our social media, here on our website, and our overall growth as a whole. While we are already quickly pushing towards the 6.7k readers mark, which is already over half of what we had last year, we’re still looking at growing more. However, this also means one thing – we want more feedback from you, we want to see more interactions with you, our reader. Not just with our team, but with each other, which is why today? I’m proud to announce that we are opening up our Facebook Group to you all. Not just family and friends, but to the public. We are also proud to announce we’ll be working with The International Players Lounge on Facebook to help bring light to an amazing community.

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As our fourth year gets underway, so does our need for knowing what you our reader wants to see, what would make you more interested in commenting, interacting with us, and giving us your thoughts/opinions in regards to topics or news we cover. If you want to contact us directly? You can always hit us up through our Contact Us form where we are glad to respond soon as we get the email. In turn, with this info, what would you like to see more of? We ask you, our reader, because this to B.A.T.G.R. as a whole is important, it is what drives us, not just the ability to work with the people we do, but you as well. You can also take a short survey below to let us know what you want to see more of or would like to see change in coverage. The survey is powered by Google Forms and we do not request any personal information.

Want to take the Year 3 Survey? Please do so! We look forwards to any feedback possible.

With our 3rd years end quickly coming up, I would like to personally take a moment to thank the following publishers, former B.A.T.G.R. members, and current B.A.T.G.R. members in helping make Blast Away the Game Review what it is today.

Past Members

  • Jesse Olvera, former Vice President and Critic
  • Josh Turner, former Senior Writer and Junior Editor
  • Johnny Walker Red, former PC Game Reviewer, and Tech Enthusiast
  • Aaron Johnson, former Junior Editor
  • Casey Neal Todd, former Editor-in-Chief
  • Angie Morrison, former Nintendo Writer, Enthusiast and Reviewer
  • Justin DeMaio, former PlayStation 4 Game Reviewer
  • Kennard Daniel Prim, Contributing Writer

Current Members

  • David Murphy, Vice President, and Bethesda Game Studios Enthusiast
  • Shannon Cusick, Future YouTube Content Creator
  • Annie Helseth, PC Enthusiast, Game Critic, and Digital Artist
  • Greg F, Camera Guy, Localized Game Enthusiast, and that dude
  • Devon Day, Tech Guru, and Audiophile
  • Sarah Gibson, the lady behind the scenes, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward fan
  • Christopher Adee, Junior Writer, that guy, and Warframe junkie

Publishers, Developers, Communities and more

  • Bungie
  • Bethesda Zenimax
  • Nintendo Entertainment America
  • Koei Tecmo
  • Eletronic Arts
  • Ubisoft
  • Bandai Namco
  • Square Enix
  • Blizzard Entertainment
  • Nilo Studios
  • XSeed Games
  • OnePR Studio
  • Sega
  • Atlus USA
  • Idea Factory
  • NIS America
  • Digital Extremes
  • Final Boss Entertainment
  • Sony San Diego Studio
  • id Software
  • Tripwire Interactive
  • Zenimax Online Studio
  • QuakeCon Event Staff and Planning
  • Oklahoma Retro Gamer Society
  • Pixels Without Borders
  • N4G
  • International Players Lounge

Special thank you to all of you, our readers. Thank you for a wonderful third year and we look forwards to many more with you.

About the Writer:

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Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.