Pay up, dirtbags

Stand and deliver, word scrounger. When we launched Jank back in the primordial days of, let's see, January, we promised the first month would be free to everyone - all posts readable, no registration needed. Then we forgot to put up the paywall for five consecutive months. That is a 400% increase in the number of free words you were originally promised. You will not get this incredible combo of value and absent-mindedness from any other PC games blog.

But the sun is setting on those glory days. A writer must eat. If we continue to give away all our favourite nouns and verbs for zero British pounds then we will starve before we even play all the videogames. And then what will you read? Rock Paper Shotgun? Don't make me laugh. No. I am sorry. The paywall must go up. So, in a publicity exercise carefully designed to disguise all discontent resulting from this decision, we therefore announce a special week of themed features. This is Wall Week.

Wall Week will make sense when you see what we are writing about. Bricks. Plaster. Robots? Whatever. We don't need to rationalise our off-the-wall celebration of barriers and bulwarks in videogames. The articles coming up will explain themselves. But what does need explaining is exactly how our actual paywall will now manifest. Here are the important points which I have chosen to communicate in FAQ format because it is fun to write that way.

How many articles can I read for free before I see the paywall?

It depends how generous we're feeling that week. Our plan is to put one, two, or maybe three articles under the paywall every week, and leave others free. We'll decide on an article-by-article basis. This means you might get halfway through a feature and hit a dead end with a big sign marked "subscribers only". At which point you can choose to pay us, or shrug and ride off into the cyber sunset. Good riddance! [Spits] Never wanted you to read our blog anyway! [Eyes welling up with tears] Not as if we could have been... [Sniffing, choking on lump in throat] ... f-f-friends.

What about my favourite regular column?

Some of these will require a paid subscription and some we're keeping free because it's more fun that way. For example, What You Could Play This Weekend is staying free because the chit chat and craic of the comment section is the whole point. It makes no sense to make it an exclusionary den (that's what the subscribers-only Discord is for). Similarly, The Lie-In is staying free because that's part of its spirit - sharing and discussing interesting games writing online. There may come a day when we change our mind about this and wall up these columns too. But for now, they're yours for nothing.

Other stuff, like Living In Sim or [REDACTED UPCOMING COLUMN FROM YOUR FAVOURITE WRITER] might be paywalled. Like I say, we require sustenance.

What about all the articles you've done so far?

They stay free. We're not retroactively adding a paywall to anything written before this week. This is because we are magnanimous princes, and definitely not because it would be a huge pain in the arse to go through 200+ posts and insert paywall stubs. You're welcome.

What about Wall Week?

Every article for Wall Week is paywalled. Fuck you.

I only follow Jank because I listen to Total Playtime. Does this change anything for me?

No. The paywall for the podcast was already in place. Following the recent house move from the crumbling abode at Patreon over to this much cosier website, the podcast is fairly straightforward. Beloved freeloaders get an episode every fortnight, whereas paying Jank supporters get twice as much - a fresh episode every week.

I already pay for Jank - what now?

Readers who already pay for their Jank subscription won't notice any change. Everything will just appear like usual. Deep inside, you may experience a subtle sensation of superiority. This is normal.

Okay, look I'm broke. What does a free sign-up get me?

With a free sign-up you still get to comment. That hasn't changed. You also still get our newsletter every Saturday from Jonty, rounding up our work at Jank alongside news from the wider games industry in the most densely compacted and dry-witted reporting as he is capable. And there will still be some free articles, so, that's cool?

I don't think Jank is worth it. What have you actually done in the last five months? Pfft.

We presented the best games of the decade so far, we merged with Total Playtime, we reviewed Resident Evil Requiem, we reviewed Titanium Court, we reviewed 11 other games, we forced Bennett Foddy to climb a mountain, we spoke to the developers of Mouthwashing and Skin Deep and quite a few others, we waged war with generative AI, we went to the pub, we ran away from a centipede, we fixed broken cars together, we died in Marathon together, we forced famous game characters to battle one another to the death, we squinted judgingly at Gabe Newell's latest yacht, we gave you our Next Fest recommendations, we asked Valve to make a cheaper, worse Steam Deck, we commissioned Sin Vega, we commissioned Alice Bell, we commissioned Jeremy Peel, we commissioned Nic Reuben, we commissioned Jim Rossingnol, we listed our favourite multiplayer FPS levels of all time (and our favourite singleplayer levels too), we added a dark mode, we added gift subscriptions, we added a tip jar, we made a channel in the Discord dedicated to pet photos, we–

Okay, shut up.

I'll shut up when you pay me. Enjoy Wall Week, you son of a bitch.