Jank business

Seven months into Jank’s life, we have finally put up the paywall, compelling more readers to join the exalted ranks of the discerning literati who have backed us from the beginning. Now, it is time to start tempting more into joining the fold. 

At the time of writing, we have been blessed by 747 paying subscribers, bolstered by a series of folks who've contributed one-off donations. We are hugely thankful for all of them: we're grateful that people want to support this sort of website, and we're only able to do it thanks to their generous support. Our audience is small, but perfectly formed: the Discord remains a chill and pleasant place to be, and spawned a dedicated channel for pet photos right on schedule. 

The founders do not currently draw any salary from Jank. We are doing this because we want it to exist, and to endure without exhausting obligations to traffic and advertising. The income from subscribers covers our hosting costs for the website and podcast, plus other business expenses, but it’s mostly going on paying other writers to contribute posts to the site: every new subscription will go towards

We want you to read Jank, but that doesn't mean we need you to visit our website. There are no adverts here, so your clicks? Worthless to us. You can keep your clicks to yourself, frankly, and the best way to do that is by subscribing to Jank in your RSS reader and enjoying our work from there.

We've always had a full text RSS feed, but when we started slipping certain posts behind the paywall (because we do want your money), those posts became truncated within the feed. Paying members had to click over to the site in order to access the rest of the article. I can't abide that, so we've fixed it. There's now a second full text RSS feed for paying subscribers.

This new RSS feed is behind a URL that is unique to each paying subscriber. If you're signed in and a paying member, it should display in this helpful box:

Jank has been alive for six months. That's older than some babies I know. Since our launch at the dawning of the year we've been writing non-stop, except for the hours 9am to 5pm, which is when we have to work real jobs to feed our families, dogs, and cars. Like many of you, we are not permitted to Jank on company time. 

This hasn't slowed us down. We've written over 200 articles so far, and commissioned more from our favourite word mercenaries roaming the land. You've maybe missed a few of these articles and I don't blame you - you're a busy person, you have obscure JRPGs to play I have never heard of. So here's a round-up of our best work so far. Alongside a quick look at our plans for the future.

We reviewed new and old games

We've reviewed 17 games in total so far, which may not sound like much compared to bigger websites. But look at us, we're tiny. Some sites no longer bother to write reviews at all, or only focus on the big releases. But we don't discriminate between

We didn't know what the response would be when we launched Jank, except for one undoubtable fact: people were going to ask for a dark mode. Sure enough, you did, and so now we have one. Head down to the footer and you'll find a toggle to travel into what I am affectionately calling the After Eight zone.

Or perhaps you don't have to. The site should respect whatever dark mode setting you already have set within your browser, so it may well already be dark without you needing to press the switch. Either way, you can select whichever you prefer and the site will remember between sessions.

Oh! Since you clicked through to the full post, you don't even have to scroll down to the footer. You can just click the button here. Don't tell the others:

If you have any feedback on how dark mode looks, please let us know in the comments. I prefer my sites to be bright like lightly spoiled snow, so I may not know precisely what you desire from the dark web. Is it contrasty enough? Does our reddish-orange accent colour work on a darker background better

As part of our launch, Jank is partnering with the fine podcast Total Playtime, which not-at-all-coincidentally is hosted by Jonty and Brendy along with fellow veterans Alice Bell and Nate Crowley. It has been running for a little over a year and publishes free episodes every two weeks, or monthly for those who back it on Patreon. 

The free version of Total Playtime is available here, and every two weeks it offers:

• Discussion of the latest PC gaming news
• Judgements on the games we’re playing
• Recommendations for new games
• Updates on Alice’s dog and Nate’s cats
• A recommendation every week of something that is not a videogame, because true satisfaction can only be achieved from a balanced cultural diet.

As part of the partnership, paying subscribers of Jank will get access to the paid tier of Total Playtime, starting from this Thursday’s episode. That means you get an exclusive members-only episode every two weeks, mostly about PC gaming, although the backing of our Patrons has permitted it to wander to some more esoteric places. Recent episodes have included:

• Ranking game awards shows, because they covered the games already
• Hypothetical product partnerships