Year in Review 2019 Letter Series-A Letter From the Editor

If you’re reading this, congrats, you’ve made it to (nearly) the end of 2019. A new year, and a new decade are on the horizon, and as ever, there are video games looming. But before we tackle next year’s releases, it’s time for the Uppercut crew and some lovely assorted guests to sit down and process what gaming in 2019 looked like. 

Writing this letter in the aftermath of the Game Awards, I can’t help but think about the nature of celebrations, what’s considered worth celebrating, and what that celebration entails. Video games are needy, insecure, and require a lot of validation that they’re just as deep as any other form of media. As much as I hate to admit it, I can relate. Sometimes in the throes of anxiety and insecurity, you just really need someone to be there to grab your face, look you in the eye, and tell you that you’re not as worthless as you think. 

But I don’t think that’s all celebrations should be. Affirmations are important, but critique is how we learn and grow. When we reflect on the games we’ve played in any given year, we’re reflecting on the year itself, and I’ve been starting to find that, at least in my case, the trends of games tend to mirror how their release year unfolds. 

Not much has grabbed me this year. If we were a site that did top ten lists, I’m not sure I would have been able to completely fill one out. So much has gone by in a blur. I’m still trying to reconcile the fact that this year was simultaneously one of the best and worst of my life. I watched my family edge towards the brink after a stroke left my father unable to work and threw us back into the chaotic world of the American healthcare system. My mental health went to shit (again) due to the stress and it took months of trial and error to get the treatment I actually needed. I watched my friends and loved ones struggle with so much, and I was largely unable to do much besides provide a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on since we’re separated by so much distance. 

But despite all of this, it was an incredible year too. I got a better day job, finally got a foot in the door with games freelancing, I met someone I’m completely in love with who for whatever reason, seems to feel the same, and we not only successfully rebranded the site to Uppercut, but also got some decent traction, almost doubling our follower count this year and getting a ton of support on Patreon (thank you for that, really). We’ve managed to build a wonderful community around this site, and we’re so incredibly grateful. 

So what does this have to do with celebrations? Well, while I’m certainly not celebrating the fact that my father had a stroke, or that I’ve lost 14 lbs in a month from my still extremely fucked up, anxiety-induced eating habits, I am celebrating the fact that I’m still here. Not in some bootstraps porn kind of way, but just generally. My team and I have gone through so much to get here, but we made it. And so did you. Things aren’t perfect, they never will be. But we’re still here, and we’re doing what we can to make the most of it and improve the communities we exist in. I want to extend that to games as well.

I’m never going to celebrate Greedfall as it is. It’s a bad game. But I want to celebrate that it created conversations, or at least had the potential to. To really celebrate Gaming™ we need to be able to articulate both the joys and the problems that come with these experiences, and how they relate to our lived experiences. That’s what this series aims to do. We looked at this year’s releases from a multitude of angles and walks of life, to bring you a critical snapshot of gaming in 2019. We hope these pieces make you think, make you feel, and maybe, if we’re lucky, make you hope that even when the world is on fire, there will always be enough good to get us through.