In My Day: We Hope You Enjoyed Your Stay

The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, Jan. 2007

We just got back from a visit to the PlayStation Store here in San Francisco. It’s November 16, 2006, a little after noon—less than 12 hours until the PS3 goes on sale. There are some 700 people in line at last count. As we walked down the seemingly endless lines, past the Sony employees handing out tacos, soda, and coffee, through the shantytown at the corner of Fourth and Howard, I noticed a sort of subliminal buzzing in the air: A new era was about to begin.

It reminded me of the morning of June 19, 1997. I was having breakfast with the rest of the staff of P.S.X. at some forgotten hotel in Atlanta, getting ready for the first day of my first E3. Suddenly one of our supervisors walked in and gave us the news: After months of pitching, we had finally been awarded a PlayStation license. We were about to become the official PlayStation magazine in the U.S. (Now if we could only come up with a name….) At that table was the same feeling of excitement that I saw in the faces of those camped out on the damp, cold, smelly streets of San Francisco. A new day was dawning.

But as in many other parts of life, when a new era rises, an old era falls. And progress stops for no man…and no magazine.

As I look back on the past 112 issues of OPM, I find a great deal to be proud of. There were features that hit all the right notes, layouts that fairly leapt off the page, reviews that hit dead-on with precision and wit. We championed some underdogs, raised a few hackles, and slaughtered a few sacred cows. We yelled at each other a lot, and then made up afterward. We drank a lot of free booze. We made a lot of tasteless jokes. We did nothing perfect, but we did a lot right—and more importantly, we did a lot we could be proud of.

But these are just pages in a magazine about videogames. What we did over these past nine years wasn’t rocket science. Perhaps we turned you on to a game you wouldn’t have otherwise tried, or warned you away from that steaming pile of crap you were about to unwittingly spend your hard-earned money on. It’s not feeding the poor or curing cancer. But if we brought just a little bit more joy into the world, if we helped you smile or laugh or just perk up a little from a bad day—well then, we certainly did our jobs.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that. Although I’ve lost touch with some of these people over the years, I’m fairly certain | can speak for Wat, Kraig, John, Tom, Dindo, Dan, Gary, Dana, Bob, Jim, Donna, Jason, Tina, Ryan, Alé, Logan, Gary, Dave, Mark, Todd, Sam, C.Bake, Scooter, and Giancarlo when I say: Thank you for bringing us into your lives, in however small a capacity. And thanks to you, my current and former colleagues, for your talent, support, friendship, and intellectual stimulation through my one hundred and twenty-five (!!) deadlines.

It’s been a fun ride, folks. Thanks for riding along. Don’t be surprised if you see us popping up in some of Uncle Ziff’s other fine publications. Until then, allow me to borrow an appropriate line from Roger Zelazny:

Goodbye and hello, as always.

(I am still amazed that our wonderful art staff allowed me to so brutally destroy their beautiful design work with the layout of this, the final page of the final issue of OPM. You can see what I mean in the PDF.)