Rob Fahey joins the GAMESbrief team

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“LONDON, SEPTEMBER 13: GAMESbrief, the leading information resource for creators and publishers of free-to-play, social and mobile games, is today delighted to announce that Rob Fahey has joined its team of….”

Oh, look, we could do it that way, but who’d read it? Not I, that’s for sure. So instead of writing something terribly pompous and pointless, and making up a quote from Nicholas which no real human could ever possibly say with a straight face, let me tell you briefly, in my own words, who I am and why I’m involved with GAMESbrief.

My name is Rob Fahey (hi!) and I’m a writer. I write about games – primarily, about the business of games. I started doing this professionally around 16 years ago, and apart from a rather unwise year-long tangent working as a programmer, I’ve been doing it ever since. If my name rings any bells with you, it’s probably because 10 years ago I worked with the superb folks at Eurogamer to create the website GamesIndustry.biz, and edited it for nearly five years. A decade later, I still write a weekly column for that site, and I’ve also worked for a number of other publications, including a stint on British newspaper The Times.

From that, you might guess that I’ve got my roots fairly firmly in the traditional PC and console businesses – and you’re right. Like many of you, I still love those games very much. However, we all know where the wind is blowing. Ten years ago, I was writing about the exciting future promised by digital distribution. Today, we’re living in that future, and it’s exciting, terrifying, confusing, and brimming with the potential both for extraordinary success and abject failure. Digital distribution hasn’t just replaced high street shops with a download button; it has opened up the market to new creators and new businesses, torn down the solitary edifice of the industry’s traditional business model and value chain and replaced it with a myriad of new possibilities, and completely changed our perception of what a “consumer” actually is.

Through all this, what Nicholas Lovell has been doing with GAMESbrief – both the blog and the books and products behind it – is vitally important. Journalists like me have spent years writing about the exciting opportunities created for independent developers, small studios, students, industry veterans and even large established companies by the arrival of free-to-play, digital distribution and other advancements. Nicholas, however, has actually been showing people how to grasp those opportunities. His work is filled with the solid, practical advice, data and know-how required to turn opportunity into reality, and creativity into business.

That’s why I was very interested in becoming part of the GAMESbrief team. Although I’ll be writing some articles for the site (look out for the first one very soon), my main role here isn’t as a journalist. I’ll be contributing to the development of the site into a great, accessible business resource for anyone working in games – and helping with the development of more fantastic products like How To Publish A Game, Nicholas’ superb and deeply practical guide to self-publishing and running a games business in the modern era.

I’ve known Nicholas for many years and it’s great to finally have an opportunity to work together. I’m looking forward to working further with Nicholas, Zoya and the rest of the GAMESbrief team, not to mention all of our fantastic guest posters, the ever-lucid and argumentative GAMESbriefers, and of course, all our readers and customers.

Onwards and upwards!