We're just gonna go ahead and call 2012 "the year that a million new game sites launched," as this morning Penny Arcade announced its intentions to get into the world of video game news delivery. Hiring on at least one seasoned vet in Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera (whose position of "senior gaming editor" at Ars will be taken over by notorious freelancer and ex-Joystiqer Kyle Orland), the site will deliver game industry coverage.
If Kuchera's past work at Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog is any indication, he'll be producing a variety of news, previews, features and reviews with plenty of the flair we've come to expect from him. The site will be "starting in the next few weeks," and we'll likely hear more details as today progresses.
Update: Kuchera has taken to Penny Arcade's forums to answer some questions about his coverage. "To start you can expect great, in-depth stories every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. After that we'll think about what else we can do while keeping the standards high," he said. Additionally, it looks like it'll just be him working on coverage, at least for a bit, as was the case with Ars. "For now it will just be me. I think it's going to stay that way for a good while until we get a better idea of how we want things to work. I did the majority of gaming writing at Ars by myself, so it won't be a huge change for me. Expect fewer, longer stories," he added.
[Image credit: Penny Arcade]
Reader Comments (15)
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 11:29AM PointlessPuppies said
Ew, Ben? Really? I really hope they tell him to be a bit more professional, because in his stint at Ars he felt no remorse in making his biased opinion known, even if it meant sacrificing the quality of the writing itself.
I like the idea of PA going into "gaming news" but they could've done a LOT better than Ben.
Reply
I like the idea of PA going into "gaming news" but they could've done a LOT better than Ben.
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 12:06PM skullivan said
@PointlessPuppies This is Penny Arcade we're talking about, it's not the place people go for objectivity any more than they watch Colbert or Stewart for the same.
I've never heard of the guy before but PA is a smart group so I'm sure he'll fit in well. Besides, I'll take blatant bias over feigned objectivity any day. Personality is not objective.
Reply
I've never heard of the guy before but PA is a smart group so I'm sure he'll fit in well. Besides, I'll take blatant bias over feigned objectivity any day. Personality is not objective.
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 4:21PM A Sandwich said
@PointlessPuppies
I agree that Ben sucks. He blocked me from following him on Twitter because once he said that iOS games were cheaper than 3DS games and I said that the cost of entry was more prohibitive with an iPad. He then said, "Enjoy your block!" and blocked me from following him. It was seriously just like that. It never got heated or less than cordial. It was f*cking weird.
Reply
I agree that Ben sucks. He blocked me from following him on Twitter because once he said that iOS games were cheaper than 3DS games and I said that the cost of entry was more prohibitive with an iPad. He then said, "Enjoy your block!" and blocked me from following him. It was seriously just like that. It never got heated or less than cordial. It was f*cking weird.
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 5:26PM TheDarkWayne said
@PointlessPuppies I never read that many of his reviews, how is his opinion biased?
Reply
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 5:37PM sweenish said
@A Sandwich
thirding the ben is a douche movement.
1. he is a hypocrite. an editorial entitled something along the lines of "everything is awesome and you need to shut up" is bookended by his stupid whining.
2. a prime example of stupid whining: his DNF review. he gave it a low score. that's not what's stupid. what's stupid is that he didn't base his score so much around the gameplay as he did duke being duke. the fact that duke was being crass and misogynistic (or, being duke) was what he spent at least half the review on. apparently nailing the character is a tick on the 'con' side these days.
i stopped reading anything he wrote at ars shortly after his tantrum editorial about gaming is pure awesome so you shut up right now or so help me i'll ban you. turns out ars is an okay site, after all.
so, it's either he does a complete 180 at PA, or i simply ignore PA's gaming news. the latter would make me sad, i like PA a lot, but i hate ben more.
Reply
thirding the ben is a douche movement.
1. he is a hypocrite. an editorial entitled something along the lines of "everything is awesome and you need to shut up" is bookended by his stupid whining.
2. a prime example of stupid whining: his DNF review. he gave it a low score. that's not what's stupid. what's stupid is that he didn't base his score so much around the gameplay as he did duke being duke. the fact that duke was being crass and misogynistic (or, being duke) was what he spent at least half the review on. apparently nailing the character is a tick on the 'con' side these days.
i stopped reading anything he wrote at ars shortly after his tantrum editorial about gaming is pure awesome so you shut up right now or so help me i'll ban you. turns out ars is an okay site, after all.
so, it's either he does a complete 180 at PA, or i simply ignore PA's gaming news. the latter would make me sad, i like PA a lot, but i hate ben more.
Posted: Jan 16th 2012 11:56AM Durinthal said
Link to the Q&A in the PA forums:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/154178/pa-qa-about-super-secrets-and-luminous-events-open-for-business/
Reply
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/154178/pa-qa-about-super-secrets-and-luminous-events-open-for-business/
Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.
Featured Stories
Persona 3, Tactics Ogre, and other PSP RPGs that will live on my Vita
Posted on Feb 22nd 2012 5:45PM
The most popular posts
in the last 7 days
- Rumor: Japanese Vita devs jumping ship, Sony responds 124 comments
- Buy 2 get 1 free on select Vita games at GameStop starting today 114 comments
- Sony's Rohde: proprietary Vita cards 'completely necessary' to combat piracy 112 comments
- Sony: Call of Duty blasting onto Vita this fall 89 comments
- Asura's Wrath review: Wrecking the curve 84 comments








