Hey folks. This is a hard post to write, but unfortunately, after thirteen years, JayisGames will no longer be updating. The site will remain, as will all the games and your ability to comment on them, but there will be no new games or reviews posted going forward. Obviously nobody is happy about this, myself included. JayisGames has been a huge part of my life for nearly ten years, and since he bought the site several years ago, Jeff has invested a tremendous amount into it. Unfortunately, we can no longer continue operating due to a variety of factors, though perhaps one day we would like to come back. Who knows?
That's the official stuff. Here's the personal, from me. I'd like to thank all the writers we've worked with, both currently and over the years, whose hard work, talent, and dedication has been an inspiration and an honor to work alongside. I'd like to thank Jay for starting this blog so long ago, for turning it into something great, and for taking a chance on someone who left a smartmouthed comment on a review and gave her a whole new career, and I'd like to thank Jeff for the time, money, and effort he has given us these last several years since Jay sold the site to him.
I'd like to thank every developer. Just... all of you, no matter if we've spoken or not, or whether we've been able to review your game, or who wrote it up. You're the reason why this site existed. People with your talent, skills, creativity and general awesomeness have always been downright humbling to me. Each and every one of you has been a genuine pleasure to know, and I've seen so many incredible games over the years that it's kind of ridiculous. Without JayisGames I likely would never have discovered games like the ones you made. To all the new and struggling developers, or even just the people who are thinking of trying it... don't give up! All of you hold such vast potential within you, to make games that make us cry, laugh, get angry in a good way, and challenge us. If you want to make games, make them! Don't let fear of "what if" or comparing yourself to someone else's work hold you back. Even if JayisGames isn't around to cover them, I know you can make great things, and I want to play them! You can do it!
And finally, of course, I'd like to thank you, the reader. You have kept us going. You've been smart, funny, weird, silly, clever, and a whole host of other flattering adjectives that are completely true. JayisGames has always had one of the best communities around, and everyone who has ever left a comment to share their thoughts on a game, help someone else out, or just to chat has been a vital part of it. A lot of the names I see popping up on the site have been around for years, and your support means everything to us. I wish you all the best, and a life full of happiness, weirdness, humour, thoughtfulness, and love.
And what the heck... I'll leave you all with a list of a few of my personal favourite games from over the years. Thank you, and goodnight. I hope we meet again some sunny day.
Hello,
First of all many thanks for all the pledges we're receiving.
Because we received pledges up to $50, we created a new badge: the angel badge. The goal of $1,800 to keep JiG alive is possible. We created a new banner of 300x250 for the companies which want to support us while promoting their products. We implemented too a new alert message to inform better the community. For all the persons who ask by email why we did not use a better exposure for the Patreon campaign: I think there is a sort of shame when you meet a hard situation. You feel yourself as responsible. But JiG is a community so we can give a chance to the community to save it. Also, for the persons who ask where go their pledges until we meet our first goal, please be sure they help the site to stay alive. The current pledges cover a part of hosting fees so they help to have the site online.
In the meantime we are open to accept quality reviews from people who want to write on recent games. You can ask for more information sending an email: [email protected]
And also we're creating a forum. The idea is to let people to discuss on all the games they want (and not only those reviewed).
Somehow the Patreon button morphed into saying "This 300 x 250 banner is available." Was that intentional or did you mean to have your "space available" separate from the Patreon button?
Hello Paul, this banner 300x250 is available for a Patreon pledge of $900 per month. It's for a studio or a company which wants to support us while promothing their products using this space with their own banner.
It looks like you're still not detecting the presence of an ad blocker. I temporarily re-enabled mine, and the ads just went away, without any pop-up complaint from the site. (I have disabled mine again.)
In the earlier set of "until we meet again" comments, I think you mentioned that ad blockers were diminishing your ad revenue, so it seems like a good idea to ask people to disable the blockers to help out the site.
Ok I'm just one random person but here is my small call to arms. Most game reviews get thousands of views, and the newest one has over 1500 views right now. If every one of those donated $1 to the patreon page, jayisgames would have enough supporters to be up and running. And if you visit JiG a lot, even like once a week, $12/year ends up costing you less than 25cents per week. Some weeks I lose more money to my couch... And dare I say it, based on my experiences and all the anecdotes people have told, this site is probably worth a lot more than that. But even a small amount from most people can help this ol' beloved place from becoming a thing of the past. So if you can, please help out
I second the comment about the ad blocker. I personally use an ad blocker and constantly forget that it's off. I only turned it off after I saw barbara's comment. A friendly reminder would have had me turn it off for this site immediately.
Do you have a reddit thread for this patreon? I think that would go a long way to spreading the word that this is happeneing. The only reason I noticed was because I made the explicit decision to keep jayisgames in my *visit everyday* favorites folder even though I though you were shutting down. I think if more people know about this, it has a higher chance of success.
We already experienced a friendly reminder about adblocker(s) and remove it because only a few persons disabled it.
Newgrounds and other big sites had a reminder too and they removed it so I don't think it's the solution. Again many thanks for all the readers who feel concerned by the situation. As you can notice, the amount of the pledges increases every day. I'll be very happy to see in the list of the patrons more indie devs or studios (because I don't think there is at least one!). Because from 2003 we can say we helped a lot many of them...
Hi Jay,
I have just tryed to get to The Asylum from the link you posted above but it goes to an empty page, just letting you know :) All the best for the future.
Hi, thanks, it's fixed now.
Is there a way to donate a lump sum rather than a monthly amount? I'd like to donate, but for budgeting reasons it needs to be a lump sum.
Patreon has a FAQ page about that: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606215-Can-I-make-a-one-time-donation-
(Basically, make a monthly pledge, wait until it's processed the first time, then cancel the pledge.)
Well I'm glad I left this tab open in my browser and decided to refresh!... or maybe I wouldn't have ever known I could keep things going (I hope many others aren't unaware they could help!)
I just signed up for 5 a month... happy to help a little... been enjoying this site as time allows for many years!
Why not have the AUDIENCE review the games and you simply post them?
Yes this is an option. I receive 3-4 reviews (and hope to receive more) per week and publish the ones which meet JiG standards.
Just in case I'm not the only one who didn't realize this, disabling AdBlock may not unblock most ads. For anyone using a tracking blocker app a lot of them will be stopped by that. When I white-listed JiG on my AdBlock the other one went from catching 1 or 2 things it considers trackers to flagging over a dozen and very few ads showed up. I've gone through it and cleared the ones marked 'advertising' which seems to cause the ads to appear when I open the site.
Good to see you guys back. :D
Whaaaaaat? I came back here only to try and figure out how to get to the Patreon site (I had forgotten the name of it) and see that there are new reviews?! Holy moly, it's a miracle.
Hadn't checked on the site in a few months (and even then it's been erratic), so I was sorry to learn the site was having trouble sustaining revenue. Actually, my visits were so infrequent that I didn't even know Jay passed the torch a few years ago.
JiG will always have a special place in my heart. I found the site in the early-2000s, back in college, when Newgrounds was gaining a lot of traction and Flash technology was finally beginning to allow real game design (opposed to little "web toys" or interactive comics and stories). I started working for JiG in a way similar to yours, Dora; I couldn't believe Jay and the gang missed this little gem called Wink: The Game, so I tracked them down on IRC and told them they HAD to review it.
Couple months later I was regularly writing reviews, and it was one of the best gigs I had throughout college. I'm a journalism graduate and JiG remains among those at the top of my "favorites" list, because the publishing mission/ethos was so high and the community was so dang great. And the compensation was fair, which is more than I can say for most online gaming or tech publishers, especially these days.
I'm glad to see the community pulling together to keep JiG alive, whether by donating money or donating time for reviews. This website was always a diamond in the rough, and I have a feeling it will remain so in the years to come. Who knows? Maybe 20 years from now, people will still be digging through the archives in search of quality, nostalgic gaming when they feel like taking a break from their total-immersion VR headsets...
Everyone enjoys bite-sized gaming sessions while they're supposed to be doing other things, don't they? ;)
I have signed up in order to help donate, and was wondering why there were so few patrons... then I noticed it's only set up to receive payment by PayPal.
I personally have had some odd things occur with PayPal, and after reading some reviews by people who lost money due to their systems, I don't trust them. I'm pretty sure there are many others who feel the same way.
Is there any way we could donate by credit/debit/whatever card? Then I'm sure you'd get many many more patrons.
Cheers!
Also the 'All' button at the top of the site seems to be broken now.
I've noticed that the site has been much more desolate than usual, is this it? I just wanted to express how much you all meant to me. I didn't grow up with much and couldn't play all the console games my friends were playing, so JIG became my way to feel like I was a "gamer" like they were. I remember many summers, winter breaks, and sick days spent on your website. When I think of my childhood, I think of you all and the hard work you put in :) It's a shame that flash is dying, so many great games will be lost. I was thinking of donating a couple dollars a month to your Patreon, but because I don't have much to give I wanted to know if the contribution would be welcome. I'd be happy to donate even if it means that the server stays up longer.
Hello Azrael, thank you so much for your feedback about what JiG brought to you. Any contribution is of course welcome.
You can use our Patreon page or if you prefer Paypal:[email protected]
And yes all the contributions allow us to keep the servers because there are 11k reviews to host plus 5k games.
Thanks in advance.
no new games? :( it can;t be. I always look forward to the games every week and someone posted the first game of 2020 not long ago. I hope this will change back soon. JIG ROCKS! i don;t know what ill do with my free time now.
Update