Editorial Values
Blockhead is an outlet for gaming reviews, previews, features, and the occasional interview. It shares the editorial standards and practices of gaming outlets I have worked with in the past: more information is available under Links.
Blockhead is back-ended by Substack as a platform that provides content outside of search engines and social media algorithms. Substack is not SEO-driven and does not rely on traffic from social media or search engine clicks. This content model from the past decades is designed to keep users hooked on a social media app in order to sell the ad space; to keep them clicking and scrolling, not providing them value outside social media. This ad-based model has always rewarded clickbait, publicity stunts, and scams over quality, relevance, and consistency, whether in gaming or otherwise.
Blockhead relies exclusively on quality content. The subscription model is designed to prioritize the quality of content rather than views and clicks. If the content suffers, so will my relationship with subscribers. This encourages me to continuously improve as a writer through feedback and interaction with readers and subscribers. It also allows me to cover only the games that I care about, even if it is not profitable.
Blockhead is not about explosive growth at the mercy of social media algorithms and search engines, but about finding a small, decentralized community of readers and writers who value my work and wish to support it.
I am available for contact and pitches: rcosta [at] blockhead [dot] cc
Why Blockhead.CC?
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” (Samuel Johnson)
There are several meanings and layers to the word ‘blockhead’. A human blockhead is a performer who drives nails into their nasal cavity. Yes. And ‘block’ is open to other meanings: Tetris, Mario, Minecraft, building blocks, pixels… And so on. As for CC, I am most definitely not a crypto-pusher for blockchain. On the contrary: the preferred meaning for CC in this context is Credit Card—pay the writer.
Now, seriously, my first thought was Carbon Copy: a newsletter is one big ‘cc’ email. Then I thought of Creative Commons—which makes sense if I’m not getting paid… That said, there is a plethora of possible CC acronyms, with many of them used in gaming. With that in mind, I made this WordItOut cloud to visualize the possibilities.
Links
Why subscribe?
Why indeed? Who needs more crap in their inbox? Well, I want to reiterate that the backend of Blockhead runs on Substack and Proton. Privacy is nonnegotiable in an email relationship. That said, I can give a few good reasons to subscribe:
If you want to be valued as a reader and gamer, not as a stat for ads and clickbait;
If you like reading and writing about games, not only playing them alone, and learning about their history and development;
If you love the gaming medium, even though you might sometimes hate the industry and the media, or even most of the time;
If you use Firefox Relay or Proton SimpleLogin for extra email privacy because you hate spam and ads almost as much as I do;
If you wish to support writing that looks for more than opinions or tastes, and to think outside the lines about what gaming can do that other media cannot.
I will value your time and attention, and I hope you will appreciate my work. Contributions and paid subscriptions are optional but highly appreciated.
