It’s been about three years since a strange thought entered my head. “Hey maybe I’ll start writing about video games and technology and other stuff that is fun and cool and that I like to talk about.” Clearly, my thought structure needs some more punctuation, but that’s beside the point!

Over the last three years I have had the honour and pleasure of interacting with some of the coolest, nicest and smartest people in my attempt to try and learn more about the art of video games and the craft of journalism. I have seen so many great things that I would have never found otherwise, and learned so much about the local community that I would have never even thought to look for. I’ve done this all with the support of friends and family.

Over the last few months it has become much more difficult for me to devote the time I feel is required to put out quality content. Although I have had Tim and Ian Y. helping me for quite some time, with everyone’s schedule becoming more and more filled up, it has been difficult to put in the effort to produce unique and engaging pieces (especially considering they both do it for free). Instead of leaving this space to stagnant, I wanted to address it directly to all of our readers, friends and passers-by.

LeftStickRight will be on hiatus until further notice. This does not mean we are stopping altogether, but it does mean that you likely will not see any content popping up for some time. We are not sure when or how we will be getting back into the swing of things, but this space will be kept alive for people to continue to browse through what I think is a great archive of articles relating to the world of video games.

I’ve spoke about the origins of the site and the journey we’ve been on, but very rarely do I really address the people behind it. I wanted to mention a few people who have inspired and encouraged me over the last three years.

• My wife: Toni – Without her, I probably would not have kept at it as long as I did. I also would not have gotten Tim on board and continued to challenge my thinking about games. She will be the one that gets me back on here when I need to be.
• My friends: Matthew, Justin, Steve, Mark, Matt and Aaron – It was conversations with my friends that made me think I could really do it. They created a monster!
• Nintendo of Canada PR guy – Matt Ryan: I have never spoken to him or sent him an email, but it was his free pass to an event at work that got me started.
• Ashley Beaulac, Greg Valentine, Kyle Moffatt, Matt Levitan, Elisa Wegenast, Maricel Dicion and Rhiannon Clifford – And all of the other great PR people that put up with my nonsense and continued to help supply LSR with games.
• Shaun Hatton – One of the best people I’ve met in my travels. Inspired me throughout my time on the site with his work on Toronto Thumbs and now EP.
• Justin Amirkhani – Another up and coming writer who has been more than friendly to me and has contributed to the site on multiple occasions. A great guy.
• Jaime Woo – Another inspiring fellow, whose work with Gamercamp demonstrates the future of the Toronto gaming community.
• Randy Mosiondz, Aaron Webber, Chris Priestly, Miguel Sternberg and Billy Thomson – Who let me hound them with questions in interviews and who allowed a guy to take their time up who in his head was saying “I DO NOT DESERSVE TO DO THIS” the entire time.
• Susan Arendt, Andrew Webster, Mathew Kumar… – And all of the other great writers who I have met and who have inspired me to be better.

I could honestly go on forever, and I’ll probably have missed some key people (oops!) but I wanted to lastly give a big thanks to my writers. First, Adam Marcucci and Jon Fisher who were early contributers to LSR (when it was UGTV.ca) and of course the biggest thanks to Tim Latshaw and Ian Yuan who have been absolutely stellar and learning with me all the way. Ian has become a great audio producer with his work on the podcast, and his writing is top notch. Tim is now writing for sites like Joystiq and The Escapist and is only going to shoot the moon from here.

As final as this all sounds, it isn’t. This is a long overdue thanks to a great crowd of people who I look forward to continuing to interact with. It has been a great time and I hope that that will continue in the not-too-distant future.

To anyone reading this far that is wondering how in the world they can get into games journalist I have two pieces of advice. The first bit of advice is read. Read around the net and see what kind of content people are producing. Not just on major outlets but all over. The second advice I have is to write and write well. Don’t just start pumping out reviews or commentary, start thinking about the major issues and find out how you can really talk about things that make you passionate about games.

After all of this drama, the truth is you’ll probably hear from us again fairly soon.

Cheers,
Ian Howlett