It’s Day 2 of the first-ever VoxGames meeting in Washington D.C. and I’m staring at the ceiling, nerves buzzing on caffeine, eyes bleary, head throbbing and wondering if any of this is even real.
The eight of us are sitting in what used to be the living room of a three story house in Dupont Circle, on the receiving end of what seems like an endless train of speeches and presentations. We hear about our insurance, we get the brief on how the company was founded and we get bludgeoned over the head with more detail than we need about how the technology works.
It’s a deadening assault of amazing information that all amounts to roughly the same thing: This is going to be awesome. We haven’t started building the site or planning our strategies yet, but my head is swimming with data and I’m dizzied by the possibilities. That’s when the full import of this thing we’re about to do hits me: We could conceivably change everything.
We’ve already changed some things, inarguably. Eight editors from a handful of different sites coming together to build a new one. We’ve changed the sites we left and changed our own perceptions of what each of us is capable of doing, personally. I think we’ve also changed some minds about how ready the eight of us – arguably some of the greatest minds in our industry – are for something different. How much we’re each willing to put on the line to prove games journalism doesn’t have to be something of which we are ashamed. We are, as the glamorous Bowie sang, the Goon Squad and we’re coming to town, beep beep. Banding together to break it apart and rebuild it anew. Sure, it’s happened before, but not on this scale, and not with this level of investment. Not with a corporate partner who knows what the hell they’re doing. And not by us.
Every day starts like an open road, destination unknown. I’m up early, walking to the market for breakfast, stopping for coffee on my way back, spending a few quiet moments on my own in the D.C. winter, sharing the sidewalk with the morning commuters and my thoughts. I’ve never been in the company of such a diverse group of talented individuals assembled for one purpose. This thing we are building has been compared to a Dream Team, but that’s not a fair comparison. The Dream Team had more structure. What we’re doing at Vox would be like assembling not just the best basketball players, but the best athletes from every sport and setting them the task of creating a brand new game. It’s daunting until you realize that each of us has already done it, just never once at the same time, on the same team.
I’ve built many things in my various careers. From benches and tables to houses and garages to full-scale replicas of the interior of Victorian manor houses. I’ve built companies, television shows and even websites. I’ve built myself, twice over. I’ve built almost everything, and it’s always different, yet starts the same way: with the first step. Building this thing will follow the same path, and the first step is what we’re doing now. Soaking in the data. Taking the measure of the technology and each other. Learning to trust one another. Of everything else that follows, this will be the hardest part. Who even knows if we can manage it?
What we can manage without even trying is playing games. Lots of them. At the end of Day two, there’s pizza and beer and games and lots of laughing (and a little crying). After a round of beatings at Call of Duty, I get a chance to show the younger guys how Halo is played and score my single win in the dozens of games we’ve played together. It feels good for about a minute, then I lose again. We’re playing on a giant projector screen with a ludicrously small speaker at Vox HQ, and even though the gaming is a good time, one thing becomes abundantly clear: These Vox guys need better gear. Next time, we find out where they watch football and take over that room.
Frushtick is playing a new iPhone game a day, seems like, and kicking everyone’s asses at it. Everybody, it seems, is playing at least one game no one else has heard of. I’m remembering what it’s like to share space and ideas. To play with gamers who love, first and foremost, the joy of the game. And I’m remembering what it feels like to be a part of something. Wherever this ends up, whatever each of us does from here, I’ll remember this week as a time when anything seemed possible and the limits were ours to impose. And I’ll remember having fun. That most of all.
Beyond the personal realizations, what’s most shocking about my time at Vox so far is how eager the Vox people all are to help us start something new. Some folks want to write on our site, some folks want to sell ads against it and some just want to see it go up and smile. Everyone is enthusiastic. Almost as enthusiastic as I am, but my own enthusiasm is tinged with a low tone of anxiety. With all of this support and love and encouragement, if we do this thing and it isn’t any good, there won’t be any chest-high walls of blame to hide behind. They’re giving us the best they can give and now it’s on all of us to make something great out of it. Whether we succeed or fail is in our hands. No pressure.
By the end of my stay in D.C., I’m anxious to get started and wired from two weeks of no sleep, but the most intense feeling is a presence I haven’t felt a long, long time. It’s a subtly happy feeling that deadens the nerve endings spiking off my personal anxieties and mellows the jagginess of coffee-fueled sleep-dep. It’s like a smooth bass line under the symphonic chaos of the past few weeks and, like any good groove, it’s driving me forward, forward. If I had to name it, I’d call it “hope.”
Gaming, internet, television. Repeat. It’s your life. We’re not judging.
Now that 
The job, I can now tell you, is to be