Why has Multiplier returned to Substack?

....And We're Back

I wasn’t really sure what image to stick at the top of this post so here’s one I took at Dark Mofo last year

As of this week, Multiplier is back on Substack. While I stand by most of my earlier criticisms, here’s the short(ish) explanation of why I came back to the platform anyway.

While I did enjoy my time using it, Ghost was often an ill-fit for the scale of publication that Multiplier currently occupies. With several hundred subscribers, It’s large enough to not qualify for the free tier but too small in scale to really justify the expense of the higher pricing attached to the other ones (especially over time). When I made the switch last year, I did not realise that you have to pay for the full $35 USD/month for access to your own analytics¹ is insane to me and that discovery in particular did a lot to make me think about changing things up again.

It’s not all about the money, but my commitment to keeping Multiplier free though, and that does put a ceiling on just how much I’m willing to throw money at it. It’s no secret that spare cash has become increasingly hard to come by over the past year and while I remain critical of it, the fact that Substack’s free tier is so much more generous than the alternatives is hard to ignore.

Substack’s growth engine is also difficult to discount. In the time since I moved my newsletter off this platform, the account here continued to accrue subscribers at a rate ten times that of what I experienced once I had fully set up everything over on Ghost. It’s possible that fully closing this account could have helped alleviate that issue but having a signpost from the old version of the newsletter felt like the right move at the time.²

I missed the sense of community and solidarity amongst the gaming side of Substack. It’s cool to support other writers on here and while having my own little island over on Ghost had an appeal, it did get a little lonely.

The reality is that I’m moving into a new phase for this project. These days, I have a few more creative irons in the fire and after (almost) two years, I am itching to change it up. I remain incredibly proud of the body of work now attached to this masthead (and still have a few great ones coming down the pipe) but think there’s a lot to be gained from shifting to a slower but more thoughtful cadence.

Multiplier will march on, but going forward I want the project to act as a better billboard for not only the work that goes into it but also my other endeavors. To that end, the homepage now includes a sidebar of links to my recent freelance work. The archives now also include a ton of my older reviews (republished with permission now that they’ve been scrubbed from the internet) & game of the year write-ups from across the years. Not to brag too much but I think it’s incredibly cool that you can click on the reviews button on the navigation bar and then scroll back through the years.

Speaking of reviews, I think that this is something that you’ll likely see a bit more of on Multiplier going forward. In a moment of retrospection earlier this year, it dawned on me just how much I missed writing them and practicing that specific aspect of my craft. Since these don’t really align with the original promise and mission statement for Multiplier, I’m reluctant to start slinging them at your inbox without permission though.

For now, the classic Multiplier interviews will still be the only thing that goes out via email. They just might include a few extra links to whatever else I’ve been publishing on the blog side of things.

Anyway, I hope nobody on the internet gets too mad at me over this walk-back. I will continue to advocate that Substack get its shit together (fewer Nazis, more dedicated gaming categories) and — for what it’s worth — I did look at a number of other Ghost-alternatives. However, when I ran the numbers, returning to the place where this project ultimately made the most sense.

As always, I hope you remain as excited to see where this project goes as I am.

~ Fergus Halliday

1. Yes, I am aware that I could sidestep these problems by investigating an alternative Ghost provider or setting up a self-hosted instance but — right now — the effort involved in those alternatives feels like an unconquerable mountain to me. I may feel differently in the future though.

2. If I end up moving again, I might do things differently.