I believe that at least some of the perennial sense of disenfranchisement some gamers feel from the press stems from the correct instinct by all sorts of readers that reporters on the scene spend too much time and energy covering the vacuous hype of pre-release video games, while ceding the fascinating discussions of how a game's life continues after release to message boards and other supposed non-professionals. In that sense, yes, what we're doing that I've been describing here is aimed to better serve anyone who loves and cares about games.

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I do worry that some of you may fret that this shift toward more post-release coverage means that we'll cloud Kotaku with stories about what gamers are up to and about how some new patch is affecting a Battlefield game and forgo telling you about the next games you should care about—or avoid! Don't fret. I believe that people who are fortunate enough to get to play games for a living ought to do their damnedest to find out about what's worth playing and what's not worth playing and let people who don't have as much time know. Kotaku will continue to be a place you can go for news and opinion about the games we think you should and shouldn't play. That will never change.

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Where You Come In

We'd like your help with this. Ultimately, we'll need it. Because, unlike our friends at Deadspin who only have to follow five or six sports, and unlike movie critics who cover a non-interactive experience that is rarely going to be subject to requests from fans to please change the ending, we are committed to covering a wide swath of games and the communities around them. We will do the best we can, but, if you hear about something fascinating happening with a game that's out, please let us know. E-mail tips@kotaku.com. E-mail the writer who seems to be covering that game the most.

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We want to hear from you whether you're a fan of the game and have noticed something, whether you're a gamer who has done something amazing, whether you're a game developer, a community manager or a public relations person. We want to know about the lives of the games you love or work on weeks and months after the games are out. Of course, we only want to know the interesting stuff.

Oh, and if you're someone who writes about games and have some ideas along these lines that you would like to contribute to Kotaku, please drop me a line.

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Kotaku has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and I'm hopeful that the slow metamorphosis we've been going through this year turns out to be our best change yet. I thank all of you for your continued support, for helping the site to continue to grow (more than 11 million readers last month!) and for going on this journey with me and the team.

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Here's to another 10 years and the chance that someday we'll be assigning a Kotaku writer to do post-release coverage of Half-Life 3.

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.