This gloriously self-indulgent deep dive is nearly over. This is the fifth and final part of The Secret History Of Rock Paper Shotgun, an exploration of the first few months of the site based on the emails we sent at the time. You can read parts One, Two, Three and Four, and then dive in below.
To finish, this is a more meandering exploration of our intentions and goals, achievements and failures, and a far too frank discussion of how we dealt with the financial side of the site.
]]>We reach Part Four of The Secret History Of Rock Paper Shotgun, a retelling of the first few months of the site, as recalled from the emails at the time. You can read parts One, Two and Three, for chronology's sake.
Today, the site has launched! And gosh, we're at each other's throats. Readers start arriving, our reputation starts building, and then we get an email that changes everything.
]]>All this week we're revealing The Secret History Of Rock Paper Shotgun, as retold through hazy memories and an archive of the emails the original four founders sent each other at the time. You can read Parts One and Two to achieve some notion of coherence, and then continue on with Part Three below.
Today, with a name picked, we race forward with establishing a company, convincing a bank we're not terrorists, and secretly running the site for a full month without telling anyone. And then we had to tell people, especially those who would be most annoyed we were doing it.
]]>So continues The Secret History Of Rock Paper Shotgun, a textual history of the beginnings of this very website, some twelve years ago. You can read yesterday's Part One here, and probably should, for this to make any sense.
This is the origin story of RPS, the tale of how the site came to be, as recalled through the increasingly snarky emails we sent each other at the time. Today, we learn the result of our attempted coup, then discover how we picked the name (and what else we nearly went with), and the earliest sketches of what we wanted RPS to be.
]]>As one of the last two members of the original RPS team to leave the Treehouse (Alec this week, me at the end of next week), I’ve found myself getting all nostalgic. Trying to remember how it all began, twelve long years ago.
To do this, as well as chatting with the other three founders - Jim Rossignol, Alec Meer and Kieron Gillen - I’ve been going through 2007 emails, looking to find origin stories for RPS. And despite an awful lot of the discussion that preceded the site taking place IRL and over instant messenger, I still found some JUICE. So for the next five days, I shall share this juice. Grab a beaker.
]]>
