A Wildgoose Chase

“David Wildgoose, wherefore art thou?” That was the cry. “I’ll go and find out,” was my retort.

Turns out he was sat in his boxers playing Minecraft, but now he has a new shiny job and he wants to tell you about it.

Where the hell are you Goose?
I’m right here, my kilt-wearing friend. Here just happens to be the office of nextmedia where I’m barely a few weeks into a new job overseeing Australia’s two finest games magazines, HYPER and PC PowerPlay. When I left Kotaku I took a lengthy break that involved playing Minecraft, waking up at 2pm, writing (at last count) just over 15,000 words of a novel, playing more Minecraft and holidaying in Europe. It was awesome. Especially the Minecraft bits.

Out of the blue, I took a phone call from the head of nextmedia who was looking to hire a senior editor on their games mags. HYPER and PCPP are close to my heart, after all I had worked on both in various guises over the years dating right back to their launches. The opportunity to sit at the helm of both titles was one I could hardly refuse. Also, the bills had been piling up.

What the hell are you doing Goose?
I just told you. I’m playing Minecraft. Oh, you mean my new job? Being “group editor” basically means being an editor twice over. As you know from your magazine days, an editor plans out each issue and then manages a team of staff writers, designers and contributors to execute it. I now do that twice a month.

That’s just the print side of things though. The other part of my job is to re-launch the HYPER and PCPP websites, something you’ll see happening early next year.

And I’m still writing that novel.

When the hell can we read your stuff Goose?
I came in partway through issues of both mags, so factor that in and allow for the long lead times of the print medium and… let’s see… carry the two… around August 2012, by my calculations.

Actually, my first issues – that is, those I’ve worked on from start to finish – will be hitting the newsstand in very early January. Regular readers will notice a few changes, several tweaks and at least one major overhaul in each publication – hopefully all for the best! The plan is to have a print edition and an online edition of each magazine that complement each other. Print and online have different strengths and weaknesses; the idea being that if you read both, you get the best of both worlds.

Personally, right now I’m working on the cover story for HYPER 208. It’s on a game I’m hugely excited about, but unfortunately I can’t tell you what it is. I’ll give you a clue though: it’s not Minecraft.