Hello. My name is Julian Benson and, as you will have gathered from the headline, I am the new Editorial Director of Rock Paper Shotgun.
While this is my announcement post, in truth, I’ve already been here a couple of weeks. However, I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself as I worked through the treehouse, mapping out its dimensions on gridpaper.* I have had some successes in puzzling out the workings of this ancient structure – for instance, finding out how articles are posted. Though, there are many rooms still to uncover, so I may remain in the background a little as I get situated. The bashing of furniture and snarls coming from behind the door marked ‘Comment Moderation’ suggest I should leave that one till last. But I did want to put my head above the treehouse’s parapet – the crenellations are an architectural nod to its earlier days as RPS Towers and Castle RPS – and let you know who I am and why I’m here.
Back in 2012, when I was still working as a volunteer for long-departed gaming site Beefjack (alongside James, coincidentally), I reached out to Jim to pitch an article about transcribing games into musical notation. The resulting article was more ambitious than my writing ability could sustain, but I’ll never forget the depth with which RPS’s commenters engaged with and challenged my ideas. In all the years since, it was a level of discussion I’ve rarely seen at the other sites I’ve written for. Still, it would be more than a decade before I could return to RPS’s pages outside of the Sunday Papers.
In the intervening years, I’ve worked for sites such as TechRadar Gaming, GAMINGbible, and Kotaku UK, as well as RPS’s other other fanzine, PCGamesN. It was only when I returned to freelance in 2023, appearing in Edge, The Guardian, and GQ, that I could once again write on RPS. Even a decade later, it still carries the thrill of that first feature.
As long as I’ve been writing about videogames I’ve been reading RPS, and there is no publication that has had a greater impact on how I talk about games and see their role in our lives. Part of the magic of this site is that it is a place where writers and readers will afford a game equal attention, whether it was made by a single developer or built by thousands. It is a magic conjured by a team of passionate writers, and equally passionate readers, who care about games and how they fit into culture – which is to say, alongside other artforms, neither above nor below them. So when the opportunity to join the team arose, I seized it.
That RPS is a space where this discussion can take place is only because of the hard work of the many members of the team who came before, a line stretching back to the site’s founders. Though I want to acknowledge in particular the size of the shoes Graham has left behind. Each of his boots are big enough to comfortably fit a Clarks outlet in the toe and a Doc Martens warehouse in the heel. Over 12 years, he and the team established and maintained the direction and voice of RPS, making it into the place I have the opportunity to lead today. The footsteps he and the others left are clear and I’m going to try my best to follow them and keep them in sight whenever we strike out into the new.
In the months since Graham’s departure, the team has done an excellent job of running RPS. Selfishly, their capability makes my job of proving I can be of some use much harder. Now that I’m here I can’t wait to lend a hand wherever I can.
I find the title of ‘Editorial Director’ to be uncomfortably grand, but it does capture my responsibility: I will be working hard to support this talented team do their best work, and for you, the readers, I will be the point of contact when you want to discuss the direction of the site. I’m not on social media but you can email me or reach out through the comments whenever you need.
To give you a sense of our current plans, at the moment we are hard at work putting together all the pieces that will see out the end of 2025: Advent Calendars, Selection Boxes, and larger pieces, such as this year’s RPS 100, which has seen some significant upsets in the voting since last year’s edition – my love of Orcs Must Die! will not be denied. And we will also be asking for your opinion, too, with a return of the RPS 100: Reader’s Edition, which we plan to run through December.
We will have other announcements to make in 2026, I just need to find a way to get Graham’s massive shoes out of my office so I can reach the desk…
So for now, I will say ‘Hello! I am thrilled to be here’.
*I also used the time honing my Horace-drawing abilities. You can tell me if that time was spent fruitfully.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
