Chris Grant, Polygon’s editor-in-chief:

This month, we lost some of our team. This includes Russ Pitts, one of the founding editors of the site, along with Tom Connors and Adam Barenblat, two of the most talented and hardest-working people we had. These decisions are never easy, and Russ, Tom and Adam are people I have considered, and will still consider, friends.

We never thought starting a video game outlet in 2012 (has it been that long already?) was going to be easy and we’ve learned a lot in the last two years. We learned that there’s an incredible opportunity to tell in-depth stories about the people — both fans and creators — that make video games what they are. But we’ve also learned exactly how hard it is to do that with consistency and how much appetite there is for that kind of coverage.

We’re very proud of the feature writing and video work we’ve done, but producing that content is expensive and requires that all (or at least nearly all) of those pieces are smash hits. When you’re publishing two to three pieces like that a week, bringing in the audiences day in and day out is tougher than we’d imagined it would be way back in 2012. Lesson learned.

Will Polygon still make incredible features? We absolutely will. What will change is the frequency.

As previously stated, Pitts is a hell of a writer. As for Connors and Barenblat, their work inspired me to revisit my dreams of working in film and became the hook for my fondness of Polygon. I’d have happily paid for any of their features.

Shigeru Miyamoto on dual GamePad play as quoted by IGN:

From a technical standpoint, I think if we decided to pursue that, technically we would be able to and we can perform system updates that would allow for that. It’s also very interesting from a gameplay perspective idea because there are a lot of possibilities with two GamePads. But, at the same time, taking that kind of approach would again be a drain on resources and require us to continue to utilize our development resources for that. So then it would become a question of where do we want to devote our resources: Is it to creating regular GamePad games, or creating games centered around two GamePads?

Nintendo’s E3 digital event proved they are only scratching the surface of single GamePad interactivity. While it would show the power and unique experience of the Wii U, they are right to focus resources on foundation over decor.

Max Temkin, creator of Cards Against Humanity in an interview with Wired:

There’s something super addictive and super satisfying about just sitting down with your friends and having that real-world experience. I think a lot of the times people play Cards [Against Humanity], they have this great time and they often attribute it to the game, but it’s really just that the game was the pretext for them to sit down and have this real world interaction.

Card games typically imply real world interaction because they are (in large part) physical items. For an industry founded on arcades, schoolyard stories, and fighting over controllers, it’s funny how quickly the notion of local multi-player gaming seemed to disappear the near instant consoles integrated online multi-player. I won’t wax poetic about my recent experience playing Mario Kart 8 again, but there is a magic in local multi-player gaming.

Jessica Valenti of The Guardian on Elonis v. United States: whether threats made on social media are protected by free speech.

No one is arguing that people can’t say hateful things or call people names; the emails I get calling me a “slut” and a “feminazi” are immoral, but they’re not (and shouldn’t be) illegal. Threats and the invasion of privacy, though, are different – even in the most public of places: your right to be a “creep” doesn’t trump everyone else’s right to a life free from violence and the fear of it.

Russ Pitts:

There will be those cynical few who consider my departure an admission of some kind of failure that they, watching from the sidelines, predicted long ago. They will say, “I told you so.” And that’s OK. They’re right. They did tell us so. But that was the easy part.

Throwing rocks from the gallery at those who are trying to do something ambitious is no great accomplishment. I’d rather be the one who rolls up his sleeves and tries to accomplish something inspiring, even if it may fail. Even if it won’t last.

But there is no failure here, just change. I’ll never be ashamed of the ambitious dreams we built at Polygon, and I’ll never be afraid to try again. Hopefully my modest successes will inspire others to do their own great, ambitious things and build their own dreams.

There is a sinking feeling in my gut. No sooner had I posted this, I learn of Russ Pitts’ departure from Polygon. For those unfamiliar with Pitts, his work on Operation Supply Drop and GlassLab are nothing short of earth-shattering. There is only a bright future for such a talented writer. Godspeed.