David Silbert

“Players are artists who create their own reality within the game.”

– Shigeru Miyamoto, Creator of Super Mario Bros.

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In 2016, when I was a junior in college, I began writing volunteer games reviews for a small start-up site. Perhaps “start-up” is too generous of a term—more a “start-and-pray” kind of deal.

That site was short lived. Even shorter lived was my time spent writing articles there. But it’s where I got my start, and I was grateful for the opportunity. I moved on to other sites, each more established than the next. Yet by March 2017, as I neared college graduation, I realized I just wasn’t getting much satisfaction working freelance.

Part stubborn, part stuck-up, I wanted a quicker way to jumpstart a career in entertainment media. I was impatient—I wanted to take my future by the reigns.

I got my wish that same month, when I traveled to Boston to attend PAX East, the largest gaming convention on the East Coast. As I wandered the show floor, chatting with developers and playtesting their creations, I felt excitement I hadn’t felt in months. An urge came to write about my experiences. In the words of Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, I wanted to “create my own reality.”

Then came the thought: To hell with freelance, I’ll do this myself.

In the days that followed, I returned to school, bought a domain name, connected with a hosting service, and founded my own entertainment website: The Punished Backlog.

Nice ring! (It helped that the abbreviation, TPB, was quite popular already among gamers, albeit for rather unethical reasons.)

I wrote my first piece. Then another. Before I knew it, I was at the keys each night, tapping away. I soon brought on some friends, all of whom shared my love of writing and passion for games. Six years flew by in a blink.

From 2017 to present, we managed to accomplish the following:

• Grow a brand from scratch
• Write 500 blogs (and counting)
• Increase annual unique views by 1,300% (15k to 210k)
• Increase annual unique visitors by 1,500% (11k to 176k)
• Get verified on ResetEra
• Submit our publication to OpenCritic
• Gain press access to PAX East

Metrics and clicks were always secondary in our quest. Our number one priority was, and always will be, to provide honest, quality coverage for our readers.

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And that’s our story. Preamble aside, here’s just a small sample of our team’s greatest hits:

The Punished Backlog

Site Stats

Homepage: The Punished Backlog

Niche: Entertainment (video games, TV, movies, music, and books)

Number of Blogs: 500+

Annual Unique Views: 210k

Annual Unique Visitors: 176k

Team Size: 15 writers (all part-time volunteers)

Writing Samples

Note: I’ve worked with many phenomenal writers over the years. Unless otherwise attributed, the works I’ve linked are my own.

Note #2: I’ve produced a LOT of content. Please see my favorite works, marked with a star. ⭐

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