Seattle, Nov. 18th 11am PST – A gamer has fallen today within the Gamesline ranks. In a northern town of Seattle, WA from underneath a pile of new games releases, during one of the best years in gaming, a white flag was raised. The Video Boy, Solon, has opened his video editor for the last time with us, and will be stepping down from the site. This doesn’t come as a surprise to us at the site because Solon seemed like he was kinda losing grip anyway as reports were that he’d had positive opinions on things like Geoff Keighley’s Fortnite skin, as well as, and I swear to god, having said, “Let Bungie Cook.”
In his last few weeks, Solon was heard in the Discord backchannel saying erratic things like: “I’m going to graduate school to get a Masters in library sciences” and “I want to continue working with games but as a developer and systems designer.” Without editorializing too much, we can all objectively agree these are the quotes of a madman. He also said something along the lines of “I’m really getting the hang of Unreal” which is patently absurd.
We at Gamesline are verklempt at this news, or we would be, but I just looked up what verklempt means and actually we feel the opposite of that. ‘LOL’ and ‘LMAO’ were largely the sentiments heard around the water cooler this morning. There will certainly be restructuring to come, sure, but with fresh loss springs new life and new opportunities for anyone who is hungry to change the gaming landscape with insightful critique and ideas for how to shape games media. Gamesline will always be home to anyone who loves games, cares deeply about craft, and is just a little bit of a weirdo.
Despite having completely lost his frickin’ marbles and clearly needing to be put to pasture, we should respect Solon’s legacy and what he brought to the site with his talented reviews, optimistic leanings, and his charming misunderstanding of what the byline is for at the bottom of his articles. So, here is a collection of some of our favorite work from Solon:
The Gamesline editorial board reached out for comment and Solon said the following real cockily, “If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of a hole, then you better go fill that hole with some talent goddammit.” which is a bit of a dick thing to say right now.
Solon is survived by his tag team partner 4-4-4 life, Grindr Bois Scott, the juicin’ award for when you’re juicing your game real good, multiple nods from Critical Distance, 30-ish interviews on location at PAX, and Sgt. Kasane “Topshot” Teto. He’ll probably still be around tho, since he can’t leave well enough alone.
