startmenu's Very Busy 2024 In Numbers
I love stats. Not really surprising given I was a STEM Uni student. There’s something oddly elegant about the nature of statistics and data, how their context makes the same figures completely different, and how trends develop based on mathematical concepts of proportionality. As a result, I am the kind of person who spends a good period of their Christmas break looking through our site’s output in 2024. Allow me to peruse my findings and produce some observations about what we did in the year gone by.
First, The Basics
Over the course of 2024, we here at startmenu did a lot of writing. We had 143 articles that generated over 220656 words. That's a lot of words. If you were wondering, that's an average of 1543 words per article. Turns out we have plenty to say.
Of all those articles, it included 68 reviews of games across the budgetary spectrum from Astro Bot and Metaphor: ReFantazio to Great God Grove and Mouthwashing. It includes 53 features including our recent Winter Spectacular articles and my personal favourite on Alan Wake 2's combat. The rest is a smattering of our Update Patches which has changed since the launch of our Patreon as well as previews and convention coverage.
This is our basic data, the amuse-bouche that is perfectly acceptable, but that isn't enough to satiate my data desires. Let’s move on before this metaphor is stretched too far.
What Games Did We Review?
All games great and small were covered in our 68 reviews. Easily the most words was on one of the biggest releases with Dave McAdam’s 3000+ word review-in-progress of Atlus’ Metaphor: ReFantazio. Certainly plenty of words for a game with plenty to say.
As for smaller projects, Branford Hubbard was our busiest reviewer with six reviews over the course of the year covering games from the reboot of 2009’s Solium Infernum to Backpack Hero developed by a solo developer. Other highlights included reviews of some of the year’s smaller critical darlings, with Jay Weaver tackling acclaimed psychological horror Mouthwashing. and Amy Eastland getting stuck into the radically different hits of Buckshot Roulette and Indika. Fair to say, we’ve given our thoughts on numerous titles from indies to Indy.
What Did We Talk About In Features?
Those 53 features sure allowed us to discuss many topics. Of course, the Startmenu Winter Spectacular awards was bound to win the number prize for most words in a feature and any article at a runaway 11225 words. However, that was a group effort. For the longest feature by a single writer, our own Vivian Winn covered the games she didn’t play in 2024 in a mere 5602 words, the longest single feature of our 2024 Winter Spectacular. Meanwhile, we had 16 articles written by guest writers from around the industry, ranging from Lost in Cult editorial director (and former Edge deputy editor) Chris Schilling’s reminiscence on 2024 games to Jules Engel’s reflection on the industry amongst the terrible events happening in Gaza and elsewhere in the world.
In The News
Meanwhile, we did have our regular Update Patch news roundup, most of which was written by yours truly. Since we’ve now moved to our new Patreon exclusive newsletters, the roundups have been handled by the fabulous Michael Beckwith and Ali Rees. The former claims the title of the longest piece on the site all year, with his October Update Patch sitting at a massive 11495 words.
What Games Did We Cover?
In the meantime, we’ve discussed enough games to populate the great library of Alexandria. Over 2024, we covered 219 unique games. Some of this included the biggest releases of 2024 in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Meanwhile, we covered the smallest of releases including Rose and Locket, Phoenix Springs and Mullet Madjack. We even found ourselves still talking about Disco Elysium, Alan Wake 2, and Baldur’s Gate III again after they had already been released in years gone by.
If you’re wondering what we talked about the most of all of those, that’s a little more interesting. The individual games tagged the most in our articles were FromSoftware’s Elden Ring and Atlus’ Metaphor: ReFantazio. Like most, we found ourselves enamoured with the biggest RPGs this year. That extends to our most talked about franchise in 2024 in Final Fantasy, which was tagged over at least 8 articles ranging from discussion on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to mentions of Final Fantasy XIV. Of course, there was a lot from the franchise in 2024.
All this is to say, that over 2024, we did a lot. We tried with great exuberance to cover so many elements of this still-young but vast industry and did it in so many ways. From my perspective, it's incredible to see this site started by friends grow into this space for new writers to hone their craft, share their love and insights on the medium, and occasionally remind the editor that the Sonic franchise has loads of good games. Just me? Regardless, it's been a pleasure to cultivate these stats and I’m sure 2025 will be full of even more thoughts, talks and takes.
