Editor's blog: A personal update

Some of you may remember that at the start of 2011 I was promoted to the new role of Operations Director at Gamer Network, the company which publishes this website. The idea was that after a decade working solely on Eurogamer.net my responsibility would grow to include oversight of other publications and general management around and about the company.

I enjoyed the job at first, working my way around the business smoothing rough edges and reorganising things so that they were more efficient, professional and enjoyable for the people working on them. By spending time doing that, I freed up other people in the company to devote themselves more fully to things like the Eurogamer Expo and our growing footprint in America.

However, once I'd set things in order in the first 12 months, I found that I wasn't really getting as much out of it any more and I missed having a more active role editing this site. I still oversaw the editorial team and got my pick of assignments, but I was frequently diverted from journalism or criticism by more mundane business stuff. I also realised business development wasn't my strength - in fact I just wasn't a fan of it at all.

So just over a year ago I told my boss, Rupert Loman, that I wasn't really enjoying it and would prefer to rededicate myself fully to Eurogamer.net. He is a good guy and wants me to enjoy my work, so he agreed to help make it happen. After that we hired Simon Maxwell as Group Publishing Director, which meant the company still has someone to push the rest of business forward while I can concentrate exclusively on editorial.

We didn't talk about this at the time because I think we weren't quite sure how to tell people that I had demoted myself, but after a year back in the role of plain old Editor-in-Chief of Eurogamer.net it feels like high time.

In those 12 months I've got back to doing what I enjoy most, working with our growing editorial team to improve and diversify Eurogamer's output and trying to make an impact during the transition to the next generation of consoles. I went to the US to see the birth of PS4 and Xbox One and tried to get the answers you wanted out of the executives pulling the strings. I've also gone back to my first love, game reviewing, and tried to say something different and interesting each time. You can see how I do with Grand Theft Auto 5 on Monday.

Editing Eurogamer.net is all I wanted to do for the first decade I worked at Gamer Network - then known as Eurogamer Network - and it wasn't until I stopped doing it full time that I realised it was all I wanted to do full-stop. It's great to be back doing what I love, and for the sake of clarity it feels like the right time to tell everyone about it, so I hope you'll forgive me taking a couple of minutes of your time to mention it.

Short version: I got my old job back because I missed this too much. I feel lucky to work somewhere where that's a thing you can do.

Tom Bramwell
Editor-in-Chief, Eurogamer.net