The EGM Compendium Will Now Arrive Digitally Next Week
4 months ago
– Fri, Nov 28, 2025 at 12:18:01 PM
To cut to the chase, it'll be a few more days on the digital version of The EGM Compendium book. You can expect it download and read it next week.
As we shared previously, we had wrapped up our work on the pages and were waiting on the final review. After that review, we needed to make some revisions, and we worked hard to get the requested changes finished as quickly as possible, up to and including working all day yesterday.
Unfortunately, the people who need to review the changes and put the final stamp of approval on the release are out because of the holiday and won't be able to sign off until they're back next week.
We understand that this is going to be upsetting, but there's nothing that can be done. We did, however, want to make sure everyone was fully informed and wanted to underscore once again that we're done and ready to go once this last step is checked off.
We can't reiterate enough how appreciative we are of everyone being understanding of the delays and we're sure that you'll agree, when you see the final product, that it was worth the wait. We understand many of you will not be pleased with this additional (however short) delay and apologize that our best laid plans got derailed here—but we are literally steps away from the finish line for the delivery of the digital book and hope you'll extend one last bit of understanding. We know you'll be as proud to have been a part of this project as we were making it for you.
Thank you again to everyone who has been part of this journey.
Your Digital Copy of The EGM Compendium Is Almost Here—Here’s How You’ll Get It
4 months ago
– Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 01:41:41 PM
Hello and thank you again to our EGM Compendium backers!
We’re officially a week out from the release of the digital edition, and we wanted to share a bit more detail about how exactly we’ll be distributing your copy.
Download Details
To make the process as seamless as possible for you, there will be three ways to read the Compendium digitally. First, we’ll be putting it up on the EGM Digital Archive site, where you’ll be able to read it within our viewer. Second, you’ll be able to download your PDF copy directly from the Digital Archive site, just as you can with classic issues of EGM.
We do know that many of you have not yet set up your Digital Archive accounts at the backer or paid tier, so as a third option to reduce the number of steps, we’ll be distributing the PDF directly through BackerKit. Once we upload and send out the PDF, you’ll receive an email from BackerKit informing you that you have a new digital reward. A link inside will take you to your BackerKit survey page, where you’ll be able to download the PDF.
Like all of you, we play games, which means we also know how bad DRM can suck. That’s why we’re taking a light hand here. The PDF will have basic protections built in. You won’t be able to print it out—that’s what the physical book is for—and you won’t be able to copy and paste out all the text, since we want everyone to read this material in its intended context. Although there will be some security added to the file, we’re putting our trust in you to be respectful of the effort we’ve put into this project and the investment you and each of your fellow backers made to bring it to life. In short, please don’t distribute this to people who shouldn’t receive it.
Charging Cards on BackerKit
We’d also like to give you a heads-up that we’ll be charging cards on BackerKit as a final step in the minutes before we distribute the PDF. Because we’re now moving into production of physical goods, we need to ensure that our item counts are locked and final.
Note that if you backed on Kickstarter and did not add any add-ons while completing your BackerKit survey, you’re all set. There will be no further charges and you don’t need to worry about anything.
If you did choose new add-ons via the survey and provided your credit card information through BackerKit, your card on file will be charged for the outstanding balance on any rewards you added. Please take a moment in the next week to verify that your card on file is still valid to avoid any complications and to help ensure that you get the add-ons you wanted.
A Quick Note on Archive Codes
One more quick note before we go. As we announced during the initial campaign, The EGM Compendium also includes a few special codes that Digital Archive subscribers can use to go deeper on certain topics within the book. For example, if you’re reading about Sheng Long in the book, there will be a code you can plug in on the Archive site to visit a page that will let you quickly navigate to his appearances in the magazine and read extended interview material from the editors involved in his creation.
Because we’ve been laser-focused on getting the book out to you as fast as possible, and because we altered our plans to get you the digital version the moment it’s ready, these pages won’t be active right when your PDF of the book arrives. We’ll be working on setting them up after the book is distributed to you and sent to the printer, and we’ll follow up with an announcement once they’re live. We understand the book is the main priority for many of you, so we didn’t want these pages to impact how soon you could read it in any way.
Thanks again!
The EGM Compendium Weekly Progress Update: November 10th
5 months ago
– Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 05:01:30 PM
Hello, and thank you to our backers!
Today, we can announce that you’ll be able to read the digital edition of The EGM Compendium starting November 28th.
As of today, Mollie and I are about a week out from wrapping up our editing work on the book. That’s when we’ll have clean, edited PDFs of every page in a place she and I are comfortable with. After discussing the timeline with the team today, we decided to build a buffer of a few more days into the schedule to ensure there’s adequate time for final review as well as any small last-minute revisions those reviews may necessitate.
This’ll also give us and our collaborators a chance to give the book one final read-through in its complete, assembled form and test out our digital distribution to ensure everything works well. Speaking of, we’ll share more details on distribution—how and where you’ll be able to download the book—next week.
We also know many of you are most excited for the print copy of the book. On that front, please note that we’re taking steps to speed up the production process and ensure we hit the ground running. This week, we’re providing the printer files to produce a test run of sample books reflecting the exact materials, page count, and page designs of the the final version. We’ll also have the already-approved pages ready to go in the prepress system ahead of time, minimizing the lag between approval and printing.
After all the effort we’ve poured into this project over the past year—and all the love (and, yes, patience too!) we’ve gotten back from this community—it feels a little surreal to be so close to sharing The EGM Compendium with you. We can’t wait for you to read it, and we can’t thank you enough for giving us the opportunity to write it through your support.
Thank you again, and we’ll be back next week.
EGM Compendium Weekly Progress Update: October 31st
5 months ago
– Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 04:58:57 PM
Hello, thank, you, and a very spooky Halloween to all our backers!
We’re still in the thick of wrapping up the final layouts, copy editing, and approvals on the last book pages. We’ve decided we’re going to spend one more week crunching hard before we announce the specific date—yes, in November—when you can expect to see the digital issue available to read (which is when we’ll also send the book to the printer).
As I’m sure you can understand after the journey we’ve been on together, we want to be absolutely certain how long the remaining work will take. But it’s almost time (really!), and we can’t wait to share the book with you.
We’ve been swamped with all the finishing touches this week, so we don’t have much to share in the way of a fun extra, but we did remember something small that we wanted to pass along. Back when we were building the Archive website, we hid a few minor Easter eggs, just to see if anyone would stumble on them. Well, maybe it’s better described as one Easter egg in multiple flavors.
Again, they’re not major secrets by any stretch, but they are obvious enough that you’d know if you discovered one. To the best of our knowledge, no one has found a single one yet. So we thought we’d see if a little poke could change that. Happy hunting!
EGM Compendium Weekly Progress Update: October 24th
5 months ago
– Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 05:39:45 PM
Hello and thank you once again to our backers. It’s Friday, which means we’re back with another quick update on our latest work.
Just like last week, we’ve been whittling away at the remaining issue page layouts and working through the copy editing and page reviews. No setbacks to report this week either, so we’re still looking on track for mid-November delivery of the digital version and to start printing of the physical edition.
That being said, we did want to find something new we could share with you, so it’s time to reveal one more surprise we’ve been holding back. As you know, for this project we recorded dozens of hours of interviews with former EGM editors and staffers. (Just a hair under 32 hours, to be exact.) Everyone we spoke to ended up being far more generous with their time than we ever expected, and we quickly realized that if we printed every great story or insight we heard, we’d barely have space for anything else in the book. So we started brainstorming (and getting the sign-off from our interviewees for) yet another way for you to experience EGM history: a limited podcast series, based on our conversations with the alumni.
To set expectations properly, these recordings weren’t originally planned for public release. The audio we’re working with isn’t studio quality. Some folks were even calling in on cellphones. But the conversations were just too good not to share, and we’re confident you’ll have a lot of fun hearing your favorite EGM editors reconnecting—some of them for the first time in years—to reminisce about the good old days. There’s a magic there that’s impossible to fully capture on the page.
But if you’re more of the reading type than the listening type, no sweat. We’ll also publish transcripts online, so you’ll be getting bonus material, too.
You can expect episodes to begin releasing after the book and EGM #265 ship to you. They’ll be accessible to all backers regardless of level, though you will have to register your (free or paid) Archive account. We’ll start editing them together concurrently with the remainder of our work on the Archive. (We want to stress again, after the book is complete—all our efforts are still laser-focused on getting that to you, and this will not have any impact on our timeline.) This is just one more small way for us to say thank you to everyone who supported this endeavor and to reward your patience for sticking with us until we all reach the finish line.
Back next week!
