Thought beyond play
We are a magazine for people who love videogames, love independent writing, or think they might grow to love either of those.
We are not the mainstream, triple-A, multi-million marketed videogame. We are the pre-owned game that takes you by surprise, the one that sparks the imagination, the one you love. We are not the main campaign: we are the bonus stage.
Different
We only publish great, original features: insightful, bold, timeless writing. Our features combine personal experience with critical investigation: the thoughts that go beyond mere play.
Inclusive
We have a proud history of publishing a wide range of experiences. We welcome minority and marginalised voices. All our features are developed collaboratively between the writer and editorial team to ensure they reflect the author’s views.
Fair Pay
Good writing is worth paying for. We split our profits between each issue’s contributors: our writers share in our success. We do not publish writing without financially compensating the author, and we don’t rely on advertising or sponsorship.
DRM-free
Every issue of Five out of Ten is completely DRM-free. Enjoy it how you like, when you like. If your friends want a copy of our magazines or books, please ask them to purchase their own copy.
Staff
Alan Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Five out of Ten and co-founder of Split Screen. He has written for the New Statesman, Eurogamer, MacFormat, and this one kids’ magazine you won’t have read (but paid well). Originally from Northern Ireland, he now lives in Oxford.
Craig Wilson is responsible for at least half of the design of Five out of Ten, especially the good looking bits. He is the other co-founder of Split Screen and was an award-winning editor at The Student. He also likes creating insightful infographics and recording his own music.
Jess Turner is the Web and Social Editor at Five out of Ten. From the Blue Mountains in Sydney, she now resides in Oxford – most of her time is spent trying to find good coffee. She has written for The Guardian and The Western Weekender, ‘Penrith’s leading newspaper’.
Marko Jung is Five out of Ten‘s website manager and 9th Dan UNIX ninja. Whenever he’s not working on the site infrastructure or adding nifty new features, you might find him rowing around Oxford or scuba diving the seven seas (but never the other way around).
Robbie Pickles is Five out of Ten‘s Copy Editor. He’s a History and Politics graduate, formerly working at the University of Oxford and now Sheffield, whose pop culture references dry up around 1997. His previous works include a comment on the Guardian website and a terse quote in his high school magazine.
Contributors
Leigh Alexander is Editor-at-Large for Gamasutra and a widely-published journalist and consultant on the art, culture and business of games. Her work has appeared in Slate, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review.
Samantha Allen is a PhD student in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University writing a dissertation on sexual fetishism. She writes regularly for The Border House and has contributed to Kotaku, Medium Difficulty and First Person Scholar.
Nathan Altice is an artist, musician, and professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He published his first book, I AM ERROR, a platform study of the Nintendo Entertainment System, in 2015. He also writes at metopal.com and tweets @circuitlions.
Alex Avard is a freelance games writer and student, currently attempting to stay warm in the perpetually chilly city of Bath, England. He has written for Playboy, Vice, Kill Screen and elsewhere.
Lee Baker is a comparative literature and film graduate, Arsenal fan, and fruit tea enthusiast. You can find his writing on Screen Robot, We Got This Covered, and various other places. Genuinely thinks that Def Jam: Fight For New York is a perfect game.
Edward Bals is a freelance wordsmith whose words have appeared in PC Gamer, GamesRadar, Zam and more. When he’s not busy being overly critical or looking for the hottest new take he’s probably on Twitter as @EdwardBals.
Stephen Beirne is a game critic specializing in little moments of beauty and intrigue. His writing blends the personal with the analytical in a very normal way. He also makes a series of videos under the banner Two Minute Game Crit, and sometimes he draws. You can find more of him on his site normallyrascal.com.
Mitch Bowman is a writer from Vancouver, Canada. Over the last few years, he’s contributed stories to Edge Magazine, Polygon, Rock Paper Shotgun, etc. He has a penchant for long-form investigative stories, dabbles in mediocre photography, and plays in a genuinely unlistenable band.
Brian Butcher is a freelancer, musician, and salesman, located in Morgantown, West Virginia. He writes on a blog in his spare time at butcheredjudgements.wordpress.com where he pontificates about food, music, and video games.
Becky Chambers is a freelance writer and editor. Her work has appeared at The Mary Sue, Tor.com, and elsewhere around the internet. Her first novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, is out now in ebook and paperback.
Chay Close is a writer from South Wales. He likes big words, but doesn’t know what they mean. You can find his work on Kill Screen, The Atlantic, Unwinnable, and more.
Bill Coberly is the Founder and now Editor Emeritus of The Ontological Geek. He currently studies law at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Erin and a pair of small and snuggly terriers, Azathoth and Nyarlathotep.
Brian Crimmins is a game writer who often focuses on older, more obscure titles in his writing. Many of the games he writes about haven’t even been released outside Japan. You can find his writing on sites like Playboy, Unwinnable, Ontological Geek, and First Person Scholar.
Christian Donlan writes about videogames for Eurogamer. He won the Games Journalism Prize in 2012 – we’ll put it in the biography if he won’t! He lives in Brighton.
Ian Dransfield is a man with a face, at least three pairs of shorts and a dog he loves dearly but isn’t actually his. All of these things are more important than where he’s been published (loads of places) or what he’s done (some stuff). Find him rambling idiotically here: @ianinthefuture.
Matt Duhamel is a writer, game designer, and animator. His work can be found at http://www.abandoned.computer/.
Nate Ewert-Krocker is a writer and Montessori teacher who lives in Atlanta. His writing about games has appeared at Kill Screen, Paste Magazine, and others. His first novel, The Silence, is currently available in paperback and ebook. You can find him on Twitter at @NEwertKrocker, where he mostly gushes about JRPG boss themes.
Denis Farr is a media critic living in Chicago. With a penchant for games, theater, queer issues, and how they all intersect, he has written for GayGamer, The Border House, Gamers With Jobs, and Unwinnable. His drag persona is Leeloo Dallas Multidrag.
Jordan Garland is a games tester at Rockstar Lincoln, on hiatus from games writing in order to keep Uncle Take Two happy. He has written for VideoGamer, NowGamer, X-ONE, gamesTM, Loaded and Techradar, badly.
Bruce Geryk, MD has been writing about games since Fire & Movement #43 in 1985. He has also written as a medical correspondent for ABC News. He works as a neurologist in North Carolina.
Dan Griliopoulos has written magazines since he was ten. He’s worked for the Guardian, Mail on Sunday, The Times, PC Gamer, RockPaperShotgun, Edge and more. He’s also the best colourblind photographer and artist you’ll meet.
Phil Hartup is a freelance writer who specialises in downplaying his achievements in biographies and picking the wrong things to be proud of. He has been described as ‘in the way’ and ‘that guy over there’. Cats seem to like him.
Tom Hatfield is a freelancer who has written for PC Gamer, The Guardian, Rock Paper Shotgun and many more. He also hosts the Not a Game podcast and tweets too much at @wordmercenary (caution: may contain football tweets).
Austin Howe is the author of Haptic Feedback, contributor to Memory Insufficient and The Ontological Geek. He’s working on a book-length collection of essays on Final Fantasy VII entitled Cloud Wears Blue.
Grant Howitt is a games journalist, designer, and writer; English, but living in Australia. (At least, he was when he wrote this bio. Maybe he’s not!) Likes examining game mechanics a little too much.
Ria Jenkins is a freelance writer, English literature student and prolific lover of shibas, Nicki Minaj and tweeting about them both @introskeptive.
Mark R. Johnson is a postdoctoral fellow in game studies at the University of York, the developer of a massive roguelike about semiotics and historiography, a retired professional gamer, and a danmaku world champion.
Lindsey Joyce was the Managing Editor of Five out of Ten. She was Managing Editor at Haywire Magazine and has contributed to Critical Distance, First Person Scholar, and Kill Screen. She once stood on a dead whale in the middle of the Atlantic. It was gross.
Soha Kareem is a Canadian-based games writer and experimental artist. Her favourite topics include the intersection of identity and games, games as exhibition, and low-res glitch art.
Phil Keeling is a writer and comedian based out of Atlanta; a city that encourages him to drink and barricade his door to avoid interacting with the outside world. He can be found on Youtube as ElConquistadork, where he creates game reviews, Let’s Plays, and the series ‘Phil Plays A Porno’.
Brendan Keogh is a videogame critic and academic from Melbourne, Australia. He is completing a PhD at RMIT university, and writes regularly for publications such as Edge, Hyper, and Unwinnable.
Imran Khan is a San Francisco-based writer that tweets @imranzomg. He has written for Paste, Playboy, and several other publications. He is an advocate for diversity in tech and laughs at the same kitten gifs longer than most people would.
Johnny Kilhefner is a freelance writer who broods existentially in black and white photographs. He has contributed to Unwinnable, PopMatters, Nightmare Mode, and Critical Distance.
Paul King is a poet and freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in Kill Screen and Bad at Sports.
Joe Köller is Editor-in-Chief of Haywire Magazine, German Correspond- ent for Critical Distance, and irregular contributor to German sites such as Video Game Tourism, Superlevel, and WASD.
Daniel Korn is a writer and musician based in Toronto, Ontario. He has written for The Plaid Zebra, Cadence Canada, and The Drummer’s Journal. You can follow him on Twitter @AmateurDan.
Cameron Kunzelman is a nonhuman. He tweets @ckunzelman, blogs at This Cage is Worms and makes games at heylookatmygames.com.
Rick Lane is a freelance journalist and Games Editor for Custom PC magazine, living in Edinburgh. He writes for publications such as PC Gamer, IGN, The Escapist, and many more. His work covers gaming topics from sword fighting to the Sublime.
Gaby Lax is a writer and game developer living in Melbourne, Australia. She can usually be found working on her novel, complaining about her novel, or playing too many dating sims.
Megan LeBoeuf is a writer, editor, and primary school EFL teacher in Prague. She plays a lot of video games, puts videos of them on YouTube on her channel Aira Plays Games, and sometimes writes about them in her blog Aira Plays Games (Then Writes About Them).
Helen Lewis is a writer; actually, she’s mostly a tweeter. Follow her @helenlewis.
Kris Ligman curates ‘This Week in Videogame Blogging’ for Critical Distance, is a community advocate for Gamasutra, and has written for Gameranx and Ctrl+Alt+Defeat..
Patrick Lindsey is the co-writer of Depression Quest, game critic and developer living in Boston. He writes his bios in the third-person because that’s what everyone else does.
Jody Macgregor is a freelance music and games journalist living in Australia. He has written for PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, and GamesRadar and is on Twitter at @jodymacgregor.
Joe Martin is a semi-retired journalist who has written for Gamasutra, Eurogamer, RockPaperShotgun and more. Nowadays he’s best known for the Unlimited Hyperbole podcast and his repeated attempts to quit games journalism for good.
Anthony McGlynn is an Irish writer and opinion-haver. When he’s not playing, watching or reading something, he’s thinking about it an amount that almost certainly constitutes as “too much.” He fears his to-read pile will one day grow weary of his negligence and consume him in his sleep.
Ben Meredith is a narrative designer and writer living in Brighton. He’s spoken at Videobrains and NineWorlds (usually about narrative in games – surprisingly), worships Poseidon for The Rusty Quill podcast, and spends a lot of his time dressed up in silly costumes pretending to be someone else.
Tauriq Moosa writes on ethics related to modern technology for The Daily Beast, Guardian, New Statesman and elsewhere. He is more likely to love a videogame than people. He currently resides in South Africa.
Richard Moss mostly writes about people who care about videogames for the likes of Edge, Eurogamer, and Polygon. Sometimes he does game reviews or reports on scientific developments. One day he’ll finish reading the entire internet. He hopes.
Jake Muncy is a writer, editor, and poet living in North Texas. He’s a regular contributor to Wired Game|Life, and freelances for The AV Club, Vice, and others. He has very strong feelings about Kanye West.
Maddy Myers is a freelance game critic and the Assistant Editor of Paste Magazine’s games section. Her writing portfolio can be found at maddymyers.net/writing, and she tweets @samusclone.
Michelle Perez is a single young woman, twenty-six years of age. She is a writer, exhibitionist pervert and perversion tastemaker. She once broke a man’s nose for calling her a slur.
Lana Polansky is a videogame critic and essayist living in Montreal, Canada. She writes bi-monthly for Bit Creature and has been published in Kill Screen, Gameranx, Medium Difficulty, The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy and Billboard. She’ll have her Twine game up eventually.
Marc Price is Games Editor at VGRevolution and lives in Palm Harbor, Florida. He has a four-year-old daughter who cheats when he plays board games with her and acts as his stand-in for magazine profile pictures.
Christos Reid is a writer, musician and developer living in London, while brain-dumping as @failnaut on Twitter.
Lindsay Robertson is a Media Manager and Freelance Writer. Her work has featured in Retro Collect, The Void, gamesTM and several remote corners of the internet. She’s lived in London for years but hasn’t lost her Scottish accent.
Elizabeth Simins is an artist & illustrator living in New York. She makes comics primarily about games, but also sometimes about the apocalypse. Her work appears regularly on Kotaku and the Bygone Bureau.
Carly Smith is a writer and editor living in the New York City. She spends most of her time editing English translations of Japanese manga and light novels at Yen Press, but she still finds time somehow for her love of games.
Ed Smith is a journalist and writer working for International Business Times UK. His work has also appeared on The Escapist, Gamasutra, Medium Difficulty and Play magazine. When not getting fed up with how rubbish videogames are, he sleeps.
Daniel Starkey is a freelance video game critic and member of the Smith Syndicate based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has been featured in GameSpot, Joystiq, Destructoid and others.
Zoya Street is a historian and journalist from Britain, living in the Bay Area. He runs the games history e-zine Memory Insufficient and wrote Dreamcast Worlds, a book based on his master’s thesis.
Oscar Strik is a linguist from the Netherlands who plays at studying games in his spare time. He is an editor at The Ontological Geek and does alternative music podcasts at Evening of Light.
AR Teschner is a writer, game designer, and breaker of machines, and has no business being associated with all these lovely people. Embrace the mystery: https://artesianspill.wordpress.com/
Matt Thrower is a freelance video and tabletop games writer and software engineer living in Bath, England. His regular outlets include PC Gamer, Pocketgamer and Shut Up & Sit Down. He started writing about games when small children reduced his time for playing them: it turned out to be more fun than he’d imagined.
Meg Townsend-Ruttan is an errant writer and teacher from Ontario, dabbling in many things including videogames, literature, and film. She likes to take things apart but refuses to put them back together.
Kaitlin Tremblay is an editor for a children’s educational publisher in Ontario. She was formerly Managing Editor of Five out of Ten. Her published games include Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before and There Are Monsters Under Your Bed.
Joshua Trevett is the Managing Editor of Haywire magazine, a freelance critic, and somebody who drives a virtual truck on YouTube. He can be found on Twitter @hamlettrevett.
Ana Valens is a freelance games critic and trans cultural writer. Her work focuses on character design in videogames, and the relationships players build with their favorite protagonists. Her writing has been published in FemHype, The Toast, Kill Screen, and Unwinnable.
Carli Velocci is a freelance writer in Boston. Her work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Kill Screen, and in other places that are brave enough to publish her.
Amsel von Spreckelsen is a management accountant from London, now living in Brighton with a murderous cat. He has written for numerous alternative games publications including The Arcade Review, Memory Insufficient and The Ontological Geek.
Jordan Erica Webber is a freelancer who writes and talks about games for the Observer, PC Gamer, GamesTM, Family Gamer TV, IGN, and more. She studied Philosophy and Psychology, and also likes other P words like poetry and planets.
Julian Williams By day a retail slave, by night he writes about video games and fantasy novels with the hope of one day becoming a ‘real’ writer. He can be found on RTS Guru, where he talks about League of Legends and god games too much.
Katie Williams is a games journalist, critic, and graduate living in Melbourne, Australia. She is the current director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival and writes for Hyper, PC PowerPlay, IGN and formerly Gamespy.
