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29-563: Since 1997, the XYZZY Awards have become one of the most important events within the interactive fiction community. Together with events like the Interactive Fiction Competition and Spring Thing , the XYZZY Awards provide opportunities for the community to encourage and reward the creation and development of new works within a genre that is no longer commercially lucrative. The name of the awards comes from

58-422: A film website run by Pitchfork Media . In April and June 2014, senior staff writers Kyle Ryan, Sonia Saraiya, and Emily St. James left the website for positions at Entertainment Weekly , Salon , and Vox Media , respectively. In 2015, Ryan returned to Onion, Inc. for a position in development. Following his departure from The Dissolve earlier that month, Nathan Rabin returned to write freelance for

87-612: A recognition of particularly daring interpretations of the limits and abilities of interactive fiction, especially as regards the relationship between the player , narrator, and player character. This award was retired in 2010, when Best Implementation and Best Use of Innovation were introduced as replacements. Introduced in 2010 along with Best Use of Innovation, to replace the Best use of Medium award. It recognizes "completeness of implementation, excellence in parser messages, etc". Introduced in 2010 along with Best Implementation, to replace

116-725: A similarly irreverent style. The publication's name is a reference to audiovisual (AV) clubs typical of American high schools. In 1993, five years after the founding of The Onion , Stephen Thompson , a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison , launched an entertainment section of the newspaper. "A.V. Club" is for "audiovisual club". In the United States in the late 20th century, many high schools would have clubs for students who wanted to use and learn about speakers, projectors, and other video and audio equipment. In 1996, both The Onion and The A.V. Club debuted on

145-576: Is one of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction . It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it, but longer games are allowed entry. The competition has been described as the " Super Bowl " of interactive fiction. Since 2016 it is operated by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF). In 2016, operation of

174-513: The A.V. Undercover web series would be revived after a 7-year hiatus, A.I. written articles during the G/O Media era would be removed, familiar writers would return (including Nathan Rabin and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky ), and a subscriber program will be introduced. In July 2024, Danette Chavez, a writer and editor for The A.V. Club from 2015 to 2022, rejoined the website as editor-in-chief. The same month, A.V. Undercover season 9 premiered and

203-648: The A.V. Club website in May 2015. He renewed his regular column "My World of Flops" Archived 6 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine . The Dissolve folded in July 2015. In January 2016, Univision Communications acquired "a 40 percent, controlling stake" in Onion Inc., the parent company of The A.V. Club . Later that year, Univision also purchased Gawker Media and reorganized several of Gawker's sites into

232-801: The Writers Guild of America, East . The union comprises "all of the creative staffs at Onion Inc.: The A.V. Club , The Onion , ClickHole , The Takeout , Onion Labs, and Onion Inc.'s video and art departments." ( ClickHole was subsequently acquired by Cards Against Humanity in February 2020. ) The union was recognized on 20 April 2018 and reached a contract agreement with management on 20 December 2018. The contract includes "annual pay increases, minimum pay grades, strong diversity and anti-harassment language, just cause, union security, editorial independence, intellectual property rights, and an end to permalancers." In July 2018, Univision announced it

261-605: The 2008 competition, "Once again, the IF Competition delivers some of the best writing in games." The 2008 competition was described as containing "some real standouts both in quality of puzzles and a willingness to stretch the definition of text adventures/interactive fiction." The A.V. Club The A.V. Club is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. The A.V. Club

290-466: The Best use of Medium award. It recognizes the "most innovative game". Recognizes "interpreters, authoring systems, libraries, utilities, and so on". Outstanding non-game content (" feelies ") created to accompany specific games. Eligibility is based on the year when the supplemental materials were released, regardless of the year of release of the game. Interactive Fiction Competition The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp)

319-495: The Internet. The A.V. Club was originally a subsection of the main theonion.com domain name. In December 2004, Stephen Thompson left his position as founding editor of The A.V. Club . The supplement was moved to its own domain name, theavclub.com , before the 2005 acquisition of the shorter avclub.com domain name. The latter change coincided with a redesign that incorporated reader comments and blog content. In 2006,

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348-506: The competition was taken over by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. The lead organizer 2014–2017 was Jason McIntosh, and in 2018 it was Jacqueline Ashwell. Although the first competition had separate sections for Inform and TADS games, subsequent competitions have not been divided into sections and are open to games produced by any method, provided that the software used to play

377-587: The competition, there is a rule that "All entries must cost nothing for judges to play". The competition has rules for judges, authors and everyone to ensure that everyone agrees on the purpose, scope, and spirit of the competition. Anyone can donate a prize. Almost always, there are enough prizes donated that anyone who enters will get one. The following is a list of first place winners to date: Only two competitors have won more than once: Paul O'Brian, winning in 2002 and 2004, and Steph Cherrywell, winning in 2015 and 2019. A reviewer for The A.V. Club said of

406-560: The distinction is given to the entry with scores with the highest standard deviation. The competition differs from the XYZZY Awards , as authors must specifically submit games to the Interactive Fiction Competition, but all games released in the past year are eligible for the XYZZY Awards. Many games win awards in both competitions. Anyone can judge the games. Because anyone can judge and participate in

435-405: The first time ever, with G/O Media selling The Onion to Global Tetrahedron the following month. Two employees were laid off as part of the transition. Paste Media CEO Josh Jackson stressed that Paste and The A.V. Club would not be consolidated together and ensured that the comments, briefly disabled by G/O Media, would be restored. In June 2024, various changes were announced, including that

464-509: The game is freely available. In addition to the main competition, the entries take part in the Miss Congeniality contest, where the participating authors vote for three games (not including their own). This was started in 1998 to distribute that year's surplus prizes; this additional contest has remained unchanged since then, even without the original reason for its existence. There is also a 'Golden Banana of Discord' side contest;

493-876: The magic word " xyzzy " causing teleportation from the popular early text adventure game Adventure . The awards have been presented in the following categories. The game which is the most enjoyable as a whole; other awards recognize merit in particular qualities. A game which rises above the others in the quality of its descriptive text. The game with the deepest or most original story. The most original or best-described locations. The most well-crafted, clever, and appropriate puzzles. Appropriate, amusing, and well-written casts of non-player characters. The most inspired, well-crafted, and intriguing puzzle. A particularly well-implemented and well-written non-player character . A particularly well-defined and well-written player character. The category had no specific criteria given to voters; many chose to interpret this award as

522-495: The new Gizmodo Media Group , a division of Fusion Media Group . On 16 February 2017, The A.V. Club 's editor-at-large, John Teti, posted an article on the website announcing the upcoming release of a television series, titled The A.V. Club , based on the website. The series, hosted by Teti, began airing on Fusion on 16 March 2017 and ran for one season. The series featured news, criticism, and discussions about various popular-culture topics and featured staff members from

551-471: The print version of The A.V. Club was available in 17 different cities. Localized sections of the website were also maintained, with reviews and news relevant to specific cities. The print version and localized websites were gradually discontinued, and in December 2013, print publication ceased production in the last three markets. On 13 December 2012, long-time writer and editor Keith Phipps, who oversaw

580-481: The senior staff of the site and comprised the managing editor, film editor, TV editor, associate editor, senior writer, assistant editor, and editorial coordinator. In March 2024, it was reported that G/O Media had sold The A.V. Club to Paste Media , who had previously bought the dormant G/O Media sites Jezebel and Splinter News for a relaunch. This resulted in The A.V. Club being separated from The Onion for

609-429: The site migrated from Kinja to WordPress , returning to the former Disqus -powered commenting system used under Bulbs. On 9 December 2010, the website ComicsComicsMag revealed a capsule review for the book Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth had been fabricated. The book had not yet been published nor even completed by the authors. After the review was removed, editor Keith Phipps posted an apology on

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638-520: The website after Stephen Thompson left, stepped down from his role as editor of The A.V. Club . He said, " Onion, Inc. and I have come to a mutual parting of the ways." On 2 April 2013, long-time film review editor and critic Scott Tobias stepped down as film editor of The A.V. Club . He said via Twitter , "After 15 great years @theavclub, I step down as Film Editor next Friday." On 26 April 2013, long-time writers Nathan Rabin , Tasha Robinson, and Genevieve Koski announced they would also be leaving

667-520: The website shifted its content model again to add content on a daily, rather than weekly, basis. Some contributors have become established as freelance writers and editors. According to Sean Mills, then-president of The Onion, the A.V. Club website first reached more than 1 million unique visitors in October 2007. In late 2009, the website was reported to have received more than 1.4 million unique visitors and 75,000 comments per month. At its peak,

696-405: The website to begin work on a new project with Scott Tobias and Keith Phipps. Koski also said that she would continue to write freelance articles. Writer Noel Murray announced he would be joining their new project, but would also continue to contribute to The A.V. Club in a reduced capacity. On 30 May 2013, those six writers were announced as becoming part of the senior staff of The Dissolve ,

725-914: The website, stating that the reporter being assigned to review the book could not locate a copy of it ("for obvious reasons"), so they fabricated it. Leonard Pierce, the author of the review, was terminated from his freelance role with the website. In 2017, The A.V. Club won an Eisner Award for "Best Comics-related Periodical/Journalism" (for works published in 2016). The award went to writers Oliver Sava, Caitlin Rosberg, Shea Hennum, and Tegan O'Neil. The award also went to editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog. Starting in 1999, only lists written by individual writers were published. Beginning in 2006, The A.V. Club began publishing website-consensus, year-end album and film rankings, together with lists created by individual writers. Additionally decade-end lists were published for

754-558: The website. The site was subsequently migrated from Bulbs, an internal content management system developed by Onion Inc. to the Gawker-developed Kinja platform. Audience reviews hosted on the previous site were deleted and the Kinja comment system was heavily derided by the site's commenting community, leading to a sharp decline in activity. In March 2018 the employees of the company announced they had unionized with

783-457: Was announced that the site was opening a Los Angeles bureau. In August 2021, Yahoo! Entertainment and E! Online alum Scott Robson joined to lead the team. On 18 January 2022, the union representing staff at the website announced that all seven staff members based in Chicago had taken severance as opposed to accepting a mandatory move of work location to Los Angeles. This predominantly affected

812-410: Was created in 1993 as a supplement to its satirical parent publication, The Onion . While it was a part of The Onion ' s 1996 website launch, The A.V. Club had minimal presence on the website at that point. A 2005 website redesign placed The A.V. Club in a more prominent position, allowing its online identity to grow. Unlike The Onion , The A.V. Club is not satirical, though it does use

841-430: Was looking for a buyer for the entire Gizmodo Group. In April 2019, Gizmodo and The Onion were sold to private-equity firm Great Hill Partners, which combined them into a new company named G/O Media . In July 2019, executive editor Laura M. Browning and managing editor Caitlin PenzeyMoog left. In early 2020, former People magazine and Entertainment Weekly editor Patrick Gomez was named editor-in-chief, and it

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