Support Killscreen
A year of independent games criticism, and what $25,000 funds next: writers, the podcast, the print issue and the archive. Gifts are tax-deductible.
Year-end campaign
Killscreen is a sponsored project of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Gifts made before December 31 are tax-deductible and go straight into the work.
A note from Jamin
I started Kill Screen in 2009 because games deserved the kind of criticism film, music and art get. Seventeen years later, that argument has mostly been won. The coverage has not caught up.
This year I rebuilt Killscreen around readers instead of advertisers. I publish almost every day, run a biweekly podcast, launched a members-only feed, and have started bringing the print-era magazine archive back online. The point of doing it this way is independence: when readers pay for the work, the work answers to them.
This December I am asking for $25,000 to carry that work into 2027.
Why it matters
Eleven years early. In May 2015, Killscreen ran a piece on a young artist working between painting and virtual reality, pulling videogames apart to see what they were made of. His name was Leo Castañeda. In March 2026 his work went up in the Whitney Biennial, where his commission Camoflux Recall Grotto runs through August. I am still covering him. That gap, between the first serious piece written about an artist and the institution catching up, is the whole job.
Games are speech. The Supreme Court settled the legal question in 2011: videogames are expression, protected like books and film. The cultural question is still open, and it is the one I work on. Treating games as art means giving them what art gets, which is criticism, context, an archive and an argument. That work does not fund itself out of page views.
Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2026
2026 in numbers
Sources: Ghost and Transistor, September 2026. Google Analytics, January to September 2026. The coverage figure counts the 86 news items published since mid-July whose creator is named and publicly self-identifies.
Proposed split
Where $25,000 goes
- Contributor feesWriters, critics and artists: 70 percent$17,500
- OperationsProduction, tools and hosting: 20 percent$5,000
- Gray Area feeFiscal sponsor processing: 7 percent$1,750
- Print issuePrinting and shipping: 3 percent$750
Suggested amounts
What a gift does
Covers one month of editorial maintenance.
Kicks in a budget for social.
Improves the quality of the Killscreen podcast.
Creates a pipeline for another print issue.
What this funds next
2027
- Grow the editorial team
More writers and critics on the masthead, so the publishing schedule does not rest on one person.
- Bring on help for social and operations
One person to run distribution and keep the back end moving, which is the work that currently eats editorial time.
- Grow the video podcast
More episodes, better production, and video made for the show rather than borrowed from it.
All gifts are processed by Gray Area
How to give
Online
Card, bank transfer, PayPal or Google Pay through Give Lively.
By check
Payable to Gray Area Foundation For The Arts, with "Killscreen" in the memo.
Killscreen
1620 Carmona Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90019
Stock or DAF
Gray Area accepts gifts of stock and grants from donor-advised funds. Write to info@killscreen.com for transfer details.
Gray Area sends a written acknowledgment for gifts of $250 or more. Gifts of $2,500 or more need a contribution letter addressed to Gray Area. Gifts must be made by December 31 to count for 2026.
Killscreen is a sponsored project of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 26-3383316). Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our sponsorship page at Gray Area.