Destructoid

• 1. Introduction

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  Destructoid began not as a publication but as a plan to get into a party. In March 2006, Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author, founded a video game blog with one specific goal: securing a press pass to the Electronic Entertainment Expo. When that application was rejected, something unexpected happened. Rather than quietly folding the site, Gonzalez started writing original editorials and drawing cartoons. Those pieces caught the attention of established gaming blogs, and a readership began to form around a site that had technically failed at its original purpose.

  What grew from that rejection was a community-driven outlet with a robot mascot, a charitable giving streak, and a presence that stretched far beyond its own pages, into video games themselves. How did a rejected press credential become a site with its mascot appearing in over a dozen games? And who shaped the culture that made that possible?

• 2. The Robot at the Gate

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  After being turned away from E3, Gonzalez did something that would define the site's personality for years. He showed up at the press conference dressed as Mr. Destructoid, the robot mascot that appears on the site's logos and promotional material, and handed out flyers. That act of showing up in costume rather than with a credential captured what the site would become: irreverent, self-aware, and impossible to ignore.

  Original editorial work from the site gained mainstream syndication, including the web show Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? By 2007, the site relaunched with user blogs, forums, and a team of contributors. Gonzalez's personal blog moved off the home page to make way for a staff-edited, multi-author format, similar in structure to IGN in its free registration and off-homepage reader blog system.

  The Mr. Destructoid costume itself was redesigned in 2012 by Volpin Props, given animated LED circuitry, and continued appearing at press events as the site's mascot.

• 3. Charity Marathons

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  In 2008, Destructoid editor James Stephanie Sterling and a friend named John Kershaw played games from the SingStar franchise for twelve hours straight, singing almost without interruption, in a sponsored marathon that raised three thousand dollars for young cancer patients. The event was broadcast live online for its entire duration.

  The tradition continued the following year. On October 17-18, 2009, Gonzalez and other editors ran a gaming marathon for cancer awareness, raising four thousand, eight hundred and thirty-five dollars and sixty cents for the Extra Life children's hospital in Texas.

  By 2010, the office hosted a 24-hour marathon for Extra Life, and community members raised over six thousand dollars for Children's Miracle hospitals in Texas. That same year, Destructoid partnered with Revision 3 to fund a clean water well in Africa through the Charity: Water organization.

  In 2011, the marathon raised six thousand, nine hundred and nine dollars and sixteen cents for Children's Miracle Hospitals. The year after, a 56-hour livestream on the Dtoid.tv channel raised over seven thousand dollars for Habitat for Humanity. Gonzalez then flew to Costa Rica and helped build a 32-house government project for families living in extreme poverty in Liberia.

• 4. A Mascot in Games

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  In 2007, Hudson Entertainment, the American branch of Hudson Soft, partnered with Destructoid to introduce a playable character based on Mr. Destructoid into the Xbox Live Arcade game Bomberman Live. The character later appeared in Bomberman Ultra, the PlayStation 3 port of that same game.

  Mr. Destructoid's head became an unlockable helmet in PixelJAM's game Dino Run, accessible by entering the password "totinos" in the cheat menu. That particular code traced back to an in-joke: a brand of pizza was a favorite of one of the site's editors, who happened to be friends with the game's developers. The password was revealed through the Podtoid podcast.

  In 2008, the mascot was included in the platform game Eternity's Child, then removed after the site published a critical review of it. The mascot also appeared in Agent MOO: Maximum Overdeath on Xbox Live Indie Games, alongside Ron Workman, Destructoid's former community manager.

  By 2010, Chapter 2-18 in Super Meat Boy was named "Destructoid," a nod from a game that won Destructoid's Game of the Show at the Penny Arcade Expo earlier that July. In 2011, reviews editor James Stephanie Sterling became a playable character in The Blocks Cometh. Mr. Destructoid appeared that same month in Twisted Pixel's Ms. Splosion Man as a destroyable villain in challenge mode, and again as a ball-swallowing fixture in the Ms. Splosion Man pinball table for Zen Studios' Pinball FX.

  In 2014, Microsoft added an official Mr. Destructoid outfit to the Xbox Live Avatar Marketplace. Two years later, a Mr. Destructoid flag appeared as a cosmetic item in Rocket League.

• 5. Awards and Ownership

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  Destructoid was nominated for the inaugural Games Media Awards in 2007 under the "Non-Commercial Website or Blog" category. That same year, it was named an Official Webby Honoree in the Games-Related category at the 11th Annual Webby Awards. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences nominated the site again in 2009 in the same category.

  From 2010 to 2013, the site produced the Destructoid Show, a twice-weekly in-studio video game news program broadcast on Revision 3. Alongside it ran daily live video streams on Twitch, including Kingdom of Foom and MASH TacticS, plus semi-regular video skits on YouTube such as Hey Ash Whatcha Playin, The Jimquisition, and Storm's Adventures.

  Reviews editor James Stephanie Sterling co-hosted a weekly podcast with associate editor Jonathan Holmes and Conrad Zimmerman. When Sterling left the site, a new host took over with noticeably less frequent output.

  In 2017, Enthusiast Gaming, a Toronto-based company, acquired the site. Enthusiast then sold Destructoid to Gamurs Group in September 2022. A blog started to attend a trade show had changed corporate hands twice, carrying its robot mascot and its community archives along with it.