There has been a lot of negative stories about video game journalism this past month. I try to find the positives as I ask questions to many game journalist.
RPadTV’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month content kicks off with a Dean Takahashi interview. Considered by many to be THE preeminent videogames journalist, Dean Takahashi chats with host Raymond Padilla about why he chose to pursue a career in journalism, how the coverage of games has changed in his decades in the business, his thoughts on using AI to help write articles, the one question he always asks in interviews, advice he has to Asian Americans looking to get into videogame journalism, and more.
Dean Takahashi, the man the legend who failed so hard at the cuphead tutorial and Doom Eternal.
VGC investigates the “summer camp for old-time games journalists” held ahead of the big show
Game Informer Australia is going to close down and one of its editors, David Milner, recently announced that he was stepping down.
I agree with this advice:
"Honestly, the best advice I can give is to write TONS while you're in high school and college. Chances are you won't be getting paid for most of that, but whether it's on a site like Bitmob or a smaller fan site, write write write write write. This will help you develop your voice and skills, and eventually it can help you get noticed. It's also something you can point to when reaching out for potential jobs or freelance work to prove to potential employers that you can write on a solid schedule."
It is very, very true. You just have to put in a lot of work and effort. There are some that say they want to be a journalist so bad, get noticed, make money, etc, etc. Truth is, most don't put in the effort it takes to make it. I believe that the ones who truly want it will be the ones who will make it someday.
Interesting read.
One of the things I always wonder about gaming journalism is when people say "If I can just make it..." and to that I ask, "Where?"
To the top of the crop for a big pay check?
To the top of the crop for the most page views?
To the top of the crop for the most highly cited?
To the top of the crop at search engines whenever a game name is typed in?
Top of what, exactly?
I'd imagine a comfortable working environment, a decent pay grade and respect from the community would probably be the Holy Grail of gaming journalism. It doesn't really get much higher than that.
And for those of you who would point to Geoff Keighley as a "top of the crop" example, I'd hardly call it journalism so much as corporate media promotion.