OP, hope you didn't miss this, great opportunity here - Rolling Stone journalist and founder of Kotaku.
Brian, you need verafied status!
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Games Journalism as a Career: Thoughts?
- Thread starter SOLDIER
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OP, hope you didn't miss this, great opportunity here - Rolling Stone journalist and founder of Kotaku.
Brian, you need verafied status!
I worked as a (paid) game journalist for 5 or 6 years (2006 to around 2011 or 2012), and while I had a lot of fun, I wish I bailed sooner than I did. When I did finally pivot, it took years. Few people outside of the industry take that experience seriously, even for other writing or journo jobs, so I had to build up my resume pretty much from scratch. I'm doing fine now, I have a good career, but I feel like I'm 5 years behind other people my age.
Here's what I learned:
1) The money is bad. At first it will be so bad that you can only do it as a side gig or if you're living at home. If you're among the lucky few who can land a full time position (or a very busy freelancer) you can make enough money to support yourself -- but since these jobs are all in the Bay Area or New York, that money won't go far. $50k or whatever can feel like a lot in your early 20s, but it's certainly not enough to raise a family on, or really even to live on your own without a roommate in those areas.
2) There is a LOT of competition. The above scenario, making like $50k with a staff job at a big, stable publication -- that's like 0.1% of the people attempting this thing. Some people do better on their own monetizing on YouTube or Patreon, but you could probably count the game journalists that make good money this way on your fingers.
3) It tends to be a short career. There's virtually no one who really does it for like 20 years. All these guys who had great careers, and made it to the top... Jeremy Dunham, Hilary Goldstein, Levi Buchanan, Greg Kasavin... they all left when it came time to settle down and build a future. They still work in the broader "games industry," but they had to shift to publishing or development. These guys COULD have stayed in editorial if they wanted to, they were very successful, but even at the top levels, there is no money to be made.
4) That pivot can be hard. Within the game industry, saying you worked for Kotaku or IGN or something carries weight, but outside of the industry, you might as well be putting your Donkey Kong scores on your resume because no one cares. While I learned a lot about writing and how to write for a large audience, I had to prove all of that all over again in order to get work as a copywriter. It took years of working my way up before I really had a foothold again.
So my advice is do it for fun, do it for extra cash on the side, but don't stake your future on it. It doesn't go anywhere in the end anyway.
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Thousands of people do "Games Journalism" for absolutely free on YouTube and Twitch, as hobbies. The ones who do make money could absolutely be described as "entertainers" over "journalists".
It is definitely not a career path to take and expect to be paid for.
It is definitely not a career path to take and expect to be paid for.
haha, thanks! I just pinged them about that. I'm not great about following forums. So I mostly lurk.
Been doing it for over six years now. Pretty much came here to post this.
I've thought about Games Journalism as a career, but I have sense decided to stick to my current major (Accounting). I love writing about games and the industry though so I use Restera and my own blog to fulfill my need to write about my favorite hobby. I have the equipment to do YouTube stuff and podcasting but I just haven't gotten a chance to do it yet. Hope you get the job!
No.
I used to wonder about it as a teenager, but as an adult the reality is much more stark. In terms of where you stack up in the entire field of journalism, game coverage ranks as bottom-of-the-barrel product reviewer. Unless you happen to strike it big, it'll be lots of shopping around filler reviews of mobile game ports and counting the pennies to scrape by.
I used to wonder about it as a teenager, but as an adult the reality is much more stark. In terms of where you stack up in the entire field of journalism, game coverage ranks as bottom-of-the-barrel product reviewer. Unless you happen to strike it big, it'll be lots of shopping around filler reviews of mobile game ports and counting the pennies to scrape by.
I write articles for a small magazine for almost three years, do other stuff for the magazine as well and just get enough money as a part-time job. No way I could make a living out of it. But as you said yourself, you get at least free games which is quite nice for doing this as a hobby or just for pennies.
I also have YouTube but can't figure this shit out. Three or four pretty lazy videos got 30k to 100k views, but those I invested more time in and did them in higher quality only got a view hits. This uncertainty is not really motivating so I don't do any of this frequently; I still have a part time job and I still study at university.
In terms of a profession I think it is not that bad here in Germany, but it's hard to get a hold on a position. I worked at a newspaper before and many employees had to left in favor of freelancer. There's only a very small amount of staff left, that have regular working hours and get their monthly salary, which is quite high, though.
OP
OP
Unfortunately, I am paralyzed, which seems obvious enough. It doesn't help when I read conflicting opinions between "Great, go for it!" and "Don't, it's suicide!".
I'm not placing the blame on anyone here, it's entirely my own problem, one I'm trying desperately to rectify quickly.
I would have to side with the consensus that it's not a sustainable enough career and that I'm better off writing as a hobby on my own time. I will of course hear out any offer that comes my way, who knows. But on a personal level, I need stability and a steady paycheck, even if I was doing something I genuinely loved.
I do freelance game writing for various outlets and it makes up part of my income. It's a challenge, for sure. There is no job security or benefits at all. You will never get paid for the amount of hours you sink into a game review because for most outlets the economics just don't work out, and because it's "half work, half fun", it's basically accepted that you take work home with you, and getting the free game is part of the payment I guess? You can also claim a lot of games-based purchases back against tax (at least in my country) which is nice.
Making a full-time living just as a games journo is very difficult. I worked unpaid for about 3 years alongside my day job before I could convince anyone to pay me for any of my writing, but with the ethics of exploiting writers being under more scrutiny than ever before these days, that window might be smaller for you.
It's also a good idea to diversify if you can; learn Photoshop and other design/editing aspects of the business. I also review movies, TV and wrestling which helps a lot.
Good luck! :)
Making a full-time living just as a games journo is very difficult. I worked unpaid for about 3 years alongside my day job before I could convince anyone to pay me for any of my writing, but with the ethics of exploiting writers being under more scrutiny than ever before these days, that window might be smaller for you.
It's also a good idea to diversify if you can; learn Photoshop and other design/editing aspects of the business. I also review movies, TV and wrestling which helps a lot.
Good luck! :)
It's challenging to get and keep work. I did it for about five years. Managed to make ends meet, but just barely. If you can get on with a large firm like IGN (which I almost did at one point), then I think you could make a steady living. As a freelancer, though, it is exhausting. You really have to hustle to get work if you're going to pay the bills. But it's fun. It can be, anyway.
I've been writing for a website I built with a friend for 3 years. I do it mostly for fun and not professionally. I wouldn't consider myself a journalist, but I do have some experience with it.
Getting the experience of going behind the scenes at gaming event is really priceless for me, it's worth all the effort I put into the website. I got to meet Kamiya and ran across Shuhei Yoshida, Kojima and Inafune as well as countless, less known, talented developers and designers. I got to play games in unreleased states or that later got canceled. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.
That said, it's a difficult career. I'm from Switzerland and here, "game journalists" don't exist, not paid ones at least, there isn't enough demand. You'll just get free lances that write that one article a week for a news paper or so. In bigger countries, game journslists can be sustained but don't expect to be well paid. I still feel like it could be a good opportunity; you won't be making bank while writing articles, but you are doing good networking and that's worth a lot if you want to stay in games. There are some journalists that have become quite successful outside of journalism. I can think of Greg Kasavin and Jeremy Dunham, for example.
Getting the experience of going behind the scenes at gaming event is really priceless for me, it's worth all the effort I put into the website. I got to meet Kamiya and ran across Shuhei Yoshida, Kojima and Inafune as well as countless, less known, talented developers and designers. I got to play games in unreleased states or that later got canceled. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.
That said, it's a difficult career. I'm from Switzerland and here, "game journalists" don't exist, not paid ones at least, there isn't enough demand. You'll just get free lances that write that one article a week for a news paper or so. In bigger countries, game journslists can be sustained but don't expect to be well paid. I still feel like it could be a good opportunity; you won't be making bank while writing articles, but you are doing good networking and that's worth a lot if you want to stay in games. There are some journalists that have become quite successful outside of journalism. I can think of Greg Kasavin and Jeremy Dunham, for example.
Important question: Where do you live, and do you intend to continue living there?
Sounds like you just need to go for it! Being a freelance writer doesn't commit you to anything, particularly not if you're not going for a formal education in journalism. Just take on the part- time work, make some extra money, and if it sticks, go for it full time. Or, getting published proves that you can write, and it'll look good on a resume for writing jobs even if game journalism isn't your thing.
This is what that means. Think of the student loan crisis. Think of all those thousands of people that got English, Journalism, and Liberal Arts degrees that can't pay back their own student loans, and never got the job they wanted. All those people heard from a handful of successful professors or career counselors that it was fine. For a couple people it was fine. For hundreds of thousands of others, they now make drinks at Starbucks. And that's not talking down about them, they're all smart people. But those mistakes can be absolutely life crushing. It's sad, I have seen it happen to lots of people - musicians, artists, writers. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones? But the odds are extremely risky.
As you get older, you'll realize it's just a job and you can still find satisfaction in doing a good job at whatever you pick, and earning respect and a good living. Free games is not something to base a career on. Anyone with a middle class or better job can afford literally all games they could ever want.
I give the same advice to people that focus on their band and think about touring. Do it on the side. You can self publish anything you want to the world. Do this as a side hobby. If it takes off, great. Even the founders of Bioware were doctors first.
Get a job that pays well, has security and is in demand.
If you don't want to be destitute and eating Purina dog chow when you're 70, then I'd probably stay away. It's a dying field.
The games industry is pretty tough in general, not just media. I work full time in esports, but it's a serious struggle to get a good gig. I worked for an esports production company full time for 6 months that went belly up, was unemployed for almost 6 months (terrifying experience towards the end), then worked a job I fucking hated for 12 months to the day before starting my new full time job in esports.
I legit stalked people online to try to find their cars that were out for repossession. I worked for banks that did payday loans, title loans, tons of shady loan practices, but all the while I had my side hustle of video editing. I worked for the production company that handles Capcom Pro Tour and Evolution (along with Tekken World Tour and Injustice Pro Series). I edited highlights and replays on weekends, sometimes at really strange hours (starting at 3am sometimes for tournaments in Asia). This kept me relevant and my brain functioning. It also kept the hope alive that it could turn full time at some point.
While I didn't go full time with that job (not enough work available), I did start working at Battlefy and get out of the hell that is skip tracing and repossessions.
The moral of this story is that it's a fucking grind, but if you want it bad enough, go for it. You're going to regret not trying. If you get in and hate it, then you at least know.
I legit stalked people online to try to find their cars that were out for repossession. I worked for banks that did payday loans, title loans, tons of shady loan practices, but all the while I had my side hustle of video editing. I worked for the production company that handles Capcom Pro Tour and Evolution (along with Tekken World Tour and Injustice Pro Series). I edited highlights and replays on weekends, sometimes at really strange hours (starting at 3am sometimes for tournaments in Asia). This kept me relevant and my brain functioning. It also kept the hope alive that it could turn full time at some point.
While I didn't go full time with that job (not enough work available), I did start working at Battlefy and get out of the hell that is skip tracing and repossessions.
The moral of this story is that it's a fucking grind, but if you want it bad enough, go for it. You're going to regret not trying. If you get in and hate it, then you at least know.
I have a few thoughts I'd like to share. For perspective, I was the managing editor / EIC at Siliconera for several years. I helped grow the site from a little blog to one of the primary sources of Japanese videogame news and sales analysis.
Now, I won't get into the more obvious stuff like the money (it's not great) or the benefits (non-existent, unless you care that much about not having to pay for certain games). Instead, let's talk about the Why and Growth aspects of being in the games journalism business.
1. The first question you should ask yourself is why you want to be a game journalist.
Is it because you don't know what you want to do, or is it because you feel it's what you were meant to do with your life? I initially began writing about games as a hobby, but I very quickly realized that educating people about the games industry was something that I felt like I was meant to do. It sounds dramatic, but being a game journalist can often be a thankless job—now more so than ever. Your audience will largely consist of people that have accomplished absolutely nothing in life, yet feel they know better than everyone else, no matter the topic. This is going to be something that you'll deal with a lot, and you have to accept that this is just how the Internet is.
If, despite knowing this, you still feel you want to be a games journalist, ask yourself what you hope to accomplish as one because this is honestly very important. At Siliconera, our goal was to educate our audience and give them some context into the realities of the games business in Japan. Games aren't easy to make.Games aren't easy to sell and make money off of. Marketing (often poo-pooed on forums) comes from an ingenious understanding of the industry and of human psychology. What people consider "laziness" is often a compromise made with full knowledge of the fact that the compromise will be criticized. Design isn't about perfection, but about compromising—it's just a question of what to compromise when.
In essence, the idea was to get people to start respecting developers and publishers. To get them to realize that these are incredibly smart people, and to encourage them to think before making angry statements in the comments section. If we could get even a handful of people to do that everyday, it made me happy. So, again, if you have a similar drive to educate people and are willing to put up with the Internet to do it, be a games journalist. Otherwise, stay away because it won't feel like a very fulfilling job in the long run and you honestly wouldn't be contributing very productively to the industry anyway.
2. The second question you should ask yourself is how you can use the skills you pick up in games journalism to do other things, and if you can turn them into a different career once you inevitably outgrow games journalism.
This is really, really, really important and the answer to this is different for everyone. I haven't been part of the games press for close to three years now, but I made sure I learnt useful things during my time as a games journalist that I could apply to other careers.
I learnt to be analytical, I learnt to be a good communicator, I learnt to organize and study and make sense of data, and most of all I learnt to manage a team of people working toward a common goal. So, while you're podcasting and writing about games and arguing with dumb people on the Internet, make sure to teach yourself practical skills that can be applied outside of games journalism in other careers. You've already mentioned that you're into video editing, and that's fantastic. Don't stop learning new stuff. Learn Excel, learn management, learn a thing or two about business and communication. Learn to understand how people think. Learn how to make the most of limited resources.
Games journalism honestly has a lot to teach people—that's the one thing it's really good for. It's a hell of an education if you take it seriously. You just have to be willing to learn new things by yourself, without somebody else spoonfeeding you.
If you feel like you can navigate all of these tricky waters to pursue a career in games journalism and actually use it to come out a more skilled and better educated person, go for it. But keep in mind, that there's a ton of people that come out completely unemployable at the other end, and that's definitely something you need to watch out for. Don't let yourself settle into that "comfortable" space where you're content writing about games all day for the rest of your life, because it won't last.
Now, I won't get into the more obvious stuff like the money (it's not great) or the benefits (non-existent, unless you care that much about not having to pay for certain games). Instead, let's talk about the Why and Growth aspects of being in the games journalism business.
1. The first question you should ask yourself is why you want to be a game journalist.
Is it because you don't know what you want to do, or is it because you feel it's what you were meant to do with your life? I initially began writing about games as a hobby, but I very quickly realized that educating people about the games industry was something that I felt like I was meant to do. It sounds dramatic, but being a game journalist can often be a thankless job—now more so than ever. Your audience will largely consist of people that have accomplished absolutely nothing in life, yet feel they know better than everyone else, no matter the topic. This is going to be something that you'll deal with a lot, and you have to accept that this is just how the Internet is.
If, despite knowing this, you still feel you want to be a games journalist, ask yourself what you hope to accomplish as one because this is honestly very important. At Siliconera, our goal was to educate our audience and give them some context into the realities of the games business in Japan. Games aren't easy to make.Games aren't easy to sell and make money off of. Marketing (often poo-pooed on forums) comes from an ingenious understanding of the industry and of human psychology. What people consider "laziness" is often a compromise made with full knowledge of the fact that the compromise will be criticized. Design isn't about perfection, but about compromising—it's just a question of what to compromise when.
In essence, the idea was to get people to start respecting developers and publishers. To get them to realize that these are incredibly smart people, and to encourage them to think before making angry statements in the comments section. If we could get even a handful of people to do that everyday, it made me happy. So, again, if you have a similar drive to educate people and are willing to put up with the Internet to do it, be a games journalist. Otherwise, stay away because it won't feel like a very fulfilling job in the long run and you honestly wouldn't be contributing very productively to the industry anyway.
2. The second question you should ask yourself is how you can use the skills you pick up in games journalism to do other things, and if you can turn them into a different career once you inevitably outgrow games journalism.
This is really, really, really important and the answer to this is different for everyone. I haven't been part of the games press for close to three years now, but I made sure I learnt useful things during my time as a games journalist that I could apply to other careers.
I learnt to be analytical, I learnt to be a good communicator, I learnt to organize and study and make sense of data, and most of all I learnt to manage a team of people working toward a common goal. So, while you're podcasting and writing about games and arguing with dumb people on the Internet, make sure to teach yourself practical skills that can be applied outside of games journalism in other careers. You've already mentioned that you're into video editing, and that's fantastic. Don't stop learning new stuff. Learn Excel, learn management, learn a thing or two about business and communication. Learn to understand how people think. Learn how to make the most of limited resources.
Games journalism honestly has a lot to teach people—that's the one thing it's really good for. It's a hell of an education if you take it seriously. You just have to be willing to learn new things by yourself, without somebody else spoonfeeding you.
If you feel like you can navigate all of these tricky waters to pursue a career in games journalism and actually use it to come out a more skilled and better educated person, go for it. But keep in mind, that there's a ton of people that come out completely unemployable at the other end, and that's definitely something you need to watch out for. Don't let yourself settle into that "comfortable" space where you're content writing about games all day for the rest of your life, because it won't last.
As a part-time freelancer with a very modest amount of success, it's not a sensible career choice. I have a full-time job currently that I'm about to make part-time so I can concentrate on writing more, but it's taken me a long time to get to the point where this is viable and even then it's a huge risk.
Also don't corner yourself in to just games, you cut yourself off from a lot of writing opportunities.
Also don't corner yourself in to just games, you cut yourself off from a lot of writing opportunities.
OP
OP
I've thought of this as well, but as others have stated, would companies even consider my years of videogame articles as proper credentials, or just laugh it off?
I'm definitely not going back to school for a Journalism degree. My youngest sister managed to pull it off, but that was a factor of having to work in another state for several years and being VERY lucky to have an inside network.
I've been wanting that to be my career since like 2004. I wish I could have done it. I've done some small stuff with sites I've managed in the past (and I also completely blew a good opportunity in college that would have taken me closer to this goal) but sadly it seems like the bubble has burst.
One day maybe but I'm already 30 so idk.
One day maybe but I'm already 30 so idk.
Don't listen to this dude, if you did we won't ever see change in the industry.
The games industry changes all the time. That's part of the problem. Remember magazines?
It's a supply and demand game. There's a lot of people who want to get into games journalism, and the demand for journalists in gaming is (in my opinion) is pretty low. Think about it, these days there is information about gaming everywhere (YouTube, Twitch, hundreds of various gaming websites, this forum, reddit, etc.) To succeed you're a) going to be extremely dedicated and willing to suffer (meaning work hard for very little up front, and suffer various rejections and setbacks). b) be very talented compared to your peers or c) have connections or any other networks that present you opportunities that others in your position do not have or aren't leveraging.
There's an element of luck as well, but I think the best way to approach luck is to be as prepared as possible for the opportunity that luck presents through your hard work up to that point.
If it's truly your passion, and you know for a fact that this is what you want to do, go for it. Just know, as I'm sure you already do, that it's going to be a tough road. However, if this is your passion, it should hopefully rewarding and fulfilling enough to overcome the suffering.
I would also look at any way you can differentiate yourself from competitors. Look at what's out there, and see what gaps exist. Going for a niche in a market that's saturated is always a good strategy, and you can see evidence of this (Waypoint, GiantBomb, roosterteeth, kinda funny, etc. come to mind). If you can find a small, but dedicated audience, that's a huge win. That seems to be the direction the industry's new entrants are going to some extent.
There's an element of luck as well, but I think the best way to approach luck is to be as prepared as possible for the opportunity that luck presents through your hard work up to that point.
If it's truly your passion, and you know for a fact that this is what you want to do, go for it. Just know, as I'm sure you already do, that it's going to be a tough road. However, if this is your passion, it should hopefully rewarding and fulfilling enough to overcome the suffering.
I would also look at any way you can differentiate yourself from competitors. Look at what's out there, and see what gaps exist. Going for a niche in a market that's saturated is always a good strategy, and you can see evidence of this (Waypoint, GiantBomb, roosterteeth, kinda funny, etc. come to mind). If you can find a small, but dedicated audience, that's a huge win. That seems to be the direction the industry's new entrants are going to some extent.
The game industry in the West will remain forever white and male if people listened to him. I don't know what you're on about.
It will remain forever white because a lot of people with the luxury to take a job that barely pays anything come from wealthy families who can support them while they live in expensive cities making very little money. Ever notice how rich kids get art degrees?
I would never tell any minorities to get into this field.
Good luck!
It won't because I'm about to change that. Not every job in the industry pays little btw and you assume too much that I interact with rich children.
I'd recommend podcasting and youtubing. Written content is... sadly, less of a career choice. That said, there's a fair bit of freelance editing work available.
Start a youtube or twitch channel if you want to do this. Seems like where this will be going by the time you have any success in the field, and they may want you to "bring viewers with you" in the few years to get the job.
My advice would be to try and secure a community manager position, this will allow you to meet with various press people and learn about how to break in to the industry. It doesn't sound like it's a good place to be though.
I think the thing with this type of paralysis is that if you're looking to wait to be 100% sure about something before trying it, you will never go anywhere because you will never be 100% sure of any career choice. Every job and field is always be a mix of things that you like and don't like. Whether or not you like that mix enough to keep doing it is something that only you can decide for yourself, and that requires that you try it for yourself.
When people tell you to "just pick something and try it" in your career threads, they don't mean to just blindly jump into anything, but they mean to just go and try something out if it looks like something that you might like. Trying out another field of work is not a lifelong commitment. If you try something and find that you don't like it, you can stop and try something else. But the point is, if you never actually try something for yourself, you'll never get anywhere.
Also, I think there's kind of a difference between what I guess I would call "hard" journalism and "soft" journalism. Like, writing for entertainment, fashion, etc., are all what I would call "soft" journalism. "Soft" journalism is where the expectation is much more on you to present content in an interesting way. "Hard" journalism is where the content is pretty much what's important. This includes public affairs, issues with longstanding histories of violence or oppression, these are where content and context matter a lot more. In "soft" journalism, most pieces, even news pieces, tend to read more like OP/ED than anything else, and they read that way pretty much 100% of the time. That is, they are as much about the news as they are about the author's reaction to that news.
In what I'd call hard journalism, you would probably be much more likely to see what the working conditions of a particular game development studio are (and how that discussion relates to working conditions in similar fields), whereas in soft journalism you would probably be primarily with the game, its creation and how your audience responds to that.
In what I'd call hard journalism, you would probably be much more likely to see what the working conditions of a particular game development studio are (and how that discussion relates to working conditions in similar fields), whereas in soft journalism you would probably be primarily with the game, its creation and how your audience responds to that.
SOLDIER I think I can answer your question better than anyone else here, so -- Kotaku is a great place to work and I wish you the best of luck. The weekend editor job comes with a lot of pressure but can lead to great things. Our last weekend editor, Ethan Gach, went on to become a full-time staff writer, and he continues to kick ass every day.
Journalism is one of those jobs you REALLY, REALLY have to love. Because the money's not great for most people, there's a lot of pressure, deadlines, people getting upset about what you wrote. There's turnover, buyouts, it's not the most stable job in the world. But if you physically can't bear the thought of doing anything else, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
Games journalism is the bottom of the barrel. Avoid it and seek a more promising career elsewhere.
It wasn't always like this though. It's a shame.
It wasn't always like this though. It's a shame.
Good luck OP. I think we definitely need more games journalists who actually want to write and do investigating and research. How many times do we just see podcasts of people just commenting about news they got from somewhere else? Too many, and at some point the bubble will hopefully burst on that type of content. We need more content like you would find from Kotaku and Waypoint.
Journalism IS a great profession! I got a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland way back in 2009, and I did the whole program because I wanted to be a games journalist. It's always been weird to me that there are so many people in the industry without a background in journalism - I don't think it's necessarily needed, but I do think it'd be a much different industry if more people had that basic background.
It never worked out for me. The job openings were all on the West Coast, and I never took the leap to move out there. I love DC too much, and I just couldn't stomach the idea of moving to the West Coast with no connections and just a hope that I'd land a job that had... honestly, a startlingly low salary. They spent years prepping journalism majors for the reality of long hours, weekend/holiday work, and extremely low pay - but it was still quite a shock. I tried for a really long time - even almost landed my dream job at the Entertainment Software Association -and then finally gave up. It was between me and one other person, and that loss really stung. I still play a lot of games, and even occasionally write about them on the side for fun, but I think I'm finally finished with the idea of ever having a career in games. But still, sometimes I wonder what if...
But be real here, you're a big entrepreneur too and one of the most successful game journalists ever. Kind of the exception more than the rule right? Congratulations though!
I got my j-degree from Maryland too. College Park? Did you work at the Diamondback?
Sorry things didn't work out for you. In terms of location, I'd say that there are more jobs on the east coast these days than the west. I rarely worry about west coast reporters when looking for writers. (That was true when I ran Kotaku and when I ran news at Polygon as well.)
That's nice of you to say.
I think timing and good fortunate helped a lot with my career, but I've also always believed that if you have the skills to be a reporter and writer (that magic combo that makes a journalist), you'll always be able to find work. I do agree that working in journalism and aiming to cover video games is the best approach though, especially as more publishers become interested in video games as a beat. Increasingly those sort of folk will be looking for journalism experience more than gaming knowledge.
Personally feel that written form media for games journalism is dying. While there will be people who will want to read that form overall I believe it is becoming a niche and the sites which do it well will survive and have more people viewing their articles as other sites shut down. Video and to a lesser degree podcasting are the way to go and have been for a while now. A good review / lets play off a big Youtuber is more valuable than a good review of a large website.