Game Journalism Was Hell and I'm Glad That I'm Out - What Do You Think?

[Mórríoghain]

Let me preface this by saying this that I am not here to dunk on my colleagues' meal ticket. I am just here to talk about my own experiences.

I was a games journalist for the majority of my university life and 1.5 years into my career. Freelancer, features editor, managing editor... Did all that stuff in the largest video games news site in my country. I appeared on YouTube videos, wrote reviews, made interviews whatever you can think of. But I always knew that this wasn't going to be my career path.
I studied digital media as my master's and I wanted to work for a digital marketing agency. But coming back from another country after MA and trying to find a job in influencer marketing - digital media landscape in my country was a bit tough so I decided to work full time as a gaming journalist (already had 5 years of freelancer xp) and fucking hated most of it.

I've got a lot of young blood asking me how to join the industry, how to make a name etc and most of the time I tried to explain the realities of the situation without dunking on their dreams. Video game journalism landscape in my country is bad. There are a couple of news site and magazines you can work and they mostly a far cry from their counterparts in the US. The pay is dog shit. Not just for the place I worked in (mind you, it was the Gamespot of my country) but in every other place out there, and it is impossible to make a name for yourself if you are a small fish. The audience is a bit different from the US one where they don't actually care about your well thought out piece, they just want to see what score you gave to their favorite game so they can dunk on you without even reading it in the first place. And of course, the worst of all, fucking harassment. Constant mockery of your talents as a professional video game critic, attacks to your self and sometimes your family, and generally being a total dick to everyone that works in the industry. I realize the situation in the US isn't all that different but the size of the audience in there could compensate for it.

What I've wanted to with this thread is to ask industry veterans or newcomers about their own experiences working as video game journalists. Is it the same in your countries? Are you happy with your career choices? Do you think this line of work as a temporary one? And also young people who want to penetrate into the industry, are you sure about this? Do you think you can make a living out of it?

For me, I am glad that I noped the fuck out of there sooner than later. I loved writing news and reviews, still, do. But for me and 99% of the people in the industry that I know, there is no stable future in video games journalism. Now I have a lucrative career path, I can actually enjoy video games after years of constant pressure, and most importantly I am happy more than ever.

What are your thoughts?

 

[APZonerunner]

I think a large part of it is - like any job - finding a team and job that works for you as much as you do for it. Part of the problem in the industry, imo, is either young and inexperienced or disinterested but established parent companies - I've been lucky to work for one that is young but engaged and understands games and the people who love them - and as a result, I feel cared-for and looked-after. As far as money goes, I think that's similar - some people are better compensated than others and you really need to fight for the pay you think you deserve, or at the very least the right to also freelance on the side to supplement your income.

I mean, that's the quantitative, literal side of things. The flip side is the emotional side: and yes, it can be a draining job with the comments, the attitude, and sometimes feeling like you can slave for hours on a quality article only for nobody to read anything but the conclusion, or the score. That stuff is frustrating, and I think all you can do there is either come to the job with a thick enough skin to push past it or develop a method of coping. Some people can't, and I've seen people leave the industry over it. Obviously one hopes and pushes for a change in the attitude towards the way games professionals are treated, but that isn't going to happen overnight so for now being able to deal is a key component of the job - and not just that, but being able to deal while also still paying attention to the genuine, smart feedback that's inevitably buried among all the horse shit abuse. That's really difficult.

Anyhow, I don't think it's hell and I absolutely love doing this job, but I won't lie and say it's always easy. To friends, I often say being a games critic (I consider myself more a critic than a journalist, personally, as I don't do much/any 'proper' journalistic work these days - I focus more on criticism) is like working in a chocolate factory - from the outside it sounds amazing, but there's a lot you don't realize about how the sausage is made and eventually, every now and then, you want a break from the smell and taste of chocolate. Which really means... it''s like any job, really. It's just cooler on the surface.

It's not for everyone. I think often that can be hard to accept, especially when it's 'dream job' material like working in games. But you need to be happy, so good on you for deciding it's time to walk away - you need to put yourself first.

 

[CritiestBunny]

... I can actually enjoy video games after years of constant pressure, and most importantly I am happy more than ever.

Click to shrink...

Not a games journalist so I won't comment on the nature of that industry, but wanted to say that: ^^This is the most important here I think. As long as you are happy, then you've made the perfect choice for yourself.

Good luck man. Trust me when I say that, it is just not worth it to be in an industry that drains you, even if at some point you thought that was the ideal career or choice for you. Let's be clear, no job is 100% fun, working in your passions doesn't mean that you won't face hardship, but the moment the job becomes detrimental to you physically or emotionally, you have to reevaluate.

Glad you managed to be honest with yourself and moved one to something that is better for you.

 

[HBK]

Sorry to be that guy, but a lot of jobs in particular nowadays are at the very least profoundly dissatisfactory. Sometimes borderline hellish, yes.

Please note that this is not some random whataboutism. I just hope one day we'll understand a lot of the issues we all more or less encounter in our jobs have some common ground in how our society and in particular the means of production are structured.

That being, said, I'm glad that OP found a job which better fits him. I wish him all the best.

 

[Wiped]

I agree... I did freelance for a bit which was great but when I did it full time I hated it. It was boring and unsatisfying, the people were a bit washed up/manchildren and the pay was appalling. Glad I got out and moved to a different industry.

 

[Jintor]

Bookmarking for later. I feel like working primarily in print though insulated me from a lot of repercussions at least initially

 

[spam musubi]

Sorry to be that guy, but a lot of jobs in particular nowadays are at the very least profoundly dissatisfactory. Sometimes borderline hellish, yes.

Please note that this is not some random whataboutism. I just hope one day we'll understand a lot of the issues we all more or less encounter in our jobs have some common ground in how our society and in particular the means of production are structured.

That being, said, I'm glad that OP found a job which better fits him. I wish him all the best.

Click to shrink...

I mean, saying it's not a random whataboutism doesn't make it not a random whataboutism. It is. OP has specific complaints about their job and the industry, which your "lol society sucks" comment doesn't really address in any way.

OP, I know what you mean. I also dabbled in game journalism for a while (my main journalistic outlet is music journalism) and it sucks. Much more than music journalism. The fans are so much more toxic, it's not respected at all, and you're at the mercy of the publishers. No wonder that a majority of gaming outlets (not to be confused with the few major outlets that we all know) are trash that just basically does PR for free review copies or inflammatory clickbait garbage. It's just thankless. Unless you're in some high profile company that respects its authors to give them room to grow like Kotaku, Eurogamer or GB, or a fan-funded passion project like EZA or Mark Brown/Joseph Anderson, there really isn't much of a self-respecting job in the industry. It sucks.

 

[Kida]

I reviewed games for a couple of years in the late 00s and it made me fall out of love with them. Playing them felt a real chore. It took almost 3 years to rediscover why I loved them. Skyrim, FFXIV and the Yakuza series brought me back.

 

[Moz La Punk]

Been in this industry for over 15 years. It has its perks and problems like any job. Here in the Netherlands there are only a few big sites as well, at which I worked fulltime for almost a decade.

Ive gone freelance since 1,5 years and it suits my lifestyle much better. In not badmouthing my old fulltime job; it was a lot of fun and I had fantastic colleagues, but when you're in it fulltime you have so much stuff to do that isn't writing. I missed the creative aspect a bit, which I have again now that I freelance.

I don't know the situation in your country, but the payment is okay here. Nothing fancy. But you build your payment up through the years, of course in the beginning its less. Now that Ive started for myself I make more though, but I work a lot and also write about other stuff than games now. Games are still my main focus though.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you. It wasn't and isn't a hellish experience for me though. Maybe I'm just lucky? I dunno.

Edit: what I always tell people that want to start in this industry (like interns for example) is to start getting experience as a volunteer for the smaller sites. I started doing that at the age of 15 and I was 23 when I started fulltime so already experienced (34 now). Its a tough industry with not much positions, so you have to be a bit lucky and of course work your ass off. Its good to have a back up plan.

Double edit: as far as toxic fanbase is concerned you just have to have a thick skin. Every piece will be criticized by readers, I don't give a f*ck.

 

[D4rth Man7iz]

Sounds like you made the right choice. Out of curiosity, what country is it?

 

[Abriael]

What are your thoughts?

Click to shrink...

That it is hell, and I'm glad I'm still doing it, and will for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn't trade it with any other job, hell or not.

 

[Elven_Star]

I remember that was my dream once. Thank god I grew up in time.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I absolutely loved it and I made a pittance doing it. But I had a great team and wrote for a mid/low-tier website, so I probably avoided a lot of bullshit.

I didn't like everything about it. Sometimes I felt like my articles were being intentionally watered down or like my better think pieces got passed over for more click baity articles. My article about Pokemon cocktails quickly got over 20k views and became an evergreen article for the site while it was still up, for example, and took half the effort some of my others did. But maybe that's on the audience and not my editors.

Writing about games is my passion and I might do it again if I was given the offer. My childhood dream was to either write the story for a video game, or write for Nintendo Power. I love to offer new perspectives on a game or make people view it through a new window or just embellish it and make people excited about it. I just imagine all the people reading my articles and liking them the same way I liked Nintendo Power back in the day and I get all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

[TheBrokenMan]

What I've wanted to with this thread is to ask industry veterans or newcomers about their own experiences working as video game journalists.

Is it the same in your countries?

I have worked with the big names of my country and some small ones. The best thing to do is never open the comments section and controlling your privacy. I got fed up of random shit in my twitter DM's and Facebook messages which is why I don't even look at requests anymore and I always block random friend requests on PSN. I only add people whom I meet through reddit, discord, or other places.

Are you happy with your career choices?

I love gaming and writing about it. The biggest hindrance to our industry is getting reviewers to agree to send review copies of games to Pakistani sites since it's not even on a niche market. I have managed to get a couple of developers or publishers send us review codes but more or less you rely on buying leaked copies of the game and rushing through it to meet a review deadline to meet with other sites.

Do you think this line of work as a temporary one?

I personally want to work professionally for any site or magazine when I do leave this country. My dream is to watch E3 in person and other gaming expos from the other side of the monitor.

And also young people who want to penetrate into the industry, are you sure about this? Do you think you can make a living out of it?

I managed all my social and personal needs as a teen till early 20's through blogging alone. I went for movies, bought my own clothes, my own games on steam / PS3, financed my own outings with friends etc all on the money I made from writing.

I know plenty of people who buy $1000 phones from just blogging and they're no older or younger than I am. The potential is there but the biggest enemy we have is our representation to the world at large and working 10x as hard as other sites just to make even the second page of Google search.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I've been trying to make it work for about a decade now. Unfortunately I haven't been very successful.
My problem has always been networking. I live in the middle of nowhere, and between my job and everything else, I haven't been able to make the time to build connections.
Despite having a fairly massive portfolio, I haven't really been able to do anything with it.

I'm probably going to retire next year.

 

[Deleted member 37739]

As a content producer on the other side of the fence, I can also relate. I think for me, one of the things that generally grates on me is the modern digital landscape. Competition for clicks, the data-driven 'how did this perform, how can we improve' nature of modern journalism and the ability of the business to track in infinitesimal detail just how well any piece performs - from click-through to dwell-time to heat-maps - means that you are constantly at the mercy of internet search engine algorithms and the terminally short attention spans of the digital readers.

In this kind of environment, you end-up writing more with a focus on what will reach the widest audience rather than what actually matters to you as producer. In my job, marketing is the key focus, so I'm not really in a position to belly-ache, but I know that journalists are fighting the same battle, and they probably didn't get into it just to be person with the most clicks - they probably got into because they cared about the medium and had something they wanted to say.

 

[Annoying Old Party Man]

In my country most people don't even get paid anymore to write about videogames. Only a handful make a living out of it, and most of them do because they have been licking asses for a good few years now and have secured funding from a couple of major players in the industry.

Most of us do it as a hobby and as a reason to play videogames for free.

 

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Which country?

 

[Mórríoghain]

Country is Turkey btw.

 

[Crispy]

I've been writing for websites for about 15 years now, always on a voluntary basis. At first for a site where we also had to post a lot of news, but this cost me too much time. Now I only write reviews and do the odd event.

I like being involved in the videogame business like this, playing games I normally wouldn't and writing about it in a way I both entertain and inform people. I've gotten used to some negative comments now and then, but I've been lucky not getting any really hurtful things hurled at me.

I never pursued making a living out of it, haven't had the opportunity and didn't think an actual paid job was within reach. I'm a professional writer in other areas though.

 

[Andy Mac]

The audience is a bit different from the US one where they don't actually care about your well thought out piece, they just want to see what score you gave to their favorite game so they can dunk on you without even reading it in the first place. And of course, the worst of all, fucking harassment. Constant mockery of your talents as a professional video game critic, attacks to your self and sometimes your family, and generally being a total dick to everyone that works in the industry.

Click to shrink...

So basically you hated your audience and your audience hated you?

I feel like if you enter an industry where your success depends on positive interaction with an audience then starting out with contempt for that audience is not going to work out well in most cases.

Not excusing attacks and harassment at all, those people can fuck off, but it still seems pretty clear to me that you despised the audience even for the terrible crime of being interested only in the score you give the game.

Surely the first thing a content creator needs to understand is that positive engagement with their target audience is going to be an important factor in achieving success. It feels like you fundamentally failed in this regard.

"I fucking hate Gamers sooooo.... I think I'll become a games journalist"

I mean, what came first here, the chicken or the egg?

To be clear here you aren't complaining about the workload or the working hours. Workl-life balance isn't even worth a mention.

You are complaining about the pay, sure. Complaining that you can't make a name for yourself.

However, the main crux of your argument is that you hated the target audience. Like, how can you make a name for yourself when you basically don't like the ONLY people who could facilitate that?

So did you hate them going in or did you grow to hate them based on their, admittedly shitty and unacceptable, actions?

I fundamentally do not agree that it's "impossible" to make a name for yourself but rather would say that you need to find your audience and starting out with "I hate the audience but I want to be popular with them" is kind of... fucked up?

 

[astro]

I took a stab at this around 2014.

My friend was editor at a large site mai my focused on business and tech, and had been charged with expanding their gaming section.

He hired me as a news writer, reporter, reviewer. He appreciated my writing skills from previously worki had helped him with and knew it was a hobby, and he took me under his wing to help with learning the journalism ropes.

He was great, new a lot and came from a background of investigative journalism so had a lot of valuable info to show.

I was sent to showcases for some pretty big games alongside a bunch of known journalists, made a few great contacts, was given loads of early review copies etc...

It was all unpaid.but all expensive paid and I got to keep a lot of stuff. It was always presented as a "we will be given budget if they see the gaming section is worth investing in".

A few months in and we hear great things, the section has high traffic, they're very pleased with the quality of content, and they would be giving us our own office and we'd be salaried etc...

A week later we got a call saying that had all been scrapped. My friend had to leave soon after due to family reasons, and I couldn't keep putting the time into something I wasn't being paid for.

Shame as I enjoyed it a lot, bit it was definitely a fun experience.

It was a lot of work, though. The one aspect I didn't count in being so important was social media prescience and keeping active with peers in order to build contacts, find new events, get my name and our site's name out there.

For anyone who builds up from nothing and forges a career in this industry, you have a lot of respect from me.

 

[Mórríoghain]

So basically you hated your audience and your audience hated you?

I feel like if you enter an industry where your success depends on positive interaction with an audience then starting out with contempt for that audience is not going to work out well in most cases.

Not excusing attacks and harassment at all, those people can fuck off, but it still seems pretty clear to me that you despised the audience even for the terrible crime of being interested only in the score you give the game.

Surely the first thing a content creator needs to understand is that positive engagement with their target audience is going to be an important factor in achieving success. It feels like you fundamentally failed in this regard.

"I fucking hate Gamers sooooo.... I think I'll become a games journalist"

I mean, what came first here, the chicken or the egg?

To be clear here you aren't complaining about the workload or the working hours. Workl-life balance isn't even worth a mention.

You are complaining about the pay, sure. Complaining that you can't make a name for yourself.

However, the main crux of your argument is that you hated the target audience. Like, how can you make a name for yourself when you basically don't like the ONLY people who could facilitate that?

So did you hate them going in or did you grow to hate them based on their, admittedly shitty and unacceptable, actions?

I fundamentally do not agree that it's "impossible" to make a name for yourself but rather would say that you need to find your audience and starting out with "I hate the audience but I want to be popular with them" is kind of... fucked up?

Click to shrink...

No, of course I didn't hate the audience going in. I have been doing freelance work since 2009, mostly daily news stuff, not critical pieces so I didn't get heat for the most of the things I wrote. Only after my MA I started working as a full features editor and write think pieces and reviews that seemingly bring out the worst in people. I really don't know why you would think I hate my audience from the get-go. Otherwise I wouldn't even try to this full-time. Also, I made a name for myself but you gotta understand that even the Jeff Gerstmanns and Jason Scheiers of Turkey don't get a sliver of respect that they deserve. Critical think pieces are irrelevant and any kind of YouTube video review that doesn't start with "Hey YouTube, it is YO BOI Morri," gets a 2-3K views at best.

I think it is an issue specific to Turkey. Finding an audience, retaining them etc. it just doesn't work here. There are no niche audiences to have here. The gaming culture in Turkey is so much different than the US. Believe me I have tried it. I have talked with industry veterans, I even wrote my thesis on the subject. Maybe if I was in a different country, things could have been different but I don't know. That's why I started this thread to get different perspectives from journalists all over the world.

 

[lyte edge]

Dabbled with this briefly, as a side job, for a now-defunct site back in the mid-2000s when I was living in Japan. At first it seemed like a pretty good gig- I liked to write reviews that I'd post to message boards already, and now I was doing the same thing, but getting paid for it. Each review would get me maybe $50-$60, which was enough to fund another game purchase, so it worked out nicely. But the site owner would constantly pressure me to crank out reviews ASAP, to the point that I couldn't even spend that much time with them (he didn't seem to care and just wanted to be the first one to have a review of whatever import game it was). Then he just stopped paying me, saying that the site wasn't doing so well at that point. I remember being more pissed off that he didn't just tell me this instead of taking and putting up a review from me without saying anything and not responding to emails for a little bit. But a few other posters on various boards warned me that this would eventually happen, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.

 

[Ishaan]

I helped run Siliconera for about 8 years. Prior to that, I worked at a videogame art studio for a couple of years, and prior to that I freelanced at Japanator and a local videogame magazine.

From my experience, for the vast majority of people, games journalism should be a chance to build up a skillset and sense of discipline. It isn't a healthy (or financially viable) long-term career, and I do think it tends to shelter you from how the real world works sometimes.

Unless you're part of a larger corporation like IGN or The Verge, your experiences and on-the-job interactions are primarily going to be with other videogame fans, whether they're consumers or fellow game journalists. At some point, this greatly limits your exposure to the world at large, just in terms of working with a more diverse set of people, understanding how projects are created, how to lead teams, how businesses work, how products are built, and so on. The sort of stuff that really matters for a "real job".

This isn't to say games journalism is a bad field to work in for a few years, or one that can't be valuable. There's a lot someone can learn from being part of the games press. I taught myself how to analyze sales numbers, I taught myself to be proficient at Excel, I taught myself to make sense of financial reports. I taught myself to lead a team and be a (hopefully) good mentor. I also took up Japanese so I could be more effective at my job, since Siliconera focused on the JPN games industry. I taught myself to be a really good communicator. All of those skills help in my job today (which has nothing to do with videogames)

The way I see it, it isn't the sort of job that's good for your exposure/understanding of the world in the long term, and it certainly isn't going to do you any favours financially. But I cherish my time in games journalism, and I have a lot of happy memories of it, alongside all the equally unhappy/frustrating memories. That part just comes with the territory. Ultimately, I would recommend you use it as an opportunity to learn a lot of different things while doing something you enjoy, until eventually you depart for a more lucrative career and apply what you've learnt there.

 

[Brass Body Dave]

Ex-journo and ex-freelancer here and also glad I am out. Nonstop grind, nothing fulfilling about it. Happy to be elsewhere now :)

 

[Griffith]

I think the article is quite hyperbolic and while it does speak to some truths in the industry, he does very little to contextualize why things are the way they are in certain sites, particularly small ones.

Online advertising has been in the gutter for over a decade now and most online publications were, at the time that the advertising bubble burst, almost entirely dependant on it. When that occurred many sites had to downscale, rollback on payments. I was right in the middle of this event working for a niche but lucrative technology blog that was doing well enough and had been acquired by a large network.

Around the same time as the sale, online ads started giving half of what they used to before and I'm fairly sure that amount has fallen even further from that since then. We had a few hundred-thousand visitors each month and article views ranged in the thousands. In today's market that would equate to cents of ad revenue per article.

Given that most people prefer to consume news and media content online and print media is dying a lot of publications, big and small, struggled to stay afloat.

It is fair to say that most jobs in the game journalism industry pay poorly, but it's unfair to not contextualize why that is the case. I'm not saying it's a journalist's fault for being paid poorly it's not their job to acquire funding for the publication, but it is their job to have some integrity and properly state the facts and this journalist omitted crucial information in his post.

 

[Alexandros]

I have a few years of experience writing for the biggest PC gaming magazine in my country and I still occasionally write for a PC gaming website that me and my former colleagues set up once the magazine shut down.

Writing for the magazine was decent pay but not enough to turn it into a full-time career. The website thing is mostly just for fun, it's not making any noteworthy money. So at least for Greece I would say that turning games journalism into a full-time job is very difficult.

On the other hand, I've had nothing but positive interactions with readers and it's the best part of the job for me. Even though I infamously gave Dragon Age 2 a really high score, the people who disagreed did so by writing polite emails of constructive criticism containing some great points that improved me as a game reviewer. Some readers of the site still throw a jab or two my way about the review but it's all playful banter that I very much enjoy.

I think the type of audience that you are aiming for makes a big difference. Older, more mature gamers are far less likely to call you names and harass you. Kids and teenagers, especially if they are hardcore fanboys of a console maker, can be real shits.

 

[Dracoonian]

I'm not in the industry but knowing the country, yeah, it's hard. For years I kept searching for places to have conversations about video games (hell, about anything) that doesn't devolve into petty nonsense and ridiculous amounts of cuss words. I gave that up years ago and decided to take my opinions and curiosity to non Turkish websites.

Critical think pieces are irrelevant and any kind of YouTube video review that doesn't start with "Hey YouTube, it is YO BOI Morri," gets a 2-3K views at best.

Click to shrink...

Yep, that's totally accurate. Most people don't even care about deep, investigative journalism about anything, let alone gaming.

 

[WildWayz]

I think that what you have written pretty much sums up what a lot of people go through with their chosen line of work. I left college in '96 at 18 with a BTEC National Diploma in Computer Science (Distinction). I was accepted into Uni to study A.I but decided I wanted to go off into the working world. Work paid for me to study a HND in Computer Science part time, which I did.

I am almost 40 now - so 22 years working in IT... 15 years of which has been with the same company (Telecoms / ISP) - being a senior network engineer working with the back end data network. I am burnt out. The company you work for can destroy all your enthusiasm for a career you loved... and as such, if I left it would be to do something non-IT related such as a counsellor. I don't leave as the pay is excellent. Which is half the problem....

I honestly feel it is so hard to mix your loves with your work as it rarely works out. Game journalism, to me, is one such thing. If you enjoy gaming but it becomes a job with targets, standards etc then can you really enjoy it? Streamers are the same; if they are not logged in streaming ALL THE TIME, their viewing figures drop as their viewers go elsewhere. You have to be happy, smiley, joyful etc all the time. No off-days. Don't forget that gaming also brings the utter cesspit of the human race to your door (people who act like dicks) - you'll have people threaten you or your family over something you wrote/said. Total freaks.
Oh and let's not forget those good 'ol SWATTING issues...

So bringing it back around to your original post, I can understand totally where you are coming from. Hope you find a line of work which brings you back to feeling enthusiastic about writing etc

 

[Al3x1s]

I was expecting some awful experiences but you're basically just telling us you didn't make enough money doing that (and all the baggage that comes with that on a personal level). Well, that's not the only field where that is more than a possibility. Of course not *everyone* is going to make it big enough to have their own fans, channels, whatever, either. How would anyone stand out if everyone was like that? Those who stand out (for good or bad) get those things.

I loved it while I did it outside (sadly common) edge cases like stolen content when I was independent or some awful employers' requirement to just visit bigger places and tick off what stories you stole making it a race among colleagues to get others' scoop if they want to get any content to be paid for rather than writing what they discovered or were inspired to and other such incidents (yes I fucked off that place as soon as it became clear that's their thing, so, like a week into it). I too didn't make enough money to make it a career, my current job isn't much better at doing that though, I guess it's somewhat stable so there's that.

The world isn't in a state that provides everyone with fun happy times regardless of their field of expertise or enthusiasm though, I wouldn't blame the games journalism industry as a whole for that part. I'm glad you're doing better, let's hope more of us will.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I bailed on it after a while because I realized I was basically being forced to write puff pieces about stuff I didn't care about 99.999999% of the time for an industry that really didn't care one way or another if I existed at all, just for the off chance to write a review about something that I actually enjoyed or that actually made me think every so often.

It wasn't worth it. It wasn't even fun, honestly.