Bonus: How to get started with games journalism

Hey Players

It's just me, so no new episode this week

Unfortunately, I've been without internet for almost 2 weeks and so I didn't have a chance to set up a new interview for an episode this week.

Sorry about that.

But I have a bonus episode for you.

I got an email from a listener named Brandon who asked me if I had any advice on how to start off with gaming Journalism.

And I figured, since giving advice is the whole purpose of this podcast, why don't I share that advice with you.

Here's the email:

I think the most important thing is to get some experience.

That goes for any area really :-)

Now I don't really know if you're interested in writing reviews and news and such, or you're more into deep diving journalism with a focus on games.

It's probably going to be hard to get to do the ladder with no experience, so let's just say that you need to the former either way :-)

So go find as many sites that you'd like to write for.

See if they have any email accounts that accept unsolicited applications.

Find their Twitter accounts and follow them.

Follow as many as the writers that you can find.

Just the other day, for instance, I saw the previous writer on guides for Eurogamer, tweet that they're looking for a new guide writer.

So keep your eye out for openings.

Vic Hood from episode 15 started as an intern for Eurogamer.

But when you contact them, they'll probably like to see something you've written.

So start doing that.

Start a blog or a Facebook page. Or start writing on Medium. So long as you publish your stuff. Besides the writing, you need to get experience with publishing and opening yourself to criticism and feedback.

And you need to start getting in the habit of writing every day. Writing something that gets published every day.

That's a tremendously good skill to have, even if you one day end up with the type of job where you spend most of your time researching, and the writing is just a part of it. That's probably not a starting position anyway :-)

If money is an issue, you can look into ways that your writing can earn you something without it being a proper job, just like Steven in episode 14 who posts his writing on Steemit.

I know blockchain is not as hot right now as it was last year, but there are also options like Patreon and Ko-fi.

Think about what type of writing you want to do.

If it's news, think about how you can present news stories in a way that separates you from all the other news outlets.

As a beginner, you'll probably not have the access that's needed to write investigative stories like Cecilia D'Anastasio or Jason Schreier over at Kotaku.

But you can still follow the industry and write about it.

Writing reviews is simpler in a way. But I would advise you to also think about your style and tone in your reviews.

In my opinion, the completely subjective review is passé - and it probably never really existed - so how do you make your voice heard in a review without drowning out the information that people are looking for in a review.

Or maybe your reviews is all about style and entertainment, just like Zero Punctuations videos.

If you don't have access to all the latest AAA titles, what's your strategy?

Free to play games? Indie games? Older games? Humble Bundles? The Xbox Box Games Pass is 10 dollars a month.

And I'm not saying that you can only ever write one type of content. But be deliberate about what it is that you're doing. Put some thought into it.

But most importantly: start writing.

Nobody is ever going to come and ask you to write for them unless you're an established writer.

So get that experience and be ready to seize the opportunities that you see.

The ways that you can build your own career have never been better than they are now and getting the right education or the right titles have never meant less than it does right now.

Hope you can use that!

That's it for this bonus episode of Player Characters.

Remember that you are more than welcome to write to me as Brandon did, the email address is: [email protected]