How To Be A Games Journalist

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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes First Impressions (MMOG News Headlines) Win A Vanguard Pre-Order (TenTonHammer Exclusives) New Burning Crusade Screenshots (MMOG News Headlines) Texans Go To Bed To Test Robots (Real World News) Burning Crusade First Look - Shattrath City (TenTonHammer Exclusives)

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A reader, let's call her Anjelina Jolie for lack of a better name, wrote me yesterday and asked me what I thought of a story about games journalism that she had discovered on Slashdot.com. The article links to another article that in turn acted as a catalyst for yet more articles all boiling down like sap from a maple tree to create a sugary sweet mouthful on the subject of what it takes to become a games journalist. The original piece of prose, the maple tree in this case so to speak, appeared on Game Career Guide, and was aptly titled So You Want To Be A Games Journalist. Click, read, learn nothing you didn't already know.

Now that you have read that drivel, go read as many of these as your boss will allow before banging on your desk and asking, "What the name of all that is holy it is that you think you are being paid for?"

Many, if not all of the following yarns are written by those of British persuasion, which makes them humorous because they use funny words we rarely get to set eyes on here in North America and somewhat distrubing because the little voice in your head that only comes out when you are reading refuses to recite them without doing it as an Austin Powers impression. "Yeah baby! Yeah! I want to write about games!"

I Reckon I Want To Be A Games Journalist So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 1 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 2 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 3 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 4 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 5 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 6 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 7 So You Want To Be A Games Journalist - 8

I left what I considered the best until the end. The last link is an excellent read. If you don't read the others, at least read that one.

You see, Anjelina Jolie as we'll call her, read the blog yesterday where I placed scribes like Woleslagle and Hertzberg on pedestals. Writers like myself were left to grovel in the muck and excrement left by the thousands of pilgrims who march past said pedestals on a daily basis.
Perhaps if I read the guide on becoming a games journalist I would someday rise above the blog sewers, reaching fitfully for the golden ring that hangs oh so close to the river of untreated sewage that is the Interweb. Perhaps, someday... if I lose my freaking mind.

Until then I'll be writing here, knee deep in raw gaming dung with the souls who are responsible for the success of the industry, the players.

If you were to interrogate anyone on our staff they would tell, without much need for torture, that I don't consider them or anyone else at TenTonHammer.com a journalist. Many are offended by my statement. I can tell, though they never come right out and say it. I mean it as a compliment. Our writers have creative latitude that a print or corporately pressured journalist simply doesn't have.

Journalists in their truest sense are not paid to entertain. They are paid to deliver well written facts. To compare them to our staff and my analogy above, they are dealing with treated sewage. The nastiness, bad smell and odour have been taken out often leaving a bland, yet excellent fertilizer which when spread on game company public relations causes games to grow.

The truth of the matter is that our staff are more like cowboys than journalists. They are allowed, nay encouraged to dawn leather chaps while they ride around the industry screaming out any questions that they feel are important. Perhaps more importantly they are paid to produce entertaining content for you, our readers. I guess they are more like rodeo clowns than cowboys, but nonetheless, they are allowed to fly by the seat of their assless pants and deliver articles that not only inform, but entertain. We encourage the use of generous face paint, floppy shoes and red noses, but it isn't mandatory. Being able to jump into a huge wooden barrel when you see Brad McQuaid coming is a skill we teach as part of the employee orientation process. Not everyone can pass the final exam. Not everyone can launch themselves into a barrel quickly enough, but every staff member knows that are allowed to tell the truth as they see it.

I for one, don't care to ever be a journalist. They are underpaid, ill thought of, and if my experience with them holds true, forced to wear mustard stained ties. Imagine if you will a career where the people you need to communicate with to complete your tasks don't like you, and when you can get them to talk to you they treat you like a cockroach. Now imagine dealing with this on a day to day basis for a miniscule paycheque. There you have it, the life of many a games journalist.

When people ask me what I do for a living and I am forced to tell them they inevitably reply that, "That must be a lot of fun, playing games all day."

Sure, it's a lot of fun until you are in your 50th hour of some atrocious game that chewed up your soul and spit it out during character creation, leaving you a broken man, tapping on an ergonomic keyboard, desperately trying to see as much of the virtual world as possible in order to complete your review. Bring on the face paint rodeo clown fans, because the writer's nose is already red.

I guess what I have been trying to write, in far too many words, is that given the choice of treated or untreated game information. I'd choose the untreated variety every time. It's always honest, though it may not always be what the public relations people want to read.

A dirty penny for your thoughts.

Do tell, either in the forum or at the bottom of this blog. If you are shy (or female and sending in naughty pictures) you can E-Mail me.

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-- John "Boomjack" Hoskin