@schizogony said:
" I imagine being a video game reviewer to be the single worst job on earth. I mean, nobody reads what you write (we only look at the score) AND you have to play crap games (or over-analyze good games). Worst job ever. "
I'm afraid of games becoming more of a chore with this too. If they do, I will definitely back down. My husband who I'd thought was so jealous, actually said he's kind of glad that he gets to play his games and doesn't have to make a list of characters, plot, this and that. ;)
@Dogma:
That to me, counts as "making it big." Ten years and still having fun, it's worth something! Definitely very cool that you get to take trips to meet your team! :D
@EnchantedEcho:
All careers start off crappy though! :) I think that's really freaking impressive that you started the site on your own. To be honest, I wouldn't know the first thing to starting a gaming site. x_x
@DjTann3r:
Haha, I think that there are very few people out there who are casual gamers who love the gaming industry as much as I do. :) Yes, I'm very noob-ish at video games. x_x I think it's my husband. I met him waiting in line for the Wii, but I had no idea about all the inner workings of the industry until I met him. He listens to all these podcasts about sales numbers, news, and he follows all these blogs, it really got my interest! :D
@crusader8463:
Oh my. I don't think I've ever gotten a comment that was longer than the actual post. I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, but whatever, I read it.
I too will never understand the hostility on this site. As I said in my OP I wasn't saying anything against you specifically, just voicing my annoyance at your situation. The way you wrote your OP it came off sounding like you're the type of person who plays a flash game from time to time and now you're getting free games and writing for a video game site. Even if it's just some small site with only a few page hits a month, you need to be at a certain level to be able to afford to give your reviewers free games to write for your site. There are people out there who work their entire lives to get your opportunity and you just seemed to be nonchalant about the opportunity and that you could honestly careless about the chance that you have had fall into your lap and are acting like it's just this thing you do for shits and giggles. Again that's just how your OP came across to me. Not saying that's how it is, just that from what you had posted that's how it came across to me.
I wrote the blog to sound that way. I like to write with a certain attitude. Yes, I am taking this seriously, you can be sure of that! I don't know how the post was so offensive to you, but I apologize for that! Trust me, Mr. Crusader ;) I'm not the girl who's going to let this opportunity slip or take it for granted. Good shit just happens to me, but when it does, I know to be grateful.
As for your qualifications, I never said anything about that. You said yourself that you only play puzzle games and the like; which kind of narrows your ability to review a lot of games. Sure you can play a game that you don't like and guess at what some one who likes that genre would think of it, but that will just make your review redundant and misinformed since you have no bases of knowledge to write a review from. If you write a review for say a hardcore Strategy game like Civilization and had never played one before then why would I want to know your opinion on it when you have no bases of knowledge to talk about the game from? Sure there is a certain merit to getting someones take on a game with eyes not jaded from previous installments, or other games in the genre, but if you have never played the games before what you see as this neat and new style of game could just be the same game they released last year with little to no real improvements. Or conversely, what on the surface may look like the same game actually has ton's of small things under the hood that make the game a million times more enjoyable but that you would only notice if you played a lot of that game before.
Now where did I say that puzzle games were all I played? I think that's all I'm good at, but I play lots of games. As a matter of fact, I think that I mentioned that I also use auto-aim. ;) That doesn't mean all I play are FPSs?
Ooh, Little Miss Casual Gamer knows acronyms!
And ugh, you mentioned Civ... That Napoleon is a mother-----
Okay. Maybe it would comfort you to know that I really play games... a lot... and I play a lot of games in many different genres. I'm just not the best at finishing those games. Or being good at them. :P
You even said yourself at one point in this thread that you're playing a game that you don't like but that you could see some one who does like that genre enjoying it. How do you know that? If you have never played an FPS before then to you one game is the same as another, but to some one who plays all of them they could tell you the differences between game A,B,C and D. To you what's just another FPS that looks to be as good as any of the other top tier games in the genre, since you don't play that kind of game you wouldn't really know how it compares, could in fact be is just a generic game that most people won't like.
HEY! I hadn't even read this paragraph before I busted out with my FPS acronym above. ;D Oh so proud of myself --
I know that someone who likes this genre would like the game because I felt that there was a lot I was missing on the game, like I was that guy in the room that didn't understand any of the inside jokes. So I went and played through the first few games in the series it's based off of. I did research on the references the game made, and I found that I had a nostalgia for this series that I had never even played until that day. Since I took a step back, and decided to play older games to familiarize myself with the series, I was able to give it a fair, and (imo) entertaining review.
My point being that if you don't regularly play or enjoy a certain genre of games then how can you be expected to write anything meaningful about it? That would be like getting a guy who has only used Mac's his entire life to write a review about a new Windows OS. Or some one who only watches horror movies to write a review about the newest romantic comedy. Sure they could write something decent about it, but why would I care about anything they have to say on the topic if they have no experience with it? If you don't play a large variety of genres that's fine, but tell your editor that and make sure they give you games that are in your wheel house of knowledge and not something you have never played. Then if you want to expand your knowledge of different games then attempt playing other ones and try to find some new genres to enjoy, and over time you would be more qualified to write games about them.
This just goes back to the fact that I have played lots of games from lots of genres. Believe me, I know you like to think that you're an expert in my qualifications, but you're wrong about this. I can play and review a game. I can relate to the target audience, and I can give them a fair rating of how I believe they will feel about a game.
And no, I never complained about not being able to get a job writing reviews as I have never tried to get a job in that field. Sure if the opportunity came a long I would think about it, but I was just referring to all the people out there who are genuinely looking into this field as a life time profession. There are tons of people out there who go to college for years taking writing and journalism classes who would give body parts to get an opportunity like yours and, again, your OP came across like you where just doing it for the shits and giggles and that you really didn't care one way or another about the opportunity. I have heard some other writers who have made it big and into major places like EGM or 1up.com who like yourself never really played games, or a large variety of them, and who got this job in the industry and are just doing it because it's a job and could honestly careless if they ever played a video game in their life. While at the same time thousands of people out there are dedicating their lives to getting the same job and will never get it. It just frustrates, annoys and saddens me that stuff like this happens to people.
Who does this happen to? Are all these people really, really trying to get into the industry? Are they scouring the small sites, searching and searching for an opportunity? Are they writing user reviews to get their name out there on sites like this? OR are these so-called life-long-game-industry-chasers passing up opportunities because they feel that the position is beneath them?
I think your whole six paragraph essay could be summed up in two simple sentences. What a waste of time:
1.) Don't take it for granted because lots of people work hard to achieve the level that you're at.
2.) Make sure you expand your horizons so your reviews don't become mundane or repetitive.
A bit of advice, learn to toughen up if something as innocent as my comments got you angry,
I'm not going to bother reading the rest. No, you haven't managed to make me angry, and I don't even see how you read anger in my previous reply to your comment. Did you read it? XD
Well, if you think I'm angry at you, I'm not. I think that you are way too worked up over it, as it doesn't affect you one way or the other what I do with this opportunity, but I'm not angry.
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