FEATURE: 25 Tips for the Young Games Journalist

Last year I became theproud recipient of a Games Media Legend Award. It was also my 25th year since I began working ingames journalism. So I felt the weird urge to write 25 tips for the young games journalist, based almost entirely on the mistakes I’ve made over the last two and and a half decades, and which I continue to make. I hope these are useful. You cansend me feedback via Twitter.

1. You’re a Journalist – Deal With It

Games journalism is journalism. We write about something that really matters to lots and lots of people. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that journalism” has to be about exposing dodgy deals in D.C. It’s also about making the effort to get the facts right about a new Pokemon game. Journalism is there to root out pomposity, corruption, stupidity, and there’s plenty of that stuff in the games business. Get your hands dirty. Even so, lots of what we make has a shelf-life that would embarrass a nectarine. Don’t expect to be taken too seriously. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

2. There is No In”

You landed a job? Congrats. Now the hard work begins. No, I don’t mean the hard work of writing about games. I mean the hard work of keeping your job. Because sooner or later, it’ll be gone. Some fatheaded fool will be given the keys to the spreadsheet, and will slice a pen though your name in order to snaffle his crummy bonus. Some sales whizz will become your boss and, having never been paid to write a single article, will insist on telling you how it ought to be done. No-one survives forever. Always know where the emergency exits are.

3. It’s Tough, But Be Cool

Your career depends on understanding that you have lots to learn. Process criticism without whining. Don’t ever lose your temper.

4. Power Has Influence

Your job is to inform and entertain readers. Your job is not to please corporate interests like console manufacturers, retailers or games publishers. Don’t ever allow yourself to become confused about this. Because, by means subtle or crude, they really will try to turn you to their agenda.

5. Books are Friends

Read lots. Writers who don’t read are like athletes who don’t exercise. I once knew an editor who said there was no point” in reading newspapers. I couldn’t fire that dull dog fast enough.

6. PR People

PR people have a tough job to do. Return their calls and be polite. Takethemto lunch for a change. Don’t be an asshole.

7. Freelance ‘Opportunity’

Beware the lure of your house-coat. The freelance life is boring and precarious. Only hustlers and weirdos survive for any period of time. The relationships with editors you believe will keep you working forever will be gone within three years. So might you.

8. Arf

Write something funny. It is almost impossible to resist hiring a writer who makes people laugh.

9. Don’t Work for Those Guys

When an employer tells you her company is like one big family”, run like hell. This family means to kidnap and brainwash you. Then they’ll turn you out onto the street because of a temporary softness in the advertising business”.

10. Get an Alarm Clock

Don’t be late. When it comes time to lay talent off, the lazy bastards who regularly saunter in after 10am are the first to go. Last in, first out. Bye-bye sleepy-head.

11. Booze

Industry parties are not ‘parties’. They are opportunities to make lifelong contacts and connections. Have fun. Get mildly drunk. But don’t get wasted. Don’t be the slob who pukes on Will Wright’s loafers. He doesn’t like it.

12. The Advertising Team

Hang out with the ad sales people. They will teach you how to deal with difficult people (aka ‘clients’), they will improve your tolerance for alcohol, they’ll make you laugh. Despite appearances to the contrary, they are not aliens.

13. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

Avoid public debates on ‘The Dismal State of Games Journalism’. You think you’re smarter than everyone else? How fascinating. State your case through your work, not through tiresome, self-aggrandizing editorials.

14. ‘Fans’

The readers who send you letters do not represent your audience. Be nice to them but always keep in mind that people who write to journalists or send reporters goofy gifts are unusual. Most of your readers couldn’t care less about you. That’s the natural order of things.

15. Freebies

Sometimes companies will give you a free goodie. If this ‘generosity’ makes you feel weird, send it back, or take it to the charity shop. But don’t act like a dick about every free drink and tchotchke. It’s just business.

16. Cock-Ups

When you fuck up, own it. Don’t make excuses. Just admit that you fucked up and move on.

17. Make Friends, Not Enemies

If you are still working in this business in 20 years time, your ability to feed your children will depend on the relationships you make right now. Everyone I have worked for in the last five years, I knew in either the mid-1990s, the 1980s and in one case (true story), the 1970s.

18. Negative Norma

You are employed to produce content. You are not employed to find reasons NOT to produce content. Every news room has a pudding who’ll tell you why each and every story isn’t worth covering. Don’t be that bore.

19. Computers are Useful

When I began back in the 1980s, it was all typewriters and galleys. Now those things appear in antique shops and historical novels. Learn to use new tools. If an old goblin like me can write HTML, use Photoshop, edit audio files and shoot video, so can you. Get involved in anything video-related. The writers who really get this stuff are the future.

20. Learn to Negotiate

Journalists are chronically underpaid. If you are really sure you are under-valued, ask for a pay-raise. Most journalists I have worked with are extremely poor negotiators, so learn the basics of dealing with tight-fisted bosses.

21. Know Your Business

Guess what – money talks way, way louder than you do. So take the time to understand how the news business works.When the time comes to decide whether to f