this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Comradeship // Freechat
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I have a very select few people in the game space I follow (basically all the Ex-Giantbomb folks, mostly Nextlander + Tamoor these days). They're more from the old school system where you weren't just PR for the games you were covering. I don't always agree with their gaming tastes, but I enjoy listening to them. Been following them for nearly 20 years at this point.
The best thing you can do is honestly find someone whose tastes are about the same as yours rather than find some impartial critic. The latter is frankly impossible, there are critically acclaimed games that I hate just because they don't match my tastes.
Maybe I should jump into the game journalism space though I am not sure how well I would fair.
It's extremely saturated though. Those guys have the luxury of being able to do it without taking bribes from publishers, because they have been around for so long. They built up an audience before the industry has shifted to what it is now. If I tried to make something like Nextlander or Giant Bomb right now, it wouldn't work.
There's a reason so many of the "new reviewers" are just glorified PR, it's the easiest way to do it for the people who care more about getting free games to play than the actual writing.
I actually did do some freelance game journalsim work before/during grad school. You need a pretty thick skin for being turned down, you probably make 50 pitches for every article you end up actually getting to write.