Games Journalism for Fun and Profit: The Privately Attack Method
Video Games!
We love em. Personally I’ve been calling them VideoJames because a medium so close to my heart needs a first name. No last name though, we’re not that familiar.
For real though, we all enjoy videogames. That’s why we do this. We talk about games, we learn about games. Sometimes we do everything but actually play them, and that’s’ ok. A lot of us probably haven’t played Tokimeki Memorial 2 but that doesn’t stop us from declaring our digital love to that special lady in our lives.
So when I’m not playing games or talking about them in the company of friends I’m writing about them. Sometimes I don’t even publish what I write. For instance when I play a new game I make a habit to open my notes app and jot things down as needed. I mainly do this as a way to keep up with design trends, but if I enjoy something enough to play let’s say…ten hours or so I sit down, gather up all those notes, and forge them into a “review”.
I say review loosely because for the most part I don’t consider myself a reviewer. I don’t think anyone truly is. When you consume media for the sake of a reaction you’ve already failed at what said media is expecting of you. I go into something looking to have a good time, and taking notes is fun. I don’t play the hits with a news cap interviewing the game as I play it. I just like to keep good memories in a tangible container to save for later. My memory is kinda shot. If I don’t write about Xenoblade’s UI I’ll likely forget it even mattered.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A REVIEW
I like the game.
That’s rule number one. I don’t punch down. If I don’t like a game I don’t give it much attention. Salvaging a bad experience for the sake of content is just something I can’t do. Sure I might make a short comment on twitter or to a few friends but I won’t ever put something out like “BALAN WONDERWORLD IS THE WORST GAME EVER”.
I’ve talked about how I don’t think there’s that many bad games out there. If you made something to outright attack someone else then yeah, your game sucks no matter how fun you think it is. If you make a couple barbie games a year to pay for a passion project then kudos to you. You made some kid happy, you put food on the table, and you made enough money to make a cool game you wanted to make. This was literally Wayforward’s business model in the 00's.
So when it comes to my writing process I always try to keep it positive. That’s also why reviews come so few and far in between. I’m hard to please sometimes. I can be a bit cynical at AAA games so that’s why I try to stick to older titles. I want to write more about indies but even then I get stuck in a rut.
SURPRISE! IT’S ALL CONTENT
As you may know, monthly essays have been sort of moved over to my youtube channel. I’ve been trying my best to converge back to written content but for now it’s been exclusively video. The reason being is that Adobe Premiere takes a lot of my time, not to mention the act of recording each essay and editing from there. When I just had the blog I could just write off the cuff, edit, add embeds, and publish. Now I have to
record game footage
collect B roll
write the essay
format it into a script
record the script
edit the narration track (remove pauses, breaths,etc)
add music
add gameplay, b roll, images, etc
mix audio
export video
watch the export
upload to youtube
get a copyright claim (totally worth it for my fishing game intro)
cite music and gameplay used
publish
share to socials, discord, insert credit, etc
And don’t get me started on the thumbnails. I simply gave up on making them. Thankfully Youtube’s auto thumbnail generator…thing has been doing a good job.
On the hardware end of things, last year all I needed was a laptop. I bought myself a cute little chromebook to work on my writing. That’s actually what i’m using right now to edit this. For video essays I spent a great deal of cash to get everything right. In the past 4 months I’ve purchased
a Mac Mini M1 with 16gb of RAM
a new tenkeyless keyboard with cherry MX browns (for optimal WPM)
an Apple Magic Trackpad
an el gato capture card
a new monitor
two external hard drives
a gaming laptop (this was more of a fun purchase if i’m being honest)
a new Xbox Series controller for said laptop
a laptop cooler (highly recommended. My 5000 fan drops the laptop temp down by 20 degrees celcius)
a 2TB NVME drive
a 1080p webcam
Sony Linkbuds for editing audio
and a portable soundproof screen for my blue yeti mic.
That’s a lot of stuff for youtube, but I personally feel like it’s all worth it. Next big purchase is definitely a better mic though.
My goal is to get 100 views per video. By the time I finish my next video my last one should hit that mark. Currently we’re sitting at a cool 94.
When I say that it’s all content I’m mostly just talking about the footage. If I start a game for the first time, I always get that sinking feeling of
“Oh geez…what if this is a good game….what if I need to record footage…I might as well do it now”
This is a real easy way to blow through the 10TB of storage I have. If I recorded everything I’d probably be out of space by October. At about $300 per drive my patreon can’t afford the additional storage every couple months, plus the cost of adobe. I told myself I would do this full time at $1200 a month, but thanks to gear costs and the general state of the world it’s looking like that is gonna change to $2000. We’ll get there some day, I promise.
So to circumvent this issue I’ve made a bit of a compromise with myself.
15 minutes of footage per game. Doesn’t have to start at the beginning or anything, just need to get enough footage for b roll. In my Rez video I didn’t expect to use footage of Metal Gear Solid V, but it came through in a pinch.
Now when it comes to a game that I know I’m gonna write about, I usually do 1–2 hours, spaced out depending on how long the game is. Let’s say I want to write about Dragon Quest XI. I’ll record a bit of the intro, some stuff in the middle, one or two slimes for good measure, maybe some later stuff, but (and this applies to most of the games I write about) I keep spoilers to a bare minimum. That’s because….
I DON’T THINK REVIEWS OR ESSAYS SHOULD ALWAYS REPLACE PLAYING THE GAME
I like to steal games.
Look. You won’t catch me paying nearly a fucking grand on a PS2 game. I will gladly go to a website, download a game, and run it in an emulator than purchase the game outright. The money isn’t even going to the developer anymore. It’s going to some guy who go really lucky 15 years ago at an FYE and bought the game new for $40. Good on him for having good taste but there ain’t no goddamn way i’m paying more than the MSRP for literally anything. I’m cheap as shit.
Hey it’s super cool if you collect games. I used to as well. I’m sitting on some pretty valuable PS1 games. Do I want to sell? Not really. Do I want to play them? Nah. I have Duckstation.
Emulation is the great equalizer, and for my writing my general rule of thumb is as follows:
If I can’t purchase the game for MSRP in a way that supports the developers then I simply pirate the game.
Another special rule is that if I can’t condone the morals or ethics of a developer or publisher then I either pirate or purchase the game in a way that doesn’t support them. I basically had to make this rule up specifically for SNK.
So yeah I’ll pick up KOF15 on G2A or something. If you see me playing those cool neo geo pocket games on switch know now that I failed and I am sorry.
Back to piracy, alright. I think piracy and emulation rules because you can introduce a game to someone without them having to actually purchase the game. If you have literally any PC from the last 20 years you can play nearly every GBA, SNES, Master System, Genesis, or NES game ever made. Wanna play Bahamut Lagoon? You can do that right now! Wanna play Mother 3? Nintendo won’t ever localize that game, but there’s a fantastic translation out there. Give it a go. It’s one of the best games ever made, and it’s free.
Got a decent PC? Know how to use a VPN? Enjoy Elden Ring for free! The world really is your oyster when you remember that piracy is going to happen if someone really, really wants to play your game. You can try to stop it, but fitgirl already has the crack.
So that’s essentially why I don’t usually go into spoiler territory in my writing. I want my work to accompany a game, not outright replace it. Because at the end of the day if I write about something that gets your mouth watering then all you need to do is hit up your favorite romsite, and start playing.
WHAT WILL I REVIEW?
What I like. Like come on we’ve already talked about this. Quit asking dumb questions.
I jest. If I genuinely enjoy something I’ll either make a full fledged review or I’ll save it for
THE MANIFESTO FOR ANIMALS
What’s that you ask? It’s my yearly list of every game I've played over the last twelve months. I can already tell you that this year’s manifesto is going to either be very different, or it’s going to huge. That’s because 2022 is currently the year of GAME PASS, BABY!!!!!!
I’ve played so many games this year. Every few days I make a little charcuterie board of games to nibble at. Turns out I really like roguelites. MfA is my way of writing about everything I play, so I guess it really is all content.
The usual rule for MfA is that I do 2–3 sentences per game, one embed, and I move on. Just enough to get my word across. I do have a plan for MfA’s youtube adaptation, and spoilers: it’s gonna be a top ten.
But while i’m here let’s talk about some of the games I played this year that I never thought I would enjoy.
HALO INFINITE MULTIPLAYER
I’ll play a little in bed, i’ll play a little on the couch, I’m not particularly good but I’m having a good time.
VAMPIRE SURVIVORS
I get it. It’s cookie clicker for today’s teens. It’s fun.
GUILTY GEAR: STRIVE
A trans girl, a non binary steampunk roleplayer, and a dolphin all kicked my ass.
As we near the end of things i’ll leave you with a couple projects that fell through the cracks.
E3
I wanted to write about the death and rebirth of E3. I even got in touch with an artist about commissioning some work for the cover. When I mentioned that I wanted Mario crucified in a sea of monster energy drink a la End of Evangelion they stopped emailing me.
THE ALLIANCE ALIVE
I planned out a whole written essay on this game, but I just couldn’t get into it. It was a bad case of assuming that I’ll like something.
THE DARK SPIRE
I simply do not have the time to give this game justice. It demands your respect. I don’t want to make it angry.
WHAT’S NEXT
More youtube. I’m currently adapting my Dungeon Encounters essay into a video. Look forward to that sometime in the coming weeks. September is still up in the air, but I have something special planned for October. You’ll have to wait and see……
- PA
If you like what you’ve read feel free to buy me a coffee or check out my patreon. If you’re from discord or insert credit follow me on Twitter if you want to keep in touch with what i’m doing in between essays.
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