this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Games

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Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.10-001341/https://aftermath.site/video-games-journalism-2025

We’ve (sadly) covered a lot of games media stories thatinvolve writers being laid offsites being shuffled around and sometimes even whole companies shutting down. For Inside Baseball week, I figured it might be a good time to check in with some of the few people left still making a living in video games journalism.

I spoke with a number of writers and voices who are a) drawing a full-time salary writing or talking about video games, and b) are working at what I’d call a “major” site, the big ones with historical brands that are still in a position to be paying people decent wages. These folks are the lucky few survivors, those in jobs that a decade ago were relatively common but which today–thanks to the aforementioned layoffs and closures, not to mention other contractions like a growing reliance on freelance and guides– are increasingly scarce.

I asked a number of questions about their past, present and, perhaps most pressing, their immediate future, with their answers to each below. To protect their identities and jobs their names have been changed, and outlets omitted where requested. By way of introduction, I spoke with:

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

I mean what is games journalism? How many full time, major publication, food-packaging-industry journalists are there? Where's our aluminum can reporters? Who's covering the waxed cardboard beat? Where's the lifers on butcher paper?

I mean food packaging is a $500 Billion dollar a year industry, roughly double the size of the video games industry, why are there zero full time journalists focused on them?

I grew up reading a ton of early video game blogs like Joystiq, but games journalism has always been a breath away from celebrity chasing, drama stirring, tabloid filler.

There's one end of it that analyzes the in depth technical details of engines which is interesting to some, and there's one end that is reviewing and discussing games as art, but otherwise there's very little journalism to do full time on any given industry. Journalists should follow the story, not insist on finding one in the industry where they want to look.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (3 children)

There have been magazines and newspapers with dedicated news reporting on TV, movies, cars and sports for longer than I've been alive.

I don't even disagree on the quality of a lot of the material, necessarily, but I'd argue the replacement, which is hyperfocused influencer coverage, is not better, and a good chunk of it is demonstrably worse.

At least old games journalism did actual critique. These days it's all either unbridled hype or ragebaiting, culture wars stuff.

Also, having grown measuring time by the monthly interval between paper magazine releases "I grew up reading a ton of early videogame blogs like Joystiq" reduced me to ashes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I mean I also grew up in the 90s reading video game magazines, I'm just still growing up.

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