, 23 tweets, 5 min read
I don't want to shade this dude specifically, bc this was asked in perfectly good faith, but the last few weeks have taught me a lot of why many commenters hate games journalists. They assume we're all living the DREAM.

I think a thread is in order to burst that bubble.
For starters: I'm not even sure this is clear to a lot of folks, but for most big games sites, even though you might see 10-20 names doing content over the course of a month, only 5-7 of them will be full time staff.

The vast majority of content is freelance. It kinda has to be.
I'm gonna keep coming back to this, in case anybody was under the impression the @gmgunion folks are just starting shit over nothing, but part of how that madness started is because of a pretty typical mandate: they need to hit certain content thresholds PER DAY to sell ad space.
For a games site, that's fine from September to December. This is peak time for gaming news, releases, and content. But it's still a lot for a small pool of writers, and that's why you keep a pool of hungry freelancers ready. Some folks wait ALL YEAR to be this busy.
But the problems are EVERYWHERE. Full timers have guaranteed salaries coming in, but to address the original RT, staying on top of the industry, playing a shit ton of games, doing research for pieces, most of that is done on off hours, and there is no overtime pay for it.
Freelancers--who, I stress again, are writing 90% of what's out there, by sheer volume--are worse off because there is no guarantee of how much of the feast you'll get, how much time it'll eat up getting it done, and whether the effort is financially worth it.
The money, though, isn't as important an expenditure than time. Because freelancers are paid either by the word or by the piece, and even some of the big sites that pay well for work, making a living on on it is dependent on actually having time to take all the work possible.
And, in case you haven't thought of it, the amount of time spent scraping and begging for work vs time spent actually working is ENORMOUS, likely far beyond a standard 40 hours.
Now add in the fact that--brace yourself--PLAYING VIDEO GAMES IS A JOB. It has a time and physical expenditure just like anything else. And they can take anywhere from the equivalent of a full work day (8 hours) to over a full business week (40 hrs) or MORE to clear.
Forget whether that game is a new Zelda or Fallout 76. Before you do the actual paid work, you must do unpaid work that takes DOZENS of hours per week.

Imagine being a plumber, but before you got paid, you had to spend your off hours fixing septic tanks. Insanity, right?
All this, and hopefully, you are paid enough to maybe pay a bill or two, maybe buy a few groceries. And a successful, in demand writer does this multiple times a week.

Did you know that somehow, there are people who accuse games journalists of not liking video games?
Full timers at least have a stack of holy benefits to supplement this, but that applies to them too. Much of the work that goes into creating pieces, especially if you want the kind of integrity @Kotaku or @waypoint pours into their stuff, isn't happening on the clock.
The perks? Generally, if you're covering a game or reviewing it, yes, you'll get review copies. Even there, you are at the industry's mercy. Whether your outlet gets you a free copy of a game you plan to cover is subject to an entire D&D sheet of concerns from the publisher's PR.
That whole problem is a ramble in and of itself, but all I'll say is that there's a reason why dozens of streamers have videos up when a games embargo breaks, but there might only be five or six critical reviews.
But beyond review codes? Writers, full time or otherwise, are expected to buy their own systems, accessories, capture hardware/software, pay for travel to/from events, etc etc. Neither outlets, or PR firms are in the habit of gearing up everyone under their banner.
All that, of course, costs money. So, It shouldn't be a surprise (but probably is) that anyone who's not full time at an outlet, 9 times out of 10, they have a whole other full-time job.
Full time status frees folks of THAT burden at least if you're working at one of the bigger sites, but, as we're seeing with the G/O network, you're still gonna be taking marching orders from people who have never written and have no interest in the content of your site.
If you want to know why it's important something like @gmgunion exists, it's because no matter what, when the money people start yelling orders, it is guaranteed people who DO know what it is to be in this industry can yell back.
But, again, that's if you're lucky enough to be in the echelon of f/t writers.

Everyone else is varied levels of putting in above full time hours and above full time work for, mathematically, sweatshop wages, for the privilege of getting yelled at for scoring an 8 instead of 10
I was all ready to cap this off, then forgot to circle back to one earlier point: this is all contingent on WORK BEING AVAILABLE.

Right now, it's the AAApocalypse. There's plenty of content to be made about stuff coming out.

During the months when it's not? Freelancers STARVE.
The Beast that is online media hungers all year round, and requires content to avoid swallowing outlets whole.

But that content must bring in eyes. Lots of them. And CONSTANTLY.
So, probably the best capper I can end on is that, along with literally everything else I mentioned is the knowledge that the thing you spent so long crafting, falling in love with, and editing will be seen by 1000s less than a 3 sentence news article about a new hat in Fortnite.
That's games journalism, folks. Nobody comes here for the financial security, emotional stability, life balance, gender parity, racial representation, or workers rights, and the facts that so many of us are still trying to make that happen is the most insane thing ever.

~FIN~
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