Video Game Journalist: The Definitive Guide

VIDO GAME JOURNALIST _ The Definitive Guide FEATURE IMAGE

A career as a video game journalist is gaining popularity these days. Many of you game lovers might be grabbing this opportunity but must be worried about how you can become a good video game journalist. Therefore, I have this wonderful guide for you to begin your career as a Videogame Journalist.

In this new guide you’ll learn:

  • How to become a video game journalist
  • How to start making money right away as a video game journalist
  • How to achieve success like other journalists

After reading this you’ll definitely become a successful journalist and live your dream!

So, let’s get started.

What is Video Games Journalism?

Video game journalism is the activity of collecting accurate information about video games and presenting it to the public in the form of text, audio, and video.

Information that could be related to any video game and may include updates about the game, new game releases, or gaming news, etc.

People writing about video games are called “video game journalists”. They can work for newspapers and magazines like USAToday, CNBC, and websites such as PC Gamer, IGN, etc.

Different forms of Games Journalist

PRINT-BASED

Print-based media is slowly dying and web base journalism is growing rapidly.

Print-based is one of the oldest forms of journalism. Printed media contains newspapers, printed magazines, etc.

According to research, revenue for the US newspaper industry shrunk by about $4.5 billion between 2011 to 2018, and you can guess how much the worldwide media revenue would have fallen.

This downward trend gives rise to Digital media journalism.

DIGITAL JOURNALISM

Print-based media is slowly dying and web-based journalism is growing very fast.

Digital video game journalism contains websites, blogs, and video content. The famous platforms are Twitch, Youtube, etc. Digital journalism is online journalism in which content is distributed via the Internet.

According to the people-press.org report,  you can see the change in trend that most people between the ages of 18 and 29 read news via the Internet.

As you can clearly see, there has been a massive 25% increase in internet users in the years 2007 and 2008 with the primary source Internet, and now you can guess how much it would have increased by now.

You can clearly see that in between 2007 and 2008 a huge increase of 25% of internet users can be seen, now you can estimate how much it will increase.

AUDIO

Audio Journalism includes Radio, and if I talk about the latest trend, then it would be podcasts. It is gaining more hipe than ever before. Here are a few stats that show how popular Podcast is getting.

According to Edisonresearch Infinite Dial report, more than half of Americans now listen to podcasts. Reports also show an estimated 30% growth in podcast listeners than the previous year.

Other research also stated that Podcast has one of the higher audience retention rate., higher than video and text.

What jobs can you do as a Video Game Journalist

If you’re thinking that your only job will be playing games then you’re not totally right about it! Your working routine will include writing and editing both written and video content in addition to planning content, and lots of other stuff.

Here’s what you can do as a video games journalist:

  • Game News: Tell about the upcoming games or rummers.
  •  Big feature update: talk about the upcoming updates.
  • Enterprise or Investigative stories: Share stories about the games that a few people know.
  • Covering Events: there are lots of gaming events, and tournaments happen around the globe you can cover all those stories.
  • Interviews: You can take other gamers Interviews.
  • Reviews: Review the newly released games! Review the gameplay, comparisons, tips, and tricks, etc.
  • Discussion boards: Engage with your audience.

4 Steps To Become A Video Game Journalist? 


Before moving on with these 5 steps, I want to mention some important points! 

  • You can become a video game journalist without a professional degree. 
  • Another point is, if you like to play video games this is not enough, along with being a good gamer, you have to be a good writer.

Read carefully what I’m about to tell you here: 

  • You will know that degree and training is not enough for getting a good job and success.
  • If you have obtained a degree in any other field, and still can you become a video game journalist.

STEP 1:  Get a Journalism Degree:

The first step is to get proper training and a degree in journalism. It’s important to embrace yourself with the appropriate knowledge and skillset to get the job done. 

Your process of video game journalism will begin with the 2 to 4-year degree program in which you’ll study different aspects of journalism.

During your graduation, you study a broad field of journalism like entertainment reporters, political reporters, sports reporters, etc. you’ll be equipped with all types of journalism skills well during your graduation.

STEP 2: Complete Internship

After completion of graduation, apply for the internship. To save time, try to get an internship in the last semester of your graduation.

An internship is the implementation of your learning in the real world and enhances your skills.

There is nothing better than getting paid for learning, but an internship could be paid or unpaid.

However, most universities allow and encourage students to write for their newspapers, radio stations, and various other things.

But still, you need real-world experience that will help you to build your CV to crack a job in the best gaming platform.

During the internship, you will get a chance to work with professionals in the newsroom. Your attention should be focused on:

  • Learning how to present the information 
  • How to gather data from the right source
  • Get involved in all the activities going around 
  • Learn to be confident and comfortable with the camera.

STEP 3: Hit Entry-Level Job in Video Game Journalism

After completing your internship, it’s time for applying for video game jobs. After you’ve got a little experience now, you’re ready to do a job.  

There is little to no chance that you’ll immediately get a high-paying job at GameSpot or IGN.     

According to the employees working there, they look for candidates who are writing consistently about video games for approximately a minimum of 6 months to 1 year. 

If you get an internship at a gaming company, you should take it whether it’s paid or unpaid. So, you need an entry-level job in which you can write about video games. Your CV must be strong. 

Aspiring video game journalists should aim to have a portfolio of work in the form of published stories, photographs, or video or clips from radio or television broadcasts.

STEP 4: Pitch To Editors For Cracking Perfect High Paying Job

Now it’s time to reach out to all top games magazines and apply for the video game journalism job.  Make sure you provide links to your previous work, like any blog that you’ve written, videos, or podcasts that you’ve hosted.

Later on, I’ll also share various ways to represent yourself as a brand. So it’s not the end! 

All the information mentioned above, you might get everywhere, but Cominggames will show you the exact way to start making money.

Example: In the case of IGN search for IGN jobs on Google, you’ll see the following results. After selecting what you want to do, you can see their job requirements and apply there.

You will get an official website with a job description page. Another quick way to find a job is to look through job portal sites. Just search for “video game journalism jobs” and select jobs related to writing and editing in the gaming industry.

If your portfolio is strong, then only they will reply, otherwise, there is very little chance that they will reply to your email.

How Much Do Video Game Journalists Make

Below table shows the average per year income of the video game journalists. 

This salary is according to the United States, it may vary country to country. 

How to read this table salary table?

Job Post: It depicts a wide variety of positions for video game journalists.

Average base salary Yearly: This table shows per year average base salary for a particular position. If you are a fresher your base yearly salary will be lower. It depends from company to company.

Job Benefits: Here you will see what the general benefit companies provide for a particular position holder. It also depends from company to company.

Skills required: Here you will see the skills that companies look for when recruiting for the position. These are skills that most companies add to their job descriptions when recruiting for a particular position.

Wordpress Table Plugin

Tips For Becoming Best video game Journalist: 


Here are a few tips that will help you break into the gaming industry. These tips will exactly tell you what you should do to become an expert in video game journalism.

Practice Makes you Perfect: 

This is the most common advice you’ll hear from any success journalists in the world.

Practice, Practice, Practice……

If you want to be a writer, write, if you want to make videos then make consistent videos! You got to be perfect in what you’re doing. 

Having a passion for video games is not enough! Nobody wants you to play games there, you need to be able to do the work you need to be able to write, you need to be able to make videos.

You Don’t Need To Have A Professional Journalism Degree

When you get a video game journalism job, ask your colleagues about their college degrees, and you’ll come to know most people who work within online games media don’t have professional degrees in journalism or video production. 

Although, you should practice loads of other things to find out what you like the most, is it editing or writing that you like the most. Practice different kinds of things to know what you want to do.

This is clearly important to improve your craft, and this is where another form of writing and practice comes into account.

Publishing Content And Getting Feedback Has Super Potential

Whenever you write or make a video or podcast, publish it on sites like anchor.FM or YouTube or on the blog.  

This will help you in 2 different ways:

Once you build a strong portfolio, if somebody comes looking for work, you’ve got all your out there. You’ve got 12 months 24 months or 4 years of work that you can show an employer look I’ve been doing all this stuff. This is all the stuff I’ve done even if the early work is terrible don’t worry about it shows some sort of progression, and that’s important. 

Another reason is getting feedback. It will help you in improving your video game journalism work. The negative feedback is as valuable as the positive!

Positive feedback will boost your confidence and make you feel better about it. If people are being so negative and trolling for the wrong reasons, you can usually figure out something within that negative feedback you can learn from. 

When you create content, publish it and observe your work. Ask what makes you different, what you can improve, and what you like to do, keep doing it. That kind of progress will make you good at your work.

Reading Expert Content: 

Read other expert’s work and learn what they do well and how they engage their audience. Not only you can learn from the gaming industry, but you can follow any writer or journalist who is famous for his work.  

The internet is full of experts who share their content via videos and blogs. You read their blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos and learn from their work and improve your work.

Once you implement the good things of the experts in your work, then no one can stop you from becoming an expert in video game journalism. Keep your specialty with you; Don’t lose it because if you lose your specialty and start mimicking another completely, you won’t be known as the best video game journalist. remember this.

Remember Your Audience

After getting inspired by the top journalists, it’s time to implement the learning keeping your audience in mind. 

Before even you started creating content, remember your audience then treat them accordingly.

 Writing the story

According to research, stories are more compelling and engaging. It helps your audience better connect with your content.

Add short stories to your content, this story may be about an incident that happened to you or you have heard somewhere. Try to keep your stories short. 

Learn About Copywriting 

text content is getting boring because of videos people are consuming less text content. 

Here are crazy stats about the video: 

According to this article of Forbes: “By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic”

YouTube also reports that mobile video consumption rises 100% every year. (Source: Hubspot)

Facebook has reduced its organic reach of photos. If you want to reach a larger audience, you have to use their advertising platform. But now video posts have 135% more organic reach than photo posts. (Source: Social Media Today)

This clearly shows video is booming and rocking the internet. 

now,

You have 2 options, 1 watch this video, and learn copywriting skills that will help you write engaging content.

Another option is to start creating video content.

Platforms such as Facebook Instagram have recently added a platform for video, and this is helping them increase traffic as well as engagement.

Now it’s your time to create a podcast, videos, or text content, which will help you in building a strong portfolio. 

How To Start Making Money Right Away As A Video Game Journalist?

How you can make money as a video game journalist? Right now, you’re new and don’t have much experience, so you don’t have a job which offers other benefits. 

As soon as you become an expert on your work, you can start making money with the methods given. Not only this, but you will also build a strong portfolio, which no one can reject.

If you show your dedication to these tasks, you can make more money from video game journalists. Perhaps You never need to find a job again!

  • Freelancing: 
  • Blogging:
  • Youtube and Live streaming:
  • Podcast: 

With all this, you can start making money.

Let’s start

Freelancing: 

Most video game journalists are freelancers! As the name suggests, you are your own boss, unlike employees who depend on a job with salary and benefits.

Most video game journalists are freelancers. As the name suggests you are your own boss, unlike employees who depend on a job with salary and benefits.

Freelancers are paid by the articles they write.

How can you get work?

There are many ways to get work, especially in these modern days.

Sign up for Fiver, Upwork, Freelance Today and start working. In the beginning, you may not get any work, but after doing research, you will learn how to get your first job.

People fail because they fail to get projects due to a lack of knowledge. The only difficulty is to get the first 2-4 projects and positive reviews. Once your ID gets good reviews, you will never go out of work again.

How much money on average you can make annually?

According to a survey the gov and Glassdoor the average freelance writer earns 40,000 to 70,000 dollars.

Blogging: 

Blogging is another way to start making money in Millions of $$$. Yes, you heard me right! you can start making money in millions.

But time, skills, and efforts it takes that I can’t even express in words. But it opens lots of income potential for you. The moment you start ranking on google, your brand value will increase, other companies will approach you for advertising, you can sell your products, you can monetize your blog with Ads network, you can do affiliate marketing. 

If you want to learn about blogging I personally follow Neil Patel and Brian Dean.

You need to learn about SEO, which is also a broad topic itself. However, you can hire a freelancer or contact me for SEO. I’ll help you get it for you for cheap. 

You just write content, and freelancers help with SEO. But it may take you a year or more at least to start making money from your blog.

Blogging gives you unlimited potential for making money but it’s a game of patience and acquiring digital marketing skills.

Gaming Videos and Live Streaming

If you know a little bit about editing software that is easy to learn nowadays, you can start creating video gaming content related to video gaming very easily.

live stream

If you know a little bit about editing software, which is easy to learn nowadays, then you can start creating video gaming content related to video gaming very easily.

You need a decent gaming PC which you can check here.

You are all set to review gaming videos! Show off your gaming skills and entertain your audience, you can share clips on all your other social media platforms.

Tyler “Ninja”, a 26-year-old twitch streamer, reveals his monthly income at CNBC which is estimated at $500,000 from his bedroom playing Fortnite. Can you imagine how crazy it is? 

Can you imagine, this is crazy, as stated in the blogging section, his income mostly comes from affiliate marketing.

I am not saying that you too will start wishing like that immediately …. nothing will happen overnight

Patience and consistency is the only reason most 90% of people fail. Don’t focus on money … try to provide more value than you get. This is the golden rule and applies everywhere in the world.

Start recording gameplay. I know your first video will be very difficult. But if you watch your first video after a year of continuous work, you will not believe that your first video was so dull.

Podcast: 

Yes, I’d say the Podcast is more critical to build a brand, Podcast is more engaging than video and text. The best part about the Podcast is people can listen to your content while driving, while working or while running etc. 

Do you know what is another most important advantage of podcasts, there is less competition in podcasts, it is in the early stage of growth. Before it starts getting crowded, you start making podcasts.

All you need is 1 good mic and knowledge of some audio software. Audacity is free software that is very easy to use and learn.

You can monetize your podcast and you will get money according to the number of people listen to your podcast.  But there is less money in this, but through podcasts, you will be able to influence more people. 

If you start creating content, I’m sure you’ll become a brand, and no company can dare to reject your application for video game journalists. I hope your podcast gets a sponsorship soon and you start making money with your podcast too.

Common Misconceptions About the Games Press you Must Stay Aware?

Credit: GIPHY

Here are the common misconceptions that every gamer has related to a journalism job. It is time to come out of the dream world and see the real world from the point of view of a journalist.

  • Doesn’t have to work much:
  • We will keep playing the game all day:
  •  Dream of the glamorous world

Before choosing a career in Games Journalism, you must be aware that you have to do a lot of work, preparation before you get to the good bits.

During their jobs, every person is assigned a time limit to complete the work, similarly, every department is given a set time to complete the work. Sometimes there is a lot of work, they barely find time to play the game.

However, some stay late at the office to play games with other team members. It is not that they play the game all day. Everyone’s work is different, and they have to complete it.

You will rarely play games during work hours, even if your role requires you to play those games. Time limits on reviews can be reduced, sometimes between a few days when PR sends you the code and Iambargo to publish the review. These situations can be somewhat fun as a professional challenge and apply in many areas of the job.

If you think you will get a chance to go to various tours and cool events, and you have nothing to do, then you are thinking wrong. The reality is something else, you get tired of all-day trip interviews and cover shows.

Trade shows like E3 would be cool if everything that had to be done there were not grueling. However, You are going to enjoy your time with very cool gamers.

How to Achieve Success like other Journalists

In this section, I’m not going to give you some tips which not everyone is giving…

You hear that go to good schools, do journalism from the best graduate college, work hard, etc… It is all right.

These suggestions are not as important, especially for video game journalists.

You need to have goals, focus, consistency, and a burning desire to achieve the goal.

For this, you have to build good habits so that you do not face difficulty in completing your daily tasks. “When you’re driving a car, but you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t go anywhere, and it doesn’t matter if you’re driving fast or slow. You won’t reach anywhere

Another tip is building good habits:

I remember my first blog, when I was writing I was bored, I used to spend 1-3 hours thinking about where to start writing. But now it is normal for me to write a 3000-4000 word blog.

I suggest that you read this book to know the importance of building good habits. You have to be good at writing because most of your work as a journalist is writing.

Finally:

To become a video game journalist you need good writing skills and a strong portfolio. Start writing for blogs, make videos and podcasts, polish your journalism skills and you will definitely become a successful video game journalist.

Me and team Cominggames prays that whoever is reading this blog will succeed and will achieve what they want to achieve in their lives. If you will find this blog helpful,  then comment and tell me your feedback too.

Do follow our Instagram and Facebook channels for more Gaming tips and hacks!

Love-Coming Games

Manoj Chauhan

"I'm Manoj Chauhan and I've been playing video games since I was 14 years old. My passion for gaming eventually led me to become a technology enthusiast, prompting me to pursue a degree in Computer Applications from university. During my studies, I gained in-depth knowledge of computer hardware and software. This website is dedicated to sharing everything I've learned along the way."

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. joe

    well explained guide for those who wants to become video game journalist…

  2. curso de primeiros socorros

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  3. postegro web

    very good jon mate. very useful to me thx

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