10 Misconceptions You Have About Being A Games Journalist

9. No Experience Necessary (But It Helps)

Games journalism is one industry where who you know can truly carry far more weight than what you know. However, you've either got a PR and editorial contact for every letter of the alphabet or you just plain know your stuff. Most people fall in the middle, some more to one side depending on how many notches are in their journalistic hilt, but they all have something in common: they probably started from nothing. Nobody is born an accomplished writer, and if you want to break into gaming journalism, you know where you stand. Let's put it this way: If you've just now figured out how to get a crudely animated character to walk three paces, you aren't going to apply for Senior Project Director at Naughty Dog. The same goes here; you don't aim for the biggest publications without the resumé and work samples to back up your purported skills set. Fortunately, you don't need to start with the top dogs. At this point gaming sites threaten to outnumber the games they're covering, and new ones are always popping up. If you have the passion to stick with a quaint little site you find worth investing time and effort into, they'll be glad to have you on board if you at least know the alphabet. If anything, the key to breaking into games journalism is the patience and endurance to work for free€”for a time, mind you. Think of it as an extremely rigid probationary period on your starting pay, and use the experience gained therein to catapult you closer to where you want to be.