JD: That's a song and dance we're all used to by now. You have to convince them that the people who inhabit this place are wacky enough to merit some attention. Or that this is a part of a trend that may not be the world they live in, but it's the world their kids will live in ... crap like that.
It all has some merit, but what it comes down to is you know as a journalist that there's something vital and interesting in this space, and you sell it to them however you can.
I would be careful to not get too hung up on the travel writing metaphor as a literal one. ... It's not that game culture represents foreign culture, but the experience of playing a game is more an experience than the reading of a novel or watching a film, and is more likely to generate randomly interesting experiences in the way travel does. And a lot of the meaning of games resides in those random encounters.
RP: That taps into a key difference ... with travel journalism you're writing about [places] for people who will never go there. But with games, that's not necessarily the case. Anybody could play a game, so does that inform the difference in how the material is handled?
KG: I partially think travel is a lot easier now anyway. ... Now there's a degree of travel that people can do even on not particularly incredibly economically advantaged backgrounds. Travel journalism has changed in that way. But games ... I've never played EVE, I'll never play EVE, but I like reading what Jim has to say about it. I'm more likely to go to Madagascar than play it. ... It's not analogous in many ways, but in that particular way I think it is. There's something to reading about games you won't play, and if it makes you want to go there, that's great.
EVZ: It also depends on who you're writing for. If it's a more mainstream audience, people aren't likely to visit that world. If you're writing for a consumer gaming magazine where everybody's going to go out and buy a game, it's more like a backpacking guide than a travelogue.
RP: You guys are all (I assume) making your living as journalists.
JD: Barely, but yeah.
RP: How do you wake up one day and decide this is something you want to do?
KG: I mainly work for professional games magazines. In my case, it's just kind of horrific ... literally a bloke approached me in a pub and asked if I wanted to write for a magazine. Club rather, when I was like 19 at university. ... And I kind of started freelance writing for small British magazines. And in my case, I got enough contacts and I know enough people in the industry, so for me it was quite simple. Or natural, if that makes any sense. I didn't' actually hunt it down.
EVZ: There was a very smart editor who told me once that a goal of a freelancer is to get a staff position. And he was absolutely correct. When you're a freelancer, you spend more time pitching, more time trying to keep track of your schedule than you ever do actually writing. But it does give you the advantage of writing all the stories you think are interesting for all the publications you think are interesting.
JD: In the context of games journalism per se, I think my career is probably so idiosyncratic as to not be of any use to someone trying to shape a career for themselves. Except in so far as it's a warning that you never know what's going to happen.
