"'I think we are doing an OK job. I think we are doing a remarkably better job than we were doing even five years ago. But now that we are off the short bus, that does not mean we're heading for graduate school. We have a lot of work ahead of us'"

Slashdot's Michael Zenke speaks with Brandon Sheffield, Brian Crecente, Chris Grant, Chris Kohler, Chris Morris, David Thomas, Frank Cifaldi, Greg Kasavin, Luke Smith and Simon Carless.

"'You see so many stories about how bad game journalism is,' says Bill Kunkel, also known as 'The Game Doctor,' co-founder of Electronic Games in 1981, author of the book Confessions of the Game Doctor and now Editor-in-Chief of Tips & Tricks magazine. 'There are more great game journalists now than there were ten years ago. They're just spread out over a broader terrain.'"

Russ Pitts speaks to Bill Kunkel, Dan Hsu and the ghost of Lester Bangs about "Fanatical Opinions: Game Writing's Troubled Adolescence."

"What I want to tell you about is two publisher bankruptcies, a little whiskey and a lot of articles. Or should that be a lot of whiskey? I've left the names as is, since I'm telling you just the facts of what happened from my perspective. Not passing judgment on those involved. Everything contained within happened to me as is, with no embellishment - apologies if there's no three act structure - this is real life, chaps."

What happens when the check stop coming, and the editors stop answering your calls. Sandy Morris describes every writer's nightmare: publisher bankruptcy.

"Blog culture, particularly in relation to videogames, is special in that it crystallizes the internet in an ideal form: Millions of people are able to communicate with one another, more or less free of regulation or cost. Developing an intricate network, blogs almost endlessly rely on each other for content. You could own the least-visited site ever, only to see your bandwidth explode when someone links to someone who links to you and, say, Joystiq sees it. A simple innocuous message can be seized upon and delivered to tens of thousands of readers in a single day."

Hitchhiker throws the weight of his journalistic prowess at the topic of blogs, which are simultaneously threatening to destroy all for which he has fought, and suffered.

"Everyone is the world's foremost expert on something. This one fact is the cornerstone of much of the internet. How else do you explain elaborate web pages devoted to everything from shoelace tying to Slurpees? If you're reading this, though, chances are your expertise falls in the realm of some sort of obscure videogame that only earns you derision when you bring it up in polite company. Not to worry; the internet is there to indulge your obsession and let you actively share it with the world."

Kyle Orland approaches the most democratic of all forms of game writing: the fansite.