A Site To Call My Own

"Despite our persistent obscurity, we have managed to accomplish our primary goal of GamersWithJobs.com, which is simply to perpetrate an excuse for refusing to grow up and stop playing these silly games. 'Look,' we say to our uncommonly patient wives, 'we have literally tens of people who want to know what we think!'

"This is, of course a lie."

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Wow, what a very interesting article.
A few bits that I can relate to as well.
Also a very cunning way attract some more traffic, even if some of them turn out to be trolls, I know I'll be visiting your site in the near future. ;-) (Not as a troll though)

Actually, a dollar an hour is below minimum wage in many third world countries, and certainly not something you could retire comfortably on. :)

Whenever I do pop by GWJ I tend to find something terribly interesting, but hey, I might make it a habbit to do so more often.

And since when has TIME printed anything about games?

Nice article, Sean. GWJ 4EVAR!!!!

When we launched with that vision of being the site we had always wanted to visit, what we pictured was a community.

And instead, you ended up with people like me. You poor saps.

GWJ is jerks! They're not exactly flawless on typos, either. I'm pretty sure it's a malicious plot to cause me intellective injury.

Sean Sands:
We just took the "Field of Dreams" approach, built our own website and waited until people walked out of the Iowa corn.

Stop acting like all we grow is crazies, hicks and corn!

(We grow soybeans and pigs, too.)

Aside from that little agricultural..."misstatement", great article. I did wonder about that Slashdot thing, but figured it was just an oversight, it's happened before with smaller stories (when one of our homegrown crazies shot his wife and kids after getting caught embezzeling earlier this year) and I never gave it a second thought, but maybe Slashdot does "steal" credit for some of that stuff...

I've been a GWJ follower for years now and the site has produced some of the greatest freelance gaming writers on Earth. It's a hell of a supportive community.

I do love hearing how one site helps to launch careers expecially in gaming. Sites like GWJ and the Escapist help breath a fresh perspective about the game industry.

Sands and Andrich, and the rest of the GWJ staff and community, have accomplished something truly remarkable at GWJ. When I stumbled across the site nearly four years ago, I wasn't looking for an incredible online community. I was looking for a place to write about games. Luckily, I found both.

Thais:

Sean Sands:
We just took the "Field of Dreams" approach, built our own website and waited until people walked out of the Iowa corn.

Stop acting like all we grow is crazies, hicks and corn!

(We grow soybeans and pigs, too.)

And, apparently, you grow Shoeless Joe Jacksons.

Great read, I just lurk but I love the site. Anything to change the image of gamers to something a bit more adult is fine by me.

I don't really know how you folks do it. It gets so much easier if you just stop checking the web hits, stop trying to get paid, and just do it for free.

Then again, Mephistopheles will probably be collecting from my ass any day now...

"Gamerswithjobs, or GWJ as it is more affectionately known"

.. "Gamerswithjobs" = 4 syllables
.. GWJ = 5 syllables

Maybe verbally, but in a written article? Oww.. ^^

Nice read!

I've been involved in an independent gaming website (www.xboxworld.com.au if you must know :) for a while now and whilst just a writer, I can really relate to this in terms of our little corner of the web.

Actually, if it weren't for GWJ I wouldn't be reading the escapist, so I have to thank GWJ for that. I also have to thank GWJ for having a wicked podcast, great front page articles and a great community, though I haven't been as active over there as I should.

Just popping in to say thanks for the GWJ, it became my online home some two years ago and I still can't praise it enough.

bunkymag:
"Gamerswithjobs, or GWJ as it is more affectionately known"

.. "Gamerswithjobs" = 4 syllables
.. GWJ = 5 syllables

Maybe verbally, but in a written article? Oww.. ^^

Actually, GWJ is pronounced "goodge," or, alternatively, "guhdj." One syllable. :)

purple_haze:
Actually, if it weren't for GWJ I wouldn't be reading the escapist, so I have to thank GWJ for that. I also have to thank GWJ for having a wicked podcast, great front page articles and a great community, though I haven't been as active over there as I should.

You forgot to mention their awesome Resident Grammar Snob.

I had never heard of GWJ but I think this article is interesting enough to make the site worth a look.

Yeah, being a game journalist sucks. All the free games you have to play for money, gosh... it's horrible. Every blockbuster game hit delivered to your doorstep free of charge, even before launch day, getting free PCs and consoles to play on, even other trinkets, t-shirts from the PR departments. Aww, how agonizingly awful life... :'(

Yeah, that was sarcastic. Duh! I myself am a game journalist too. I'm writing for a Hungarian gaming magazine you've probably never heard of, and as such, I can relate to some of your problems. With years of writing behind my back, I know it's hard to lose yourself in a game without those journalist reflexes kicking in, weighing pros and cons, looking for bugs, analyzing the gameplay, seeking for plotholes in the story...etc. But one thin is certain: playing games is awesome, and playing games as work is even more awesome. Having your very own site is just the cherry on top. I know there is work to be done with sites like that, and many times the gain is less than the pain, but it's still yours.

Maybe you forgot, that VERY few people can actually enjoy the work they are doing. We, game journalists are in these few, playing games for a living is everyone's dream. I have my daytime job besides writing about games, and I know it's hard to sit down with a game to review it after 8 hours in the grinder, but you got to be grateful for the fact, that you are actually doing it for yourself, and the people reading your articles. So please stop whining about how awful it is to be a game journalist with your own site, that is hypocrisy.

Playbahnosh:
So please stop whining about how awful it is to be a game journalist with your own site, that is hypocrisy.

Actually, "whining" is part of the job description. Well, okay, maybe it's more of a perk.

- Alan

I've always wanted to start my own website. The one I have in mind is actually based off another (no longer updated) website I stumbled onto. I don't intend to get rich off it or anything but I'd love it to be online.

Although really the only things left that I need for the website that I don't know how to make are forms and a poll that allows me to track IPs and hide the results.

Actually, "whining" is part of the job description. Well, okay, maybe it's more of a perk.

- Alan

Yeah, "whining" about crappy games, and how the videogame industry sucks, developers selling out...etc, but NOT about the job. Methinks...

I personally never said a bad word about my job. It's tiring and sometimes unfullfilling, but it's never dull or boring. And this is what I wanted to do all my life, and I'm quite happy about that. Word.

sammyfreak:

And since when has TIME printed anything about games?

Yeah, they like to do 'cyrstal ball' articles every so often where they get the chance to seem at the cutting edge and wot not instead of dusty academics in tweed jackets and have you. 'Video games you say? How quaint!'

Anyhow, it 'twas an informative article which presented a lot of the pitfalls, and as someone who's looking into developing a website along similaresque lines it was a great opportunity to gain some little insight into the job.

While I've never visited GWJ, this article intrigued me enough to do so (it will be the next stop on my browser).
What Sean said is resonating with me all the more because I, too, am a gamer-with-a-job. I can (sort of) pride myself on being even worse off the GWJ, as I'm half of a team that produces a gaming podcast (and attached site) in Hebrew, to the vanishingly small population of Israeli gamers, which appears to be mostly teen-agers anyway. Talk about TENS of people caring what you think... :)

Anyway, hit-counts notwithstanding, I enjoy it very much, both from the fledgling community aspect and the still-new-to-me (we're now celebrating our first anniversary)jounalist pose.

Oh, and some shameless self promotion: http://hamishakia.co.il

Playbahnosh:
But one thin is certain: playing games is awesome, and playing games as work is even more awesome. Having your very own site is just the cherry on top. I know there is work to be done with sites like that, and many times the gain is less than the pain, but it's still yours.

It seems you might not be familiar with the noble profession of play testing. You could read more about that at this very site. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_159/5065-Button-Mashing-Monkeys) I'd venture, further, that you have not had the privilege of having to deal with trolls and other forum undesirables to the extent that Sean has (and the GWJ staff have done an exemplary job in the endeavor). Neither job is easy, both receive precious little thanks.

But I won't begrudge you that there is something supremely wonderful about being able to play and write for a living, even if it doesn't in fact earn you anything close to a living wage.