Gaining Interest in Covering Video Games

On Wednesday, Executive Editor at Polygon, Chris Plante, spoke to our class on the world of video game journalism. It was actually something I was interested in hearing about, as video games have been a large part of my life, since childhood.

I still remember the first time I played my "Duck Hunt" on my brother's Nintendo, and my own first console a Super Nintendo, playing it for the first time on Christmas Day, many years ago.

So getting a chance to speak to a professional in the gaming media, was awesome. Granted, I didn't expect the route he had to take to get there. I always envisioned the idea that you chose what you aimed to cover, and went for it. For, Chris, it took some interesting turns.

What I mean is, before getting to where he is now, he spent a brief time working for the BBC, and even The Onion. Talk about two vastly different organizations who covered (or jokingly satire) the news.

I spare you the details on his brief stint at the BBC, but it was having to do a story on an unpleasant event, and I believe he left BBC shortly after. I'm glad I wasn't eating when he talked about it.

I liked how he spoke about the resume, that no one really is going to glance at it, or even care about your GPA. The best advice I got from him was to look at the company's website and see how they report, and cover things. You might send out 20 resumes, and "have a different cover letter for each."

It was something I had always considered, but hearing a professional tell you to do that, confirms you NEED to do it.

But, the cover letter is more than just a brief introduction. Plante said, "The first graph can be interesting, to make me read the second, if that one's interesting, I'll read the next. If you keep my attention, I'll look at your resume and your clips."

Honestly, I always believe the cover letter was an introduction of you, what you can offer, and the employer would want to see your resume & work. Hearing the cover letter was more of the attention grabber, raised the importance of it to me, considerably .

One thing I meant to ask him, and hope to speak to him again to get an answer, was the future of the field. One of the firs things he mentioned was the dying world of video game magazines, as there were barely any left. I can think of PC Gamer, X-Box, and PlayStation magazines that have fallen by the wayside.

The world of journalism, especially print, is slowly dying. But, I'm curious if the online world is where journalism has stability.

As a journalist you know the question of stability is always an issue, but Plante added something that made it believable that the person shouldn't be stable. It was the fact that most companies rarely promote from within, and if you want to move up in the world, you have to change jobs, learn new things, and make yourself an good candidate for a better, more advanced job.

That was something I had never considered. I always believed you fall into a field, master it, and become one of the best in that field.

But, there are options. If nothing else I learned from Chris Plante, is there are options. All we have to do is make ourselves the best option out there.