Well-written, sir. I hope you maintain your resolve to keep chasing your goal. After all, the only point at which there's no hope at all is the point at which you give up on your dream.

I've posted only three articles to this point on bitmob, but I plan to write more. Like you, I'd love to have that dream job in games journalism, but I've braced myself for the cold reality that there isn't much out there, and there's a lot of competition for the few available opportunities.

The thing bitmob is giving me is validation, and that's payment enough for now. I've had trouble all my life being an ambitious go-getter, so the first time I wrote something that got front-paged, I was floored. I couldn't believe that somebody thought I had written something worthy of attention. For now, I'll continue writing here. I'll build confidence, experiment with styles, and see if I can refine my craft. Maybe someday I'll take a swing at something bigger, but until then, I'll stick to this low pressure proving ground.

Interesting points all around, Steven. As you said, Bitmob is incredibly helpful for cutting our teeth on writing about video games and the culture that surrounds it, and on a personal level, it can be very satisfying when we see our stories receive a ton of hits or get promoted to the front page -- it's definitely way more eyes than I'd ever have if I just put my writing up on some blog. But it's also easy to feel crushed when you consider the cold reality of this career path: for instance, if you ever read current Vox Games editor Artrhur Gies' advice (somewhere on his tumblr blog) on getting into games journalism, it would make you think that it's practically impossible to land a job nowadays. I appreciate his bluntness, but I think that type of attitude does more to drive people away rather than encourage them to work their way in.

Particularly for me, as someone recently out of college and unemployed, the pressure of landing that dream job can become distressing at times, but I always remind myself that I have to be patient. We all want that "golden ticket" story of course and the opportunities it may give us, which might take months or even years (which wouldn't be good for my student loan debt lol) to achieve. I think what troubles me the most is when you find out about current editors in the industry who just had dumb luck -- I think it was Ryan Clements over at IGN who was in the right place at the right time when he got in on his first try with a few sample reviews... this is a rare case I'm sure, but it doesn't make things any less frustrating lol. 

For the record, Steven, I'm in a very similar position. I have a "day job" at a daily newspaper, which I enjoy but does not always allow me opportunities for creative work. I was drawn to Bitmob because of Shoe's influence, yes, but also because I wanted a platform to showcase and improve my writing. Joining the staff has had a greater effect on my career in those areas than anything I've ever done. That's worth more to me than a few bucks.

I hope that is as true for our community writers as it has been for me. I don't claim to speak on behalf of the Mob, but as Community Manager, if there's ever anything we can do to help you guys improve and succeed, let me know. I consider it my personal responsibility to help writers -- including (especially!) myself -- get better. 

Thanks for your thoughts here, Steven, and your continued contributions.

You just said what I had been intending to say all along about Bitmob. It doesn't pay me anything, but it gives me a big enough portfolio to pitch to other companies. I admit, I should have moved on from this website a long time ago. However, I had to finish the other stories in my Bitmob bucket list first.

Perhaps I'm writing stories about Final Fantasy in vain, but I actually know that my Final Fantasy quests earn a remarkable number of hits. The website teaches me what works on the web and what doesn't. I certainly couldn't learn sophisticated web editing skills until I tried publishing it on Bitmob.

Better still, I think that Bitmob was a safe refuge for me after my God-awful job at patch.com. I moved from a thankless low-wage journalist to a respectable community writer. The editors were no longer chewing me out from an unknown location in California. I was receiving constructive feedback for my work.

I'm sure that I'll have to look for some higher wage gigs, but I'm glad that I have some place that I can fall back on when I need something to do. One of my friends prefers to write for Destructoid, but I haven't felt like moving yet. For some reason, Bitmob is just friendlier to me.

Sigh. I suppose I should hunt around a little more though. I'm still part of the 99 percent, I guess. Good job with the story, Steven.

Ben Kuchera - was there ever a more condescending character in the game journalism scene? I caught his exchange with Rus, and I felt sick by the end of it. Not saying that Rus couldn't hold his own, his tweet that ended the conversation (well, the one I saw) was telling, and I commend him for keeping his cool. 

Bottom line is, I usually double post all of my writing: once on Bitmob, once on my blog. I don't have a great promotion ratio (kudos to you on yours, Steven!), but I get a substantial amount of hits on Bitmob when compared to my personal space. My most popular blog post was a campaign starter for Movember which featured a picture of Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I mode. 20-50% of the traffic to my blog is still based on a picture of Magnum (I checked search hits) and his beautiful mo.

http://unbearabledutch.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/another-hairy-predicament.html

On Bitmob, however, my most popular work is deeply personal and exactly the kind of story of mine that I want people to read. READ being the operative word.

http://bitmob.com/articles/how-gears-of-war-saved-my-life

I should also note that when I review games, I often submit my piece to the Australian arm of Kotaku too, and this did net me a free game. I have no idea how many page hits they get, but it's another set of eyeballs I guess.

Without Bitmob, I wouldn't be exposed to half as much encouragement, scrutiny and feedback as I would if just maintained my blog. I love this site and Kuchera's tirades have only served to strengthen that affection.

Great piece, Steven. You'll be up in high places in the game jounalism sphere some day, I have no doubt

If nothing else, Bitmob is the only gaming community I tolerate. That's reason enough for me to stick around.

I love all you guys. :) Not "smitten"...but LOVE.

We have some long-term plans that I think you'll all really like when we fully merge Bitmob over to GamesBeat. There, I have way, way more resources (and traffic) than I do here, and I plan on taking advantage to make the "new Bitmob" a much better place for our community members. I can't talk much about these plans now, especially because, as with anything you have to build/develop, it will probably take much longer to complete than expected. But it's really exciting for me because some of the things we wanted to do with Bitmob (but couldn't), we should be able to build eventually over there.

In the short-term, however, those of you who have tied Google AdSense accounts to your Bitmob profiles will see a bigger return when we move fully over to GamesBeat. Samir (our intern here), for example, posted the same story from Bitmob to GamesBeat as an experiment, and he got almost 10 times the traffic there (even though the story first came out on Bitmob). I hope that will eventually put some more change in your pockets. But we have even cooler plans than that in the future....

Thanks for your story, Steven. It's very honest and frank. We hope we continue to do right by you.

-shoe

This quote from Ira Glass is extremely relevant.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” 
― Ira Glass
 

To me, Bitmob is there to help you through that phase. Like Ira says, most people don't get past that. They want to write about games, and they have great potential to be amazing at it, but they try and try and try and are met with nothing but disappointment. They never get any eyes on their work, and they never get any constructive criticism or editing help. They get discouraged, and they give up.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone through that situation. Honestly, I don't have the willpower right now to push myself to the next level, but when I'm ready to give it a try, Bitmob is one of the best places to help me do it. I don't care that all of the work I do here isn't paid, because I know the site is helping people get over that hump. I've been on the site since the very beginning, and have seen tons of community writers move onto paid gigs, whether it be through becoming actual Bitmob staff, or just through having the editing help and portfolio that Bitmob provided them.

I put a couple of hours a day into Bitmob, and sometimes that's hard. My job and family can make contributing to the site pretty difficult, but I do it because I see the site as valuable and want to help in any way I can. Bitmob feels like an extra step to help writers get into games journalism. I love that it's there. I wouldn't be near as good a writer as I am now without it.

At least, that's how I feel.

I think it would be better without the first page entirely, or possibly boiled down to: "I get paid 'loads of emone' for writing shiz like this."

I liked the part where you described how (and how not to) use bitmob to further one's own Professional Video Game Journalism career.

The Wizard of Oz thing was a bit confusing, for me, because it's been years since I've seen the Wizard of Oz.

I liked the collection of relevant quotes and the bit of extra info on sites similar to bitmob. Those things made this post seem more like a real article instead of the glorified blog/forum posts that I am accustomed to on Bitmob.

I was expecting to read more analysis about the relationship between advertisers, websites, and community writers. That would've been interesting.

nice article

I joined Bitmob's staff with the explicit notion that I wouldn't get paid. I did so because I believe in Bitmob's mission (and Shoe's direction), and it has served as not only a great portfolio, but I've gained invaluable editing experience (and a crash course in grammar).

I joined Bitmob because of the community, not because I had any aspirations of becoming a journalist. I continued to contribute to Bitmob, joined the staff, and eventually was made the Managing Editor because I liked helping people hone their writing skills and I liked that we were able to give a voice and a larger audience to some great writers that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Several Bitmob community members have become successful freelance writers because of the exposure they got here. Numerous Bitmob community members were published in magazines (and compensated for it) such as GamePro because they posted the story here first. Several Bitmob community members have gone on to get actual jobs in the development side of the industry. A few community members have gone on to open their own websites after posting content and receiving help here. A large number of community members have won a wide variety of prizes from the numerous contests we've posted over the last several years.

It's easy to get on a high horse when you're already being paid to write. For the rest of the thousands of people who are trying to break into the very few freelance and/or staff writing positions that exist, I would think that it's helpful for them to have a place to garner some exposure and hone their skills so they do have something good to show a potential employer. I see value in this even though it's not the path I chose for myself. I think the successes of Bitmob community members supports this as well.

There's that old conumdrum: How do you get a job without experience, and how do you get experience without a job? For most of the corporate world, you see thousands of unpaid internship positions that try to help address this issue. I see Bitmob in a similar manner, only better. Not only are we giving you exposure and experience and helping you establish your name and a portfolio, but we're actively helping you become a better writer by offering the services of some very talented editors (and writing tips written by our staff members) free of charge.

In this respect, no, I don't think we're exploiting the community. I think we're providing a service and directly contributing to the growth and success of or community members.

Here's the thing, though, that I think that these disgruntled, paid writers are failing to address: We don't force anyone to post here. We also think that our community members have enough intelligence to decide for themselves if what they get out of Bitmob is worth the energy that they put in to it. If you feel that we're exploiting you in any way, not only would I encourage you to bring it to the attention of the staff (which I think you'll find are some of the most helpful people you're likely to meet in the video game industry), I would also encourage you to stop writing here.

Finally, I'll say this: I started as a community member. I've arguably put as much time into Bitmob as any other staff member or community member. Never once have I felt exploited, and I've always given my time freely because I loved the community and believed in the site. I like to think I've helped out and contributed to the success of at least a few people here. I could probably be doing a fair amount of paid freelance writing if I wanted to, but instead, I'm still trying to help out Bitmob with the free time I do have.

I don't regret any of it.

After writing 266 articles, publishing 259, and having 239 promoted to the front page (with a brief period on staff as Community Manager), with a modest lifetime views exceeding half-a-million, I can say with some certainty that I don't feel exploited.

That's 266 times I thought about videos games in some meaningful way worth a couple hundred words. That's 259 times I shared with a community of thoughtful and like-minded (for the most part) adults, and that's 239 times a collection of world-class editors pushed my content into a larger conversation about the medium I love.

Do I want to start a career in writing about games? Sure that'd be nice, but fairly unrealistic. Do I want people to read what I have to say about video games? Certainly.

I'm not sure how others feel, but I HAVE to write. I can't not write, pay be damned. My postings to Bitmob have lagged, that's only because I have found other outlets, other subjects that pique my interest. 

There's not a single writer who ever demanded payment before writing. They wrote first, and then figured it out after the fact.

Here at Bitmob, a good few people want to start careers. Bully for them, I wish them luck, but for me that's quite beyond the point. If I ever angled my work with some sort of agenda to get paid, I wouldn't have contributed 90% of my work.

I wanted to write a rock opera about Miis. So I did. Where the hell would I pitch that?

I wrote a fake interview with Sonic the Hedgehog and his wife Sonic the Hedgehog. What magazine would put that in a table of contents?

I spent hours matching photos of Lost characters to Mario Characters, but who in god's name would read an email with that subject line?

I meticulously counted posts in NeoGAF threads to make sense of how they responded to E3. While that may have been one of my most successful series of articles, that success was usually accompanied by "I can't believe you did that." Back in 2009 prior to doing the work, I probably would have gotten from confused editors: "I don't believe you'll do that."

I don't know. I think it's quite a narrow view of the site, the industry, and the world at large if you are going to get your back up about this whole nonsense. 

Aside from the fact that every site ever wants its users to blog and share. While they don't have the same intention of featuring that content, those functions exist so people come back, load multiple pages, and see some ads so the site can run. It's all the same, just a different way to go about it.

I am one of the writers who used Bitmob as a launching point for professional writing about games. I started writing here at the beginning of 2010. My first piece was promoted to the front page and extremely well received. So I wrote some more. And I kept getting better.

I studied every article that I had promoted (funnily enough, most of my front page edits came from former managing editor Brett Bates). I pored over the writing and grammar tips. And my writing improved tremendously. I did exactly what Ira Glass said in that quote above; I worked hard, and after a while I started to match my ambitions for high quality, well-researched writing more regularly.

Then I got my break. I'd already done some articles for Australian Macworld, but they were just for free games and a magazine subscription. Ars Technica posted a call-out for freelancers who could write good long-form articles. I sent three pitches. They accepted two of them. I became a freelance features writer, getting good money and hits a couple of orders of magnitude higher than my entire Bitmob portfolio. (Edit: I'm particularly proud of my latest piece for Ars, a history of ScummVM: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/01/maniac-tentacle-mindbenders-of-atlantis-how-scummvm-kept-adventure-gaming-alive.ars )

I'm still only writing part time, with the started company that brought me onboard (again, thanks to Bitmob teaching me the ropes and polishing my skills) preparing to launch its website "when it's done." It's called Archive.vg, and it looks like it'll be going up against the likes of GameFAQs, Moby Games, and Giant Bomb. I'm in charge of the blog/articles section. And I'm putting to use everything I learned right here on Bitmob -- polished writing and editing, good interview practice, putting a unique spin on stories, engaging with the community, and not being afraid to try something different.

I expect that I will eventually go full-time -- be it with Archive, freelancing, or another publication. And I'll always credit Bitmob with giving me the skills, confidence, and platform to push me over the line into professional writing.