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Another Sore Thumbs reprint with a few small updates....
A lot of people ask me a lot of different questions, but the funniest one to me is, “What are you going to do after this journalism thing?” -- as if this career of mine is just a stepping stone. I don’t ask myself, “What’s next?” because I love what I do, but honestly, this line of work does open up a lot of doors for a lot of different folks.
So in case you’re asking yourself the same question, here are the top six post-journalist/editor career paths that I’ve seen my peers take:
1. Full-time freelancer
See: Crispin Boyer
OK, so this isn’t exactly “leaving the career,” but this is a risky proposition. Give up a regular paycheck, insurance, and company-match 401K contributions, just to get sporadic freelance pay on a month-to-month basis? That’s crazy talk. But sometimes you just need new challenges in life. Plus, Crispin writes for other outlets beyond gaming, so he gets to expand his writing horizons.
2. Community Manager
See: All these former Ziff-Davis guys turned community managers at one point -- Bryan Intihar (EGM previews editor to Insomniac), Luke Smith (1UP news editor to Bungie), Kathleen Sanders (GameVideos producer to Xbox Indie Games), and Che Chou (EGM/XBN to Turn 10)
This seems to be a very common route for a lot of my former coworkers, because it’s a relatively easy transition. You go from writing about games for an independent press outlet to writing about games for a publisher or developer.
I know some conspiracy theorists like to think that these writers wrote good things about certain products in order to get those jobs. That’s BS nonsense and really works the other way around -- these people are usually recruited in the first place because of their passion for certain titles or genres.
Game journos are all gamers and will like some titles more than others, and sometimes, companies notice that and recruit accordingly. Of course you’re going to want a car-racing nut like Che to be community manager for the Forza series....
3. Game designer/producer
See: Greg Sewart (EGM previews editor turned former game designer on a Robotech game), Joe Fielder (EGM previews editor turned former Medal of Honor designer), Kraig Kujawa (Official PlayStation Magazine editor-in-chief and EGM senior editor turned former NFL Blitz designer), Jeff Green (Computer Gaming World/Games for Windows Magazine editor-in-chief turned associate producer on The Sims), and Shawn Elliott (CGW/GFW/EGM vet turned associate producer at 2K Boston)
This is a similar path as the community manager, but this is an even bigger risk for the hiring developer to take. These guys won’t be writing about games like they used to -- now they have to work on them!
I’ve played a LOT of games in my life, and sure, I have some ideas on how to make them better, what not to do, etc. That doesn’t make me a game designer, though. But a lot of these guys bust their asses to do well, and sometimes, this even leads to better things....
 4. Game company executive
See: Kraig Kujawa (OPM EIC turned Blitz designer turned Capcom director of design), Jennifer Tsao (EGM managing editor turned associate creative director at Sega)
Kraig’s meteoric rise through this industry is impressive. He’s now in charge of development in the U.S. and Europe for Capcom. While I’m typing out 500-word stories at home in my ratty pajamas, I imagine him working in a high-rise corner office that looks more like a Skyy Vodka ad than a corporate work room, with beautiful assistants lounging around in skimpy cocktail dresses, admiring the man’s power-suit ways while he’s yelling “buy!” and “sell!” into his Bang & Olufsen phone. Way to go, Kraig!
Seriously, some journalists do end up getting sweet, high-up-there gigs at a game publisher. Blake Fischer (formerly of Next Gen magazine, turned Xbox worldwide content planner) is another example. Both Kraig and Blake look at games being developed around the world, then help decide whether their respective companies should publish them or not. They’ll also help put the right people on the right projects to make them better for public consumption.
5. Mock reviewer/consultant
See: Crispin...and plenty of others
Here’s something you might not have known -- a lot of critics are tapped to do “mock reviews” as a temp consulting project for game companies. Basically, they ask us to review a game before they give it to the general press. This pays a lot more than typical freelance reviews...sometimes up to 10 times as much!
The trade-off is your review never gets published for anyone else to read. It’s just for that company’s own use to help make some last-minute improvements or to set internal expectations for how upcoming reviews will turn out.
This is a very dangerous gray area, however, since journalists are getting paid by the companies that they cover. When I was at EGM, we were given these opportunities, but we had to turn them down, obviously. We also made a rule for our paid freelancers (who tend to do work beyond EGM’s pages) that if one were to do a mock review, that person would not be allowed to cover or review that product or any competitive ones.
For the record, I did a few of these between my former life at EGM/1UP and Bitmob.
6. Public relations
See: Lots of people
A ton of former journalists are now doing PR for game companies. It’s similar to the community manager thing; since these people are already intimately familiar with the business and the PR-journalist relationships, it’s an easy transition for them to make.
After I left EGM, a few companies approached me about trying out PR for them, but I saw it the same way as I saw a game-design career. Sure, I know the biz and I know games and I know what it’s like working with PR people, but that doesn’t mean I know how to do PR well!
Besides, I think I’d have a hard time being optimistic about every game that I had to represent for my job. (But then again, some of the best PR people I’ve worked with are the ones most honest about their products, good or bad.)
Perhaps I'd consider a switch in careers, however, if someone would throw in that office in the Skyy as part of the deal....
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