A wistful follow-up observation on what the landscape of writing about video games is like today
It's the midpoint of August, and therefore also of Blaugust! So I thought it would be a timely moment for some thoughts about the process of checking in, and following up on the things I've enjoyed. In this case, it's a bittersweet reflection on all the video game culture writing I've been going through.
Many of my recent blog posts have featured work created a number of years ago, particularly as I was reading through books about video games and the culture around them, some of which were published a decade ago. Seeing the growth over time of good writing about video games, whether it was detailed history to in-depth analysis or expansive criticism, was wonderful. It always made me excited to follow up, especially to check in with the various writers and what recent work they may have been up to since then. Of course, these days that's very easy to do. In dealing with a genre of subject matter that is inherently very digitally connected and tech-oriented, the probability of these video game-focused writers having their own public online presence is high.
I don't necessarily have particular expectations for what I'll find when I visit a writer's website, or more likely their social media platforms. But I guess it was still surreal to check on their latest updates and consistently find so many of them grappling with the same thing, often discussing the difficulties in finding work or stability throughout the field of video game-related writing, particularly in criticism and journalism. Some of the writers in these books have enjoyed success in the form of substantial positive reception to fairly high-profile works, whether it's publishing critically-acclaimed game projects or authoring entire books of their own. Many of them now seem to be dealing with scarce opportunities or resources to develop new projects or to even contribute to any freelance writing, never mind being hired in a regular staff position at a gaming-focused publication somewhere. It's no secret that numerous video game journalism outlets have recently been imploding from layoffs and such, though in some cases they've led to better outcomes like the opportunity to become employee-owned, in Giant Bomb's case. Overall, it's still a very tough time, though.
There are a number of relevant reasons for this that I don't feel the scope nor the proper level of understanding to discuss here with any kind of authority, but I think a lot of them are pretty intuitive to anybody who's been keeping up. You know, like the fact that we are currently situated in a capitalist hellscape propped up by full-blown fascism that has continued to erode away at humanity and life itself — things are understandably pretty rough while trying to actively fight back and survive against it all. The conditions have gotten materially worse the longer it has continued, and that includes economically... especially in the already financially un-lucrative pursuit of writing about video games.
In spite of it all, I'm very grateful for the work of these writers. I'm glad that it exists. It has given me a lot of joy to be able to engage with ideas that delight and challenge me about a beloved hobby. It's also been really fun sharing them with others, including in my own life as I've often talked about and recommended these works to others. A few days after I hung out with a friend to just relax and do some reading together, they asked me about the video game-related book I was reading (which I had enthusiastically discussed throughout our hangout) because their partner was interested in checking it out. In this case, the book was Video Game of the Year, which I wrote about earlier this month! I hope I can continue to affirm and share the value of work like this, alongside finding other ways to continue supporting the kind of excellent writing about video games that I think is needed.