Hiya gamer-

It’s ya boi Danial, and happy almost towards the end of February week, where the games keep flowing and we keep chugging along.

Table of Contents

• BUT FIRST!

• The NEWS From Last Week

• Game Reviews And Features

BUT FIRST!

For this week’s newsletter, I feel like breaking our super-duper secrets tools of the trade for becoming someone like me, a no-good rabble rousing games journalist that people loathe.

Because, I apparently "accepted a bag of money from a bunch of publishers to talk about Diversity, Equality and Inclusion stuff more than playing the actual video games” (An actual quote I’ve seen on the cesspool that is Twitter/X). 

But alas, the world doesn’t work that way unfortunately, and as someone who's been in my local industry for almost a decade now (goddamn), lemme do some reality checking with my experience instead. Like those Linkedin post you might see floating around.

Do note: this isn’t a professional look into my line of work, which has been better z by folks who are better writers than me, and this is just a nice short read because ehh why not.

Sometimes It Pays

Now, the most unsurprising thing about this line of work in any distinction of the journalism field, be it technology, motorsport and such, it doesn’t really pay as much as one would expect from just writing about stuff that goes beeps and boops.

Sure, we get to play the latest and greatest video games even during its pre-marketing phase that sometimes are even a month before its release but, and sometime those capital from doing reviews and testing stuff goes towards the backend costs, the likes of website maintenances, domain renewal, and more boring stuff that’s boring to list down in a quick newsletter.

Sure, we do get perks like being able to get invited into luncheons as well, but don’t expect that to be consistent. You’ll probably won’t even have time to go visit them sometimes, because this second point kinda correlates with it.

Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines

Like a normal desk job, being a reporter person has deadlines. And sometimes it’s either set by the publisher or other times, it’s set by the rat race of being the first to publish your thoughts on the game before the algorithm or SEO kicks your hopeful mind because you didn’t pay their overlords more than the rest.

The deadlines are flexible enough if you pace yourself well, and while some embargo deadlines are a bit weaning at time (like the most least time I personally had was a week), those are more rarer cases and it’s usually a two-to-four work time to make sure you get to experience most, if not all, of the games that you’re tasked with. 

And I usually include some down-time like playing other games into the mix in-order to get a more realistic feel into spending time with it, unless it’s those times where the game is pretty hard to put down, like Starfield had a grasp of me back in 2023, but sometime I’ll admit, finishing a video game in this line of work, does feel like finishing a file after weeks of data tabulation and then making a waffle party to celebrate.

Stick to your Ideals (unless it’s damn wrong)

One thing you got to know and perhaps even build up in this line of work, is getting a bit of a thicker skin when you publish stuff and stick to your guts…unless it’s just fundamentally wrong like blaming wokeness for everything or anything else those overly compensating Kick streamers would bleat out each week.

Like say, you found that Wukong wasn’t to your liking? Then it’s fine to defend your opinion if it’s not malicious towards the people who like them or even the developers, because a different opinion is what keeps conversation going and whether you agree or disagree on the statement made, it keeps games that probably have wane in popularity, still in the zeitgeist at least.

Just stick to what you know and if you build a following from that, then good news, you now have created a gaming website with your niche topic, unintentionally or not!

Don’t let the flame die out

And finally, perhaps the most important one to my own personal psyche, is to always remember to keep the passion alive, of creating content or even playing video games that you love. Sure, you could fall out of love with a certain genre or publisher, but there’s so much more to discover and perhaps find something new that could ignite that spark once more, the horizon is that broad.

Personally, I experienced this same burnout last year but I got that spark back by playing a certain baseball game that basically made me find the joys in playing other titles that’s basically out of my comfort zone. It’s stuff like this that makes sure that the “flames” of passion stays lit after all this time.

And that’s pretty much it. I do feel like I have skipped a bunch of steps in this article, but it’s essentially my core tenant in this industry, be it a bit silly when compared to some others but hey, if it's not fun, then why bother, am I right?

In any case, lets move to the highlights of the week.

The NEWS From Last Week

Some interesting highlights that came out of last week during the first PlayStation State of Play Event for the year.

• We get to see the new hero in the new Onimusha: Way Of The Sword

• Housemarque reveals their newest game, Saros

• Borderlands 4 somehow lands a September release date

• And Elden Ring Nightreign heads towards a May release

Game Reviews And Features

Just one big one for this week from us, as Meck tried out the Elden Ring Nightreign Network test over the weekend, and so far it’s all good fun. You can read his first impression on the website.

That’s it for this issue. Apolocheese for another feature about the industry again. We will promise to cover more in the future. Also check out Gamer Matters for more news and reviews!

Oh, and help us improve the newsletter by filling this form. Your feedback will help up us grow and improve, together.

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Play games and have fun,

—Danial and the Gamer Matters Team