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Jason Schreier is a games reporter for Bloomberg, best known for his extensive reporting on the volatile reality of AAA game development.
On today's episode we'll be talking about his latest book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, And Future of Blizzard Entertainment and the frankly horrifying number of interviews he needed to complete over the course of his reporting.
Despite having a young baby to look after and exactly two and a half hours of free time each day (when said baby is soundly asleep upstairs), I devoured Jason's book in less than a week. It's very, very good. Let's talk about it!Support the show
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Nicole Carpenter has been reporting on the games industry at Polygon for the last five years, where she's perhaps best known for her coverage of unions and the increasingly vital role they're playing in shaping the future of video game development.
In fact, not only has she reported on this subject diligently over the last few years, she also wrote what is perhaps the defining piece of journalism on the subject: The Rise of the Video Game Union.
"....the type of journalism we're doing impacts people's lives in really tangible ways. And, you know, whether that's somebody we're writing about who did something bad, or people who are unionizing, or people who have been laid off. And that is a huge responsibility. And so it needs a certain level of investment and dedication and sometimes sacrifice to make sure you're doing your job, treating the work you're putting out, with the respect and care and responsibility it needs."Support the show
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Grant Stoner is a freelance reporter who specializes in covering accessibility and disability across the games industry in his work.
Among other work, he writes a monthly column for IGN where he recently examined how the mass layoffs ripping through the games industry have affected disabled game workers, in particular. This is a great example of why Grant's perspective is so necessary in the games media right now, shining a spotlight on an often overlooked area of games and the people who play and make them.
"They can't afford their medications, they've had to stop procedures, some person can't afford life-saving medication that they were only able to afford because of their insurance... So often, with accessibility, we see that 'oh, these studios are great, they really care about us', but this is the reality of being disabled, especially if you're in this industry."Support the show
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Sarah Parvini was a games reporter at the LA Times until just a few months ago, having been among those who were hit by a staggering round of layoffs at the paper earlier this year. In fact, the publication is meant to have shed around 20% of its newsroom in one fell swoop. Journalism is in a rough state, folks.
In this episode you'll hear guest host Nicole Carpenter talk with Sarah about what it's like reporting on the games industry for such an established publication and how she managed to approach her stories through the lens of California and Los Angeles in order to appeal to a regional audience.
"So, the video game industry layoffs, that's not something that is unique to California, but given the nature of California's importance to the video game industry it's something that I felt like we should be covering. And, it wasn't hard to find companies, unfortunately, that had laid people off here in California. And it's only getting easier everyday, right?"Support the show
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Chelsea Reed Miller is a video editor for IGN and a spokesperson for the IGN Creators Guild, a brand spanking new union that's been officially recognized by IGN's parent company just a couple of months ago.
In today's episode, you'll hear guest host Nicole Carpenter talk to Chelsea about what that means for people working at one of the biggest publications in the games media and why it's important to think about collective action before things start falling apart, if possible.
"The best time to unionize is when things are good. You want to unionize when you love your job, so you can make sure that those things that you really love about your job are codified. So that you can make sure that those things that you love are going to stay."Support the show
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Quintin Smith is one third of People Make Games, although hopefully you already knew that. Outside of his work with us, he's also known as the co-founder of board games behemoth Shut Up & Sit Down and now, as of just a few weeks ago, he's started something brand new, exploring the world of TTRPGs. It's called Quinns Quest and it's extremely weird and good, just like Quinns.
"If you just go into a community going 'hey, I wanna understand why this is fun for you', people will tell you! People are able to explain their passions and once you know their passions, you can ask about those passions in more detail and once you've got that, you're able to understand the community. There are no weirdos."Support the show
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Stephen Totilo has been a games journalist for two decades now, making him one of the most experienced people in the field. His career spans a stint at MTV News as its first ever games reporter, nine years as Kotaku's Editor-in-Chief and until recently, he wrote a twice-weekly gaming newsletter for Axios.
Today, Stephen is looking to strike out on his own with Game File, an independent newsletter published on Substack and funded directly by his audience.
"I have concerns about a younger generation of reporters finding a footing, coming up, because we are seeing in the elimination of a lot of these jobs, lesser opportunity for people who are still trying to make a name for themselves and do it in a way that is sustainable. But, what I see in aggregate is more outlets, right now, committed to covering games than I saw several years ago."Support the show
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Nathan Grayson and Riley MacLeod have just launched a brand new, worker-owned games publication called Aftermath, along with some other ex-Kotaku staff you'll recognise. As in, today, right now! Chris grabbed them for an interview a few days ago to talk about the challenges that come with starting something fresh, crowdfunding and what being "worker-owned" really means in this context.
"You know — and everyone knows — that 2022 and 2023 have been nightmarish for games journalism, and for journalism broadly, and also for games studios. And like, what else are you going to do? Where else are you going to go? When I panic and I'm like: is this a ridiculous idea? Should I just go and get a real job where somebody else understands how the taxes work? I'm like... what is it? Where is it? It's exciting to think about, you know, now we're the job! We'll make the job."Support the show
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Patricia Hernandez is now the former Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku, having been fired from the position just a few days ago. In today's episode we're going to be talking to her about what's happened and digging into the increasingly strained relationship between Kotaku's editorial team and the company which owns the site itself, G/O Media.
"I can't really go into specifics about the reason because it does involve other staffers and their personal information, so I just want to be sensitive to that. But I will say it was a deeply G/O Media reason. It's all been pretty disappointing.
I feel like, in some ways, maybe it was for the best. I was opening my notes app and kind of scrolling through it and came across a resignation letter that I wrote literally a year ago."Support the show
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Rebekah Valentine is a Senior Reporter at IGN and an instrumental figure in the site's latest ambitions to establish itself as a true home for longform video games reporting. She's also just been on the ground at Summer Games Fest, the potential successor to the games industry's biggest, flashiest trade show, E3.
How do the two shows compare from a reporter's perspective and will E3 ever manage a revival? We'll be asking Rebekah all about it.
"I am now two and a half years in and I'm still doing reporting! I'm kind of blown away by it. I'll freely admit that I sort of had an idea in my head of what IGN is... and it was grounded in the way that IGN had actually been. But especially if you're somebody listening to this and hasn't read IGN in several years, I would really encourage you to dip back in and look at some of the stuff we've been doing the last couple of years, because Tina really did set up a legacy of good journalism and good reporting."Support the show
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2 Player Productions is a documentary crew that's been embedded with Double Fine Productions for more than a decade now, having first come onboard in order to follow the development of Broken Age and create the Double Fine Adventure series.
However, it's their latest work that's absolutely knocked my socks off. Double Fine PsychOdyssey is, quite simply, the best video games documentary work I've ever seen. It follows the much longer development of Psychonauts 2 and is just the most vulnerable, revealing look into what it really means to create a video game. I cannot recommend it enough. Gosh. It's so good.
"There's a lot of concern about that meeting, rightfully so. It was the most intense thing we've had on camera and everybody was upset, we were upset. I thought that if we cut it out, it would do a disservice to the evolution of the studio and the way that mindsets at the studio were shaped, the way that the culture was shaped... I'd like to think it shaped the way everybody thought about crunch and what that meant, what that word even means."Support the show
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Tyler McVicker has been utterly obsessed with Valve for more than a decade now, having reported on almost every scrap of news, speculation and datamined morsel to come out of this famously secretive company at the heart of the games industry.
Having just published our own report on the reality of working at Valve, with its "flat" structure, no managers and no job titles, I wanted to talk to Tyler about the challenges that come with trying to understand such an unusual business. And one of those challenges, unfortunately, is dealing with the more toxic parts of Valve's community. PMG has faced its own share of that over the last couple of weeks."Because of the opaqueness, because there is a vacuum of information, misinformation becomes gospel. So what you're dealing with is a lot of individuals effectively treating Valve as if they are Gordan Freeman; a blank slate that you put your own personality onto. And when somebody else betrays that self-perceived personality, it almost feels like a parasocial relationship being destroyed."
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Sam Greer is a freelance games critic, having previously worked for Glass House Games and GamesMaster magazine. More recently, she worked with People Make Games (that's us!) on an incredible video about the lack of working class people employed in the games industry. That's what we'll be talking about in today's episode.
"I think when we talked about it before my worry was that the video would just be one of those things that people would retweet and go 'oh this is so important', you know?' and that would be it... But actually what's kind of happened, that I've seen a lot of, is just a lot of discussion and it sparking loads of specific conversations off the back of it. And that's more than I'd hoped for. I was so worried about people getting that this mattered, but not really caring."Support the show
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Hirun Cryer first got his break in the games media writing guides over at USGamer. And guides content, dear listeners, is perhaps one of the most overlooked part of this entire job. Frequently responsible for the lion's share of a publication's traffic, despite rarely appearing on the homepage itself, video game guides are hugely important to the overall success of some of your favourite games sites. So why are guides writers so often underpaid and overworked?
"You know how people say there are no old games media workers? Because they all move out of the industry because of pay and all that? I don't think I really know any old guides writers, because they're all gone now, they've all moved on to other things. It's churned and burned them and the machine has dumped them and got in the latest worker, because there are always very young, keen, eager writers raring to go. That's not their fault. That's just how the world operates and how this machine treats people."Support the show
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Danny O'Dwyer creates video game documentaries for Noclip, a crowdfunded YouTube channel first launched in 2016. Known for their high production value and behind-the-scenes access to some of the most successful game developers in the world, Noclip has had a huge influence on PMG's work over the years. Prior to starting his own company, Danny is perhaps best known for his work at GameSpot, where he hosted shows like The Point and The Lobby.
"The reason I wanted to do the Bethesda stuff is that there's a couple of studios that if you cover, people just want to dunk on them so bad. And I loved the idea of doing a big retrospective on Bethesda because Bethesda's not cool to people! There's a whole generation of gamers who've all they've ever done is Todd Howard memes and take the piss out of some of the most successful and most beloved games ever made."Support the show
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Lucy James is the head of GameSpot's video team, managing a team of hosts around the world. Having moved from London to San Francisco, you'll have likely seen her face on all sorts of GameSpot video stuff, as well as her more recent appearances on Giant Bomb's The Very Online Show. In this episode we talk about the differences between the UK and US games media, the effect COVID has had on GameSpot's flagship shows and I get to quiz Lucy about the brilliant Audio Logs series.
"Typically game development is not this shiny process. It's not 'oh I have an idea, I'm going to make the game'. It's iterative. It's killing your darlings. It's hard. So we wanted to break down those stories and discover what game development is really like."Support the show
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Ethan Gach is a senior reporter at Kotaku and has been responsible for a lot of the site's coverage of the Activision-Blizzard lawsuit, in which the company has been accused of a staggering number of gender discrimination and sexual harassment charges. Back in July, Ethan's reporting revealed details and photographs of the "Cosby Suite", a Blizzcon hotel room described by the lawsuit as a place for one high profile Blizzard developer to hit on and harass female employees while at the show.
"The screenshot spoke for itself in a way. This is the top level allegation that's being made against this studio, that all of these different behaviours, misconduct, mistreatment fall under this larger umbrella that people who have any conception of frat culture will understand to be often white male dominated, aggressive and sexually predatory. And here was this suite and this screenshot that are showing that exact behaviour."Support the show
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Tina Amini is the Editor-in-Chief at IGN, one of the largest video game publications in the world. With over one hundred staff making up the content team she's responsible for, Tina finds herself in a position unlike almost any other in the games media business.
"We're not just encyclopaedic. We're not just churning through the news everyday in an unreflective way. We're not just using our access to bring you First Looks and exclusives. We're also thinking about the larger, deeper stories that you're interested in. And we're putting in the work to do these investigations because we think there's an inherent, informative value to them."Support the show
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Jacob Geller is a video essayist and critic who draws upon modern art, architecture and politics in order to reframe how we think about the games we play. He's also really into Beat Saber.
"I think people haven't been shown why they should care about this history yet. And that is partly our job to say, like, it's important that you know this term, not just because you can throw it around, but because by knowing this and by knowing the conversations that have happened previously about it, you can expand your knowledge of games. You can make these things more meaningful for yourself if you engage in a little study."Support the show
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Aoife Wilson is the head of Eurogamer's video team, as well as an established freelancer working with the likes of BAFTA, the BBC and Wizards of the Coast. She also used to be a colleague of Chris' before he started People Make Games!
"It’s lessened now because I’m a bit more established in the industry, but I think when I started, I really… I felt there was a bit of classism especially where my accent was concerned. I still get a little bit prickly when people take apart the accent because there’s just an underlying current of ‘oh, that’s cute’ and everything. And I’m like, no, I know my shit. I know what I’m talking about."Support the show
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