Gaming, Blogging & Life

I have the overwhelming urge to spill my guts about how I'm feeling about certain things. I feel I owe it to everyone to be honest. In this article I'm going to talk about some things that are currently on my mind regarding the gaming industry, gaming in general, blogging, and life. I'll try to keep it all to the point, and elaborate on things when I feel it is necessary. Life for me has become complicated, and I just need to get some stuff off of my chest.

In regards to the gaming industry I see everyone standing at a crossroads waiting to choose a path. The game industry creators, and the gamers themselves included. At one possible fork we have game industry giants, and experience providers claiming they want to do the best for the gamer, and that they are going to improve. They have one of two choices/paths in front of them, and have yet to make a definitive step forward. They could head down the road of improvement, and honor their word, or they could head down the darker off beaten path, and continue to shovel sh*t out for the gamers to waste their money on. Currently they seem to be still heading down that long dark road. The second fork where us gamers stand also harbors two path choices. Down one path lies hope. Heading down it could do one of two things for us. We could continue to lose our money to greedy industry offerings, or we could reap the rewards from trusting in their word supposing they follow through honoring said word. It's a sort of double-edged sword in the sense. The second path at the fork is a 'F**k it, I'm done' road. Gamers who choose this road could possibly move on to better hobbies, or better entertainment options. The sacrifice that would be made though would be huge in that we, as gamers would be turning our backs on something that we grew up loving. It would be a hard choice to make, but with the economic situation, and gamers continually being burned by bad gaming products it's a reasonable decision to be considered.

Which fork in the road do I currently stand at? If I were to be totally honest I'd say that I'm slowly, but surely losing faith in the gaming industry. I've encountered too many negative things as a gaming journalist, and have some serious doubts about the direction things are headed. Greed still seems to be the driving force behind most of game development, and the paid online experiences that people get aren't really worth paying for in the state that they are in. The latter part of that statement is bad in that gaming is almost completely geared towards online in the new generation. Sure you have RPGs, and other action oriented games that do not include online modes of play, but the online titles that everyone wants to invest in are still tethered to consoles that require online subscriptions to be functional. This along with my dealings with certain PR has me worried that the integrity of gaming as a whole will soon be lost, and every penny we've spent on the gaming experiences will be lost. Unless a huge change occurs across the board things will only get worse.

As far as blogging goes I'm finding it more, and more difficult to find PR who are willing to give me material to review. They seem to be going for those journalistic sellouts who would give a good review just to get their hands on a game. After having encountered a PR recently who made it a point in their PR update to inform me that according to the verdict in the review I give I may, or may not be considered for games after that I felt rather letdown. Unfortunately I had to be honest with said review, and told my readers that it was not worth buying. Thinking nothing of it, and hoping to review more games for the PR I went back to the initial PR email to send them a link, and to let them know I'd be up for reviewing more of the studio's games. Upon glancing at the initial email's contents I noticed (to my dismay) the previously mentioned statement regarding the future review material situation. I'll be honest. I got a bit heated about it, and sent them an email reply immediately afterwards. Mind you it was nothing angry, hurtful, or hate filled, but I did speak my mind about the PR's new policy to basically provide review codes for those journalistic outlets that would best benefit the studio. I have yet to hear back from the PR, and honestly doubt I will.

This of course brings me to my blogging dilemma. I want more than anything to provide quality reviews for my readers for many years to come. You ladies, and gentlemen have supported me for a very long time now, and I feel obligated to continue my service for you as you have blessed my life more than you will ever know. Seeing as review material is scarce for me though, and I haven't really been able to meet the review quota I had intended to for each month in this year I'm feeling less, and less inclined to continue. I'm really saddened by the whole ordeal, and feel that the growing epidemic of journalistic sellouts, and buyouts is ruining this career I have worked so hard at. I can honestly say that I've put more work into my blog than most mainstream gaming journalists ever have in their big time websites. My single-handed reviews number in the high hundreds, and that in itself is no easy feat. Even so I feel that my efforts are going unnoticed amongst the industry individuals whom I've invested in, and whom I've placed my trust in as a gaming enthusiast. I don't want my career to end on a sour note, but unless something changes for the better I can't see doing what I do to be worth it for much longer. PR, developers, and publishers just do not understand how much work, effort, and time goes into doing the reviews that I do. They sit on their pompous thrones b*tching, and moaning about how hard their job is. In the back of my mind I think "If it's that miserable then why the hell did you take the job in the first place!?". Furthermore all I see PR do is copy & paste sh*t to send out to journalists like myself. Only a handful of rare, and friendly exceptions will add a more friendly atmosphere to the interactions. I know not all PR, developers, and publishers are bad, but it's getting to the point where the greed of the industry is bleeding through what they do.

Now onto this thing called life. My life, as positive as I try to make it seem is anything but that. I have ailing family members whose health is declining. My own health is on a bad note as well. Along with these worries the drama from my work, and my free time has come together to stress me out even more. I'm honestly at a breaking point. I've tried my best to keep all my problems to myself, but some things have bled through onto social media. What you have to understand about me is I'm a very lonely guy. I have no friends, and my family is comprised of backstabbers who would rather rule me than give me a shoulder to lean on. I've seen some dark times in my life, and I'm currently back in the dark. When you have no one to turn to eventually the only thing left to do is give up. I have tried to hold onto hope. I've tried to believe the words, and well wishes I've type to everyone on Twitter, but reality always sets back in. I'm not sure what I want to do anymore, or even if I care to do anything at all. My hobbies aren't the escape they once were, and things are going rapidly downhill. That's me being honest.

In closing I'm going to end things on a positive note, for my sake, and yours. I hope tomorrow is better. I hope the future is bright. I hope to hell that gaming improves, and I hope to hell that I can find it worth continuing to post reviews.