I’m reporting in from Los Angeles this week for Summer Game Fest. So far, the highlights have been a Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth trailer and an October release date set for the PlayStation 5 exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
I apologize for the infrequent updates. Things have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster in the past few weeks, which is why I went quiet after publishing a New York Times article. I got a verbal job offer, which filled me with immense relief. It looked like I was finally putting an end to five months of job hunting in an industry that is notoriously tough to enter and to last within. Then the offer just as quickly evaporated. The experience was honestly demoralizing, and I needed to take a little time before getting back into this.1
Meanwhile, I also celebrated my birthday and landing the New York Times byline. I made it into a CNN documentary that’s available on demand. I attended my high school tenth year reunion. I attended the same high school as Spider-Man, and almost 200 students showed out to Tao Nightclub last Saturday. Many of them had landed jobs at places like Palantir, Capital One and Amazon. It was such a wistful moment for me to see them all grown up.
Many of my high school classmates told me they’ve been following my journalism since I graduated. How do you get your ideas? They asked. How do you get to write about video games for the New York Times? You are the change we want to see in the world, while we continue working for corporate America, one of them shouted at me in a drunken, but amusing stupor.
So for this issue, just ahead of my many briefings, interviews and game demos I have scheduled for this weekend, I’m going to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the sausage was made. This issue is paywalled, but I may experiment with making it free eventually. I will also be updating the newsletter soon with a free issue for those of you who are on the unpaid tier.
There are a few extra parts of the story that I’d like to share with you here.