One cool trick to keep games journalism alive
A new beginning.
Hey all! With all the cobwebs cleared out, it’s time to make announcements.
As of November 1, I became deputy gaming editor over at Inverse dot com. For those of you who may not know what Inverse is, think of it as a video game blog that focuses on the art and craft of making video games. It is one of the few places that wrote about the Washington Post and Launcher games journalism layoffs last year, and for that, it has a fond place in my heart.
As an editor at Inverse, I’m now open to receiving freelance pitches and commissioning pieces of investigative games journalism and craft features. I’m also writing, including this interview with Pokimane about what’s next for her, and a few Baldur’s Gate 3 stories digging into its romantic narrative design. And of course, the labor beat lives on in staff writers Robin Bea and Hayes Madsen’s work.
So what does this mean for Updater going forward? Can this newsletter survive the turmoil and ever-persisting headwinds of the industry? The answer is a resounding yes. And I couldn’t have done it without all of your support.
Previously, I refrained from committing to a certain publishing cadence as I didn’t want to burn myself out pursuing investigative leads. I now feel comfortable saying that I’d like to publish about once a week on this newsletter.
The content will remain largely the same. But now, as Inverse gaming editor, I read a lot more gaming news. I stay on top of major and minor releases and spend more of each day thinking about the art and craft of making video games, alongside the business and tech aspects I always used to focus on.
And remember how I started all of this saying Updater has no editors? Great news, this newsletter just got one.
Nobody can cover all of the news. That’s why it’s important to keep trying. I think I’d like to do an assortment of news items, and mix it up with special editions here and there. I really do love the community we’ve built here on Substack and the wonderful readers who have joined along the way. Now that I’ve gotten a handle on the day-to-day operations at Inverse, I’m happy to restart Updater, with an eclectic collection of news.
Since I last blogged here, Stephen Totilo left Axios and started up a Substack called Game File. It already has 8,000 subscribers. If you aren’t one of them yet, join here.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
To recap 2023: Last year was an absolute whirlwind for this industry, and for me, personally. I spent March to October freelancing and writing blogs on this Substack. I learned a ton, spoke to tons of editors, got bylines at Vice, Vulture, the New York Times, Esquire, Popular Science, Conde Nast’s own Substack Mixed Feelings, Game Informer, and my own haunts, The Verge and CNN. I was on The 2010’s documentary for CNN, talking about Taiwanese American TV, Fresh off the Boat. I spoke at a New York comedy club about games journalism, interviewed Microsoft AI researchers about the use of AI in video games, and moderated a panel with Pepsi about marketing to gamers. I appeared on a segment of Georgian TV, more than one episode of Giant Bomb, and one episode of Kinda Funny and Tim Rogers’ Insert Credit show. I also, in my spare time, got my driver’s license finally, my passport renewed, met with an agent to begin my talks of writing a book, recorded various questionable TikToks, got some personal training and tried, for the most part succeeding, at improving my mental health.
I’ve been covering video games full-time for five years now across The Verge, CNN, The Washington Post, this newsletter, and now Inverse. That’s long enough to see the death of E3, the announcement of Riot Forge’s creation and shutdown, the downfall of Mixer, various multiplayer games (remember Crucible? Hyperscape? Knockout City?) being hyped up and then closing down, tens of thousands of layoffs, massive mergers closing, and much, much more.
I didn’t get to do a tweet thread of my best 2023 stories but my personal favorite was writing about silkpunk for the New York Times. In this one piece, I got to talk about Asian American fiction, Chinese video games, queer Asian American culture, the Asian diaspora, and their intersections. Because it is writing non-fiction about fiction, I also got to have more fun with it
It was good to see a bunch of you at the New York Game Awards this month. Will have more details on my travel plans to California this year soon
I used Convai (pronounced “convey”) and Nvidia-powered generative A.I. to make the angriest possible NPC, aptly named Regina. You can chat with her here: https://convai.com/shared-character/?id=ee3600fc-bfb0-11ee-9c28-42010a40000f
This month, I’m reviewing Mario vs. Donkey Kong for Inverse. Here’s my preview, where I write that Nintendo repeats a winning formula in this Switch remake, polishing up cute toy mini-Marios that waddle across levels to follow big Mario around
One big story this week: I’m particularly proud of editing this Persona 3 Reload review by freelancer Josh Broadwell. As he writes, “Persona 3 Reload is one of the weakest video game remakes I’ve seen in the last few years.”
What’s next? Investigative games journalism remains the most expensive and least profitable thing to produce in this economy of the services that we have on offer. Of course, that means we should lean into it more than ever. But it’s clear that this model of the internet isn’t very sustainable and paywalled subscriptions bear their own issues. This is only a band-aid. Nobody’s very happy about the current state of things, but we’re still figuring it out.
Welcome back!