Former GameSpot freelancer and founder of SmashPad, Anthony Perez, talks about being laid off, struggling through 20-hour days, and the long road back to gaming.
Here are some quotes:
"Thank f***** Christ.'
That's about all I can remember from last Wednesday. I said it right after walking out of Johnny Rockets, leaving a shift at the 1950's themed diner which, when combined with a couple of internships, served as the tail-end of what had become the routine 19-hour days I had endured from August 2009 until then...
But what was most significant about last week wasn't that my rollercoaster ride of career discovery had come to an end, but that I had almost completely missed the release of Mass Effect 2...
It was then that I realized how much I missed gaming. I was so involved in the rat race, that I had missed out on half a year's worth of gaming goodness...
Unless you've been in a similar situation as me – and I realize that with unemployment at 10%+, that's highly probable – then you have been given a gift. A true gift that's worth can only be measured and known if you've been as far removed from it as I have for the past 7 months."
Skewed and Reviewed have written an Opinion Piece covering issues in the gaming industry, how current issues were issues years ago, and what can be done to help restore consumer trust.
Nothing. It's up to the gamers to stop consuming content from companies that they don't agree with.
How do you know if you agree with it or not unless you play it? Which without conventions forces gamers to rely on trailers. Perhaps Demos should be made more frequently. But companies need to do better as well.
But is that not what they have now? Tons of gameplay or are you talking about watching actual gamers play it versus the trailers and streams? The big issue is that some companies pay streamers and influencers and they create content but for me; that is hardly a fair, unbiased, and factual look at a game.
They usually are attached to the money sadly. It would be nice to have gamers in charge but you have so much money invested that business people are needed. Hence the issue; you need people who know business but are also gamers who know have an eye to the community. It sounds simple in theory that if you give gamers quality games that they want to play; money will be made. But that is not always so.
Marie Dealessandri speaks to Borislav Slavov and Gustavo Santaolalla about “the new golden age of games music”.
A famous actor from Starship Troopers has showered praise on Helldivers 2 and said he is open to the idea of playing General Brasch.
This reminds me of how petty the arguments are on here between people comparing the 360 and PS3. I mean come on people, this is what it's all about. This guy busted his ass for months, day and night, and at the end of the day it's all about the gift of games:
"And, more than anything else, be appreciative. Unless you’ve been in a similar situation as me – and I realize that with unemployment at 10%+, that’s highly probable – then you have been given a gift. A true gift that’s worth can only be measured and known if you’ve been as far removed from it as I have for the past 7 months. A gift that I had intended to articulate beautifully at the start of this post, but at this time, has only inspired sentences that lack the power necessary, not because of my prowess as a writer, but because of the poverty of language to communicate such an incommunicable feeling."
I had a similar thing happen for a while. It was for school though. I was so focused on finishing my degree, and the program was intense so I didn't have much time to play games. I was only out of the loop during finals for a little over a month, but I remember picking up Bioshock and going "Woah. I've been missing out."