The videogame press from within: of embargoes, Crunch and the agony of writing Analysis

In MGG we have decided to open up with a report that is willing to delay what is cooked within the video game press sector . Yes, because behind the items you read there are people like you, with feelings and the intention of doing your job as best as possible, and many times we only receive hatred and contempt. The criticisms, of course, are admitted. But we also believe that it is important that you know what is behind some aspects of our work . As for example, when writing analysis, which is usually the time when our work receives more attention.

• What are the seizures of the analyzes?
• Video game analysts We also suffer 'Crunch'
• stories - and analysis- not to sleep
• We do not enjoy as much as you think: a responsibility that generates anxiety

We are going to shed how it is, normally, the process when writing an analysis. With a word you probably do not know or sound to something else, as are "embargoes" . We will also talk about the situation that we live as workers when facing these items that require many hours in front of the command and the computer.

Throughout the text I will also include several real stories that I have lived throughout my more than 15 years of profession. Although, yes, I will leave the games and the companies in question in anonymity . For that of continuing to keep my work and not to enter judgments in which he would lose thousands of euros that I do not have, go.

What are the seizures of the analyzes?

Both in the videogame industry and in any facet of communication, the aforementioned "seizures" tend to enter. Summarizing too much, they are confidentiality agreements between the company in question that gives us an article or even a news in advance . A measure that is made to ensure equity between media and that no one will go ahead to give a broadcast, especially considering that, for example, videogames, they are a universal means. This is how equity is maintained between different schedules.

In addition, it is a measure that mainly favors the companies in question, because they know that at that time they have chosen as a date of embargo, networks will be filled with media making their news or analysis in question. One Marketing Strategy that ensures a huge impact on coverage , not only by the publication of items itself, but also with users by sharing them by social networks.

The media, really, do not get much left or have too much to say about the embargoes. Logically, we have the interest to cover the games in question, because they are from the interest of our audience. The conditions of these agreements are closed. The company in some way imposes them to give us the right to have a videogame before its release date and be able to publish the article on the date they have put us. Basically, all we can do is sign what we They say, that they are usually many lines like those of user agreements that we all signed without reading. Although there is a nuance that now I will detail. Once that has done, we only have not left the tongue and playing a lot to be able to have it ready at the same time as the rest of the colleagues.

Video game analysts We also suffer 'Crunch'

There is a lot of solidarity, and it is not for less, with developers who suffer the feared ' _crunch _ ', especially in the last months of gestation of a major videogame. Incessant extra hours and weeks without having life beyond the office because studies also have their "Deadlines" at the time of launching their products . They are aspects that have very well measured and have to expand the development deadlines for months, they represent millionaire investments, especially in AAA studies with hundreds of workers. The 'Crunch' is wrong, but it is also very present in the video game press, but it is always undervalued because _ "Work playing is not a job" _ .

Well look, it's not like that. Obviously it is a job, because this is how it is regulated, I pay my taxes and listed on social security for it . And it's quite sacrificed, by the way. Obviously it requires less effort than the chopping in a mine or that being in a work of Sun to Sol, but it does not cease to be a task carried out by a qualified staff that deserves the same respect. Obviously, it is a luck to love video games and be able to work on them, writing about our feelings or sensations to transmit it to the audience. Analyze a game is usually, more than a motive of joy for the "morbid" of having an expected game days before its launch, in many cases, it is a huge brown for any member of the wording, because it supposes to take hours of More, whether at night or during the weekend . Hours that do not usually be remunerated in any way, and here we all work to have bread to throw us out, that you do not forget.

They explained it greatly by EUROGAMER at its video "the curse of the critic", published a few weeks ago on the launch of Elden Ring. And it is that, videogame journalists are the last link of the chain, something that must be admitted. As, despite being the least important of all this circus, at the same time we are also necessary for both the publishers who release their products and want to reach the maximum possible audience, as for users who require a more perspective Professional When it comes to knowing the latest developments in the video game sector.

But all this is intertwined with the aforementioned: embargoes. Generally, the realization of an analysis for a videogame journalist is an unpleasant career to counterreloj. The editors usually act selfishly, sending the products with scarce margin to the media. As if they only existed, and they are on your right . As if there was no other content rather than covering or dealing during those days. As if in all media videogame they had enough people to dedicate between 50 and 100 hours to a game, ceased to cover current news or other sections. As if we did not have precarious salaries, although that melon will leave it for another day, better.

stories - and analysis- not to sleep

Throughout my career I have lived situations of all kinds when it comes to raising the analysis. Lately, I must recognize that, except in specific cases, Studies are finally understanding our human testing as workers and often send the products with weeks in advance, so that we have so much time to complete the video game in question, As to lend a hand in other aspects of the websites that are necessary. Do not forget that we live from the visits and, if on a website there are hardly four or five people and if one you have to dedicate day and night to a game for a week , the data is resent and that takes us to Having to eat bread and rice for a long time.

But having plenty of time to write an analysis has been a chimera for many years. In some way, for a long time embargoes have conditioned the content in question, and the editors played that letter in their favor. On more than one occasion, journalists have met at a place in question (hotels, offices...) to make marathonian sessions of the launch in question, playing day and night . As we would do in our houses, but without that comfort or freedom. And, many times, having to travel to it to foreign countries. Something that could be easily solved by sending a code or a press-kit to the analyst in question, but the postureus is not only Instagram.

I admit at a personal level that, on some of the occasions I have had to do this, unconsciously has been conditioned when I wrote the text. And it's wrong, but be day and night in a hotel playing and, that When we finish exchanging opinions with the classmates during dinner or glasses, let us magnify what is really the game . Something like what those of the house of Big Brother say. It is complicated because it barely gives time to rest the experience. It is also true that this type of events were quite punctual. Usually, something like this has always happened, but after receiving promotional copies or codes of the titles in question.

I would say that, The analyzes are the moments that more frustration can generate a videogame journalist . It is the time when one can wear out and leave the routine of publishing press releases or news in general. The article in which you know that more users will read you and, therefore, in which you can transmit what the game in question has evoked you, whether good or bad things. They're going to look at you with a magnifying glass and they will not be able to agree with you . There will be criticism for that, and it is something that it costs to assume, especially at the beginning, because there are those who seek a bad intention in what you write simply to hurt. When what is there is a simple opinion that is subjective: forgetting that the analyzes have to be objective. They can not be, and if an analyst says that, he is simply bad analyst.

We do not enjoy as much as you think: a responsibility that generates anxiety

Journalists also have a disadvantage of having to spend a game to the race. Like you, we also have a lot of illusion when a new release comes out that we expect personally. But the few margins we have between the embargoes and the crunch, it does not enjoy them as it is due . Let us have that permanent alert, let's take notes, seek secrets and explore them to the fullest to be able to make the best possible item. But, all this, it causes that, in many cases, we do not enjoy it as it is due. And in another article I will talk about the restrictions of the embargoes, which are not only limited to give us a date, but also to specify what we can talk about and what not , limiting creativity and freedom to the Time to deepen aspects that, in some cases, are determining.

In addition, depending on the type of game, anxiety is increased. I remember a time ago having to have to analyze an adventure of the genre "souls-like" within a period of just five days . A game like that, it requires your investment of hours, so I had to be a night and day - and at that time I was a collaborator who had a job outside the sector and who earned € 200 per month in press for making three items a week- with the title in question. I stuck with one of the first bosses of the game for two days and I loaded two controls in the attempt. I got several anxiety attacks and I did not know how to get out of that well . In the end, I could, but I remember it as a traumatic experience **. I know of similar situations of peers and even my own. It is something that is never taken into account later.

And now it is when you say "because it publishes the article later" . Of course, it is an option, and sometimes we have been forced to do so. In MGG -And in other media-, recently, we came the code of a game on a Sunday and the analysis had to be published on Monday. Obviously, we expect more days, but it is not possible in all cases. Fortunately, More and more means we dare to "pass" of these dates, especially when the margin to work with the product is tiny . It has been guilt our evil for years to this to the publishers and developers. We are getting games with games with enough more in advance and, that the margins of just hours will disappear to publish an analysis, is the next step.

We live in the era of immediacy. Consumers claim immediacy. Eye, do not blame you. As a consumer I usually look for the same. But, as I said before, we live from the audience, of the numbers that you leave in visits in our items. It is more than proven to leave days later, considerably reduces interest in the text. No matter how much you write the best review of the world, if you leave days after the competition, you will read less people . And that is going to affect your website, to your company and maybe at your job. We are slaves of this chain of favors. The least benefited and the most criticized.

If you like this, I have told you, another day I will encourage you to tell you things like, for example, the notes of the analyzes and the famous Briefers .