How To Succeed & Make Money As A Gaming Journalist

published – Sept 5th 2022

If you are particularly good with the written word, have decent communication skills, and a love for video games then the life of a professional full-time gaming journalist might be just the ticket.

Although, it’s important to know that success and profit with this career path aren’t easy for beginners. It is a culture that will require you to be proficient at networking with the right people at events or venues.

At the same time, one of your main goals should also be to plan on writing in a way that will provide value to players. You need to draw your readers in and give them a reason to keep coming back for more if you want to be productive and make a living from this.

Here is a quick guide to what you can expect from the related positions, responsibilities, opportunities, and benefits within this extremely competitive breed of journalism.

Play to earn with the best legitimate gaming journalism jobs for cash

There are a few viable ways a gaming journalist can find top-paying work and make money. They can either:

work for themselves as a business (on a remote basis) by publishing content on a blog or website built from scratch that they can then monetize
accept writing jobs as a freelancer for money on platforms like Fiverr (a more entry-level option)
apply for vacancies and openings to become a conventional salaried employee earning income per hour at a larger media company or outlet (may require certain eligibility like the right qualifications).

If you have some writing or journalistic skill, you can earn pay to play games. You can then review them for your community as a home-based blogger from your desk rather than in a crowded office setting.

In order to gain traffic, you can use marketing tools to promote your website like social media or building an email list for a weekly newsletter.

Other options for people with no experience to launch their careers include creating videos from home (becoming a number one influencer). Your viewers can then stream your content on apps and platforms like YouTube or Twitch. Instead, maybe you want to earn extra money specializing in video game related:

news announcements
scoops
reports

On the other hand, you can write books for sale about video games after you’ve played them (perhaps offering advice or analyzing narratives).

Gaming journalists and writers have been known to rake in an average salary of $60,000 per year. Obviously, this figure will be different if you are just doing the work part-time on the side so don’t expect to earn six figures.

Being a journalist is a big commitment so instead, you might want a simple and easy way of earning money on the side. If you really love playing video games then you can supplement your income with mobile rewards apps such as mistplay.

This company will pay you to play mobile games on your tablet or smartphone so give it a try if this sounds like something that’s up your alley.

How to easily conduct top professional research both off and online

Corruption and lack of integrity are big problems in some circles of journalism. In order to get ahead of their rivals and show good ethics, game journalists need to do a hell of a lot of research in preparation for writing anything.

The amount of research required will depend on experience and how much you already know about the topic you are writing about beforehand. You can conduct your research in a number of different ways including using technology to browse websites and blogs on the internet or reading books for ideas.

Other techniques include journalists taking a notebook with them to gaming events. They can then figure out what questions to ask and find whatever other information that they can dig up.

Reading the content of other professionals will encourage personal growth making you both a better writer and journalist. Examining your biggest competition will also provide inspiration for future topic ideas for articles and posts.

You can learn a lot more about gaming-related career skills by reading books like this one. Aside from gaming journalism itself, this particular ebook will teach you about many different ways of earning money by playing video games.

This includes live streaming on twitch and competing in esports tournaments. Other requirements such as qualifications in English language and literature will help you a lot as a gaming journalist.

Awaiting approval and quality control before you get paid your earnings

While awaiting the reward for a job, journalists may be asked to rewrite a lot of their content by the employers and organizations that they work for. For this reason, you need to be prepared to make revisions without letting your ego get in the way.

You may have forgotten something or made a mistake. However, this isn’t always the case as certain people and companies you work with can sometimes be a little picky so don’t take it too personally.

As a precaution, you might want to put together a checklist so that you are hitting all of the desired bases for your employer next around.

Hiring employees, volunteers, and freelancers near me or remotely

If you become successful, cementing your popularity and status as a games journalist then you may be approached with pitches and resumes from other writers in search of recruitment. You will then be in the position to review these pieces before approving or rejecting them.

It’s up to both parties to decide whether you will offer compensation to them (maybe hourly) or if it will just happen on an unpaid volunteer basis.

Speaking of volunteering, this is a particularly effective way for ambitious kids and teenagers to enter the world of game journalism. As a business owner, accepting the assistance of willing volunteers can also offer you an improved work life balance.

In terms of productivity and enjoyment, I wouldn’t try to earn a living from this occupation if you don’t have a genuine passion for video games. There are plenty of other niches in journalism that offer many perks so if this is the case then try to find an area that interests you.

Good timing and being amicable around people are important qualities for successful gaming journalists to have on their journey up the career ladder. You will often need to get the early scoop before your rivals beat you to it.

You should also be on the lookout for any vacancies for volunteer work as doing this will help your development along and also look great on your resume. Volunteer positions might even lead to paid work if you establish a good rapport with your colleagues so it’s worth it to at least investigate.

There is far more to the process of game journalism than just the day-to-day tasks of the job. Aside from the support you receive, there are also things that can trip you up in this environment. However, you can dodge these problems with 7 Tips To Help Gaming Journalists Excel & Avoid Trouble.

There is greater depth to game journalism that you can learn more about with niemanlab and gameindustrycareerguide. Are you interested in becoming a video games journalist? What do you consider to be the easiest and hardest part of this job?

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