I’m often asked how to get a well-paying job writing for a high profile outlet, like IGN. It seems like a dream gig; it’s not.
Lmao at “Well paying.” These sites don’t pay as much as you think. A couple tweets went viral last week related to how much (or rather little) IGN pays it’s writers, and this is not uncommon:
The tweets gained attention on Twitter, and several high profile and well paid (hopefully also well paying) YouTubers took IGN to task for it.
It’s a major problem where outlets in gaming and entertainment journalism exploit their workers. Let’s break down what this means in hourly rates for freelance writers.
Here’s the front page of IGN as I write this:
There are two TV show reviews and a story pulled from Twitter. Ironically, reviews aren’t covered in their hierarchy, so let’s assume they are basic news aggregation.
Each of these shows is about 50 minutes long, and you’ll be taking notes as you watch, so you’re in for at least an hour’s worth of work. However, any decent reviewer will give it a second shot, so you’re at 2 (of course, some will choose not to, which is why IGN reviews are notoriously bad). Then you get to the writing part, which should also be two passes – a round of writing and a round of editing. That’s another 1–2 hours. So, you’re basically at 2 hours of work minimum, even if you tried writing the full review in real time while the show is airing. That’s a lot of work for $20.
But that’s not all they review – IGN also reviews video games, which are much harder and more involved to review.
You can’t just spend an hour playing Lego Star Wars or MLB The Show and act like you know the first thing about the game. They’ll have multiple levels and game modes, and many games are open world experiences. It takes at least 50–100 hours to really explore a modern game well enough to review it well. And everyone can see if you cheat because you need screenshots. We can see if you finished it and know if you also didn’t spend 500 hours on the previous installments to understand what’s new in the new one. When you divide that time by $20, you’re living in poverty without even taking into account the 1–2 hours spent actually writing the review.
And those video cards are even worse – unless you’re well plugged into the system, you can’t get them fast enough to review them in time.
Time is your enemy as a game or entertainment writer. Your review matters up until the day it comes out. While some people may wait until after the release to read a review, the bulk of the crowd wants to know before they see or play it. This means you’re going to be working for pennies while also under tight deadlines.
Even worse, everybody thinks it’s an easy dream job, so people are lining up to take your spot. And while $20 may seem like nothing, it’s better than what a lot of outlets pay: nothing.
Not only do some outlets simply not pay, but some even have schemes where anybody can pay to be featured on their platforms. There’s a wide spectrum of shadiness and worker exploitation in journalism. It’s not limited to IGN either.
Brian Penny
Brian Penny
Phoenix New Times had me driving all over the state on my own dime to do 50 hours of investigative journalism work for $150 per article, which is comparable in workload to IGN’s $500 pieces. I did it because I believe in journalism, but I didn’t last long because they were basically costing me money to write for them. That’s the deal with a lot of outlets because they’re strapped for cash and slow to adapt.
Nothing in journalism pays “well,” and it’s a big reason there’s so much misinformation in the world. But to answer your question of how to write for them, just respond to the woman’s tweet.