Editorial Staff

brandon sheffield -
    nude games journalist

vincent diamante - six dollar editor

tim rogers - large prime number

eric-jon waugh - extroverted introvert

raúl sánchez - recapitulador

ollie barder - mechanix

alex kierkegaard - unsavory character

Contributors

trevor wilson - old man of budgets

zepy - canned dogs

guillaume didier - tsundereko

brian liloia - clicking of sticks

mathew kumar - haggis with maple

aaron meyers - ciaro scuro

simon carless - monotonik

chaz seydoux - lost to time

A guide to writing for insert credit

These days, it seems like everyone and their brother wants to write for insert credit, but they don’t quite have what it takes to join our elite crew. With this in mind, I figured I’d write up a handy guide which will assist your molding yourselves in our image.

First, make sure you tackle your subject in a way that illustrates some glaring hole in the horrible well of sadness that is the gaming media. Harp on this point throughout your piece.

Begin with a long, sprawling anecdote of some kind. This should ideally be related in some way to the game you’re reviewing, or idea you’re discussing. If it’s not, well that’s hardly a problem. Call anyone who doesn’t get it an imbecile. Try to make it intensely personal, so that almost no one can connect with it. If you’ve not touched your actual topic by the 1,000 word mark, you’ll know you’re doing fine.

Next, while discussing the game or idea you’ve chosen, be sure to add lots of obscure references that nobody will understand. It helps if you choose something that’s only been released in Japan, or a concept you learned in your college philosophy class. Try to alienate your audience with complex sentence structure.

Use short paragraphs.

Like this one.

They’re edgy and cool.

If you’re going for the Tim style, be sure to fabricate some element of your piece. It doesn’t matter how small; the desire is merely to see how many emails you can get. Constant self-reference and inside joking is the way to play here. Drop as many names as possible. Make supplemental videos with lots of screaming and bizarre word pairings. Devise new names for all of your friends, and tell the world about it!

If you’re going for the Eric-Jon style, delve completely into one subject at a time, analyzing it to a ridiculous degree. Make sure that any review is at least seven pages long, and takes to task the upbringings of each member of the development team. Don’t be afraid to break out the thesaurus.

If you’re going for the Brandon style, be sure to make several glaring errors or omissions, and then accuse others of doing the same. This helps you relate with your peers in fun and exciting ways! Makeificating new words is not out of the question. The more schizophrenic you sound, the better off you’ll be. Insert touchy-feely words like ‘soul’, ‘essence’, and lots of textual cliffhangers if you run out of ideas.

If you’re going for the Chris Woodard style, start a bunch of really cool, well thought out articles, and never finish them. This method is particularly effective if you want to avoid criticism from the gaming press. Only write drunk.

Now that you’ve written the body of your article, come up with a snappy conclusion that makes your audience think that you know what you’re talking about, even if you don’t. The more confident you are in your mistakes, the fewer people will notice!

So now you’ve finished your article. Run over the checklist to make sure you’ve covered all your bases:

Did you make an obscure slanderous reference to someone that may have slighted you as a child?
Did you vent your frustrations with the current state of everything?
Was your humor sufficiently obscure?
Did you use clever wordplay that only your fellow staff members would appreciate?
Did you get slashdotted?

Good! You’ve completed an insert credit article! Remember now – the more people you’ve offended, the more you know you’ve done your job. When the threatening emails start rolling in, that’s when you’ve hit journalistic gold.

Best of luck to all, and happy writing!

Brandon Sheffield