Lefty Side of the Dial

It's been an interesting week to say the least. Yesterday I found out that our university won't be laying people off, but instead I won't be accruing vacation days for the next six months. This bit of news come just 48 hours before I am using some of the last of my vacation hours to visit Los Angeles for the next few days.

One of the biggest game companies, EA (Electronic Arts) is flying me to Los Angeles on Wednesday to visit one of their game developers, Pandemic to take a look at a forthcoming video game based on the Lord of the Rings franchise. I've seen and played the game briefly when I was in Seattle for PAX, but now myself and a handful of indie gaming podcasters and websites are going to get a much longer hands-on time. In addition to playing the game, we'll also get to tour Pandemic and do some interviews, which barring any NDAs will find their way to our podcast.

EA is putting us up in a pretty cool hotel, and on Friday is even taking us to Universal Studios, which I've never been to. Even though I am a last minute replacement for someone who was unable to come, I am pretty honored to be given the chance to do what basically is a press junket. However it does bring up some questions for me.

First, it does make me feel proud of all the work my wife and I and a handful of others have done at The Married Gamers. Games are starting to come to us to review without even asking now. We find ourselves being invited to more and more events, and our podcast listeners and website readers are growing. I'm very happy that as we grow we've been more or less able to avoid some of the pratfalls of other game sites and podcasts. We are nearly at the point we I'll need to start looking at whether we need to start a company and have ad rates. It would be nice to have some revenue to this labor of love, if anything to pay our staff who have been such a delight to work with.

Second, benig wined and dined, as they say, bring me under greater scrutiny by our fans and critics to our impartiality when it comes to EA video games. I am thankful that I've seen this Lord of the Rings games previously because it is a pretty darn good game in the brief time I had with it. However I'm sure they may very well be some people who think I might give a favorable review because I've drank the kool-aid. I can be a little overly-sensitive to those perceptions, but my only real control over a criticism like that is to be reasonable and truthful in my review and let the chips fall where they may.

Third, what am I? Am I games journalist? Am I an enthusiast blogger? I think The Married Gamers is somewhat in between. I think this allows us some latitude with our reaction and perception of video games and video game news & culture. I also think that it will also mean we'll never make a living off of this, but both my wife and I had realistic expectations about that going in to this endeavor. Still I don't want to be typecast as a video game blogger. I find some video bloggers just an echo chamber of rumors, sloppy work, and a place to rant. I am proud that The Married Gamers won't report on rumors, no matter how reliable they may be.

Recently our mantra and selling point to games companies is that we like to use them as they use us. If they have something to pitch, good because at The Married Gamers we want to connect our listeners, fans, and readers to fun experiences. I don't think of us as in opposition to a video game companies PR-speak, but we do reserve our right to agree or disagree with the pitch. For instance, one game we will never promote on our site is the America's Army series of games that the U.S. Army uses to recruit new soldiers. I have grave reservations about that video game, and simply will refuse any requests for interviews for it.

In any event, I'm looking forward to my trip to SoCal tomorrow, and will have to let you all know how it went.