I would like to say, from the start that I do really enjoy my job, I get to play games, write about them, put up some great images for you all to see and enjoy as much as I enjoyed playing. As a lifelong gamer thats brilliant and quite a lot of a dream come true. But it is not all perfect, there are occasions where this is not all it seems, and I think it only fair to share some of the less glamorous side of being a gamer and reviewer.

If you have read my interview, which I shall shamelessly link Here, you would know that I am a man and a gamer and therefore like more manly games. I played a lot of MMO, sports and action games. That is not to say that girls don’t play these games too, I know I met my wife in one. But I tended to lean more towards the stereotypes and I accept that I was very much a typical geek gamer.

The point is, that nowadays everyone can be, or is a gamer, and its brilliant. The global acceptance of my passion is wonderful, I love it. I was happy to meet people all over the world in my games, I have friends in countries I never knew existed when I was younger. As more people play games there are more games being made, and across a much wider variety of niches.

So I get a job reviewing games for a living, and I am a very happy man. It starts with the kinds of games I know, as a warm up, you know settle into the job and get used to writing, playing and looking for good things to take pictures of for my reviews. So imagine my surprise when I am asked to play a game involving ponies. Not riding them into battle, or preparing them to race. But dressing them up, in pink dresses and angel wings. That was something of a shock, firstly that these games existed, I really felt quite naive and a little silly that I had not thought about it.

Then, I sit there and play a game where I am dressing a pony. Nothing wrong with enjoying that kind of game, its just not my thing. I mean it is really not my thing, no hacking, slashing, quests or loot. But a lot of pink angel wings. To top it off, the game has 3 stages, undressed pony, dressed pony, and some makeup. I have to write a detailed piece about 3 phases of a game that took 4 minutes to complete. Believe me that is one of the hardest reviews I have ever written. I am not kidding, look below for the pony in question:

Working in this field has opened my eyes to many different things, and I have seen hundreds of games. That in itself is both a shock and kind of hard to imagine. In the last 2 years I have played, reviewed or written about over 800 games. It may sound great, but in order to keep up I can only play some games for an hour, maybe 2 hours. While you can get a feel for a game, and get into the details, it becomes hard to enjoy a game. I am bit a completist, I enjoy collecting sets or achievements in games (yes, its weird I know but I do enjoy it) so when you find a really good game, and then you can’t play it for more than an hour, that gets very frustrating. There are some games I have taken home to play but there is a whole list of games, quite a big one, that I want to play and just do not have the time. Imagine the tease, of being shown a glimpse of something amazing and then not being able to play!

Take one sunny afternoon where I am idly writing an article about running an MMO guild, and then suddenly your boss turns round and says, and I quote: “Please dont hate me, but I would like you to make a website full of games for girls.” That sentence was fine, it was the following explanation that really was the most fun. A website dedicated to games for girls, not women, girls aged around 10 to 15 or 16. Go out and find these games then play and review them, with the prettiest pictures you can find. I did not hate him for it, but sitting there with a nice big screen putting makeup on celebrities was not a fun experience when everyone else in the office can see what you are doing. Many comments followed questioning my age and sanity.

As I may have mentioned, I am a guy who likes guy games. And being a geek I have not really studied the world of ladies fashions and the current top trends. So you can guess how much I enjoyed reviewing a series of games where the main aspect is the latest fashions and the cutest things in home design. So I went away and I learned about it, a little anyway so I had some idea of what I was writing about. People often miss the fact that writing game reviews requires research outside of a game, and I like learning things, but the current winter colors is not something I thought I would need. And here once more we can see lots of ladies in fashions that I still do not know about.

And yet despite not really knowing anything about girl games or fashion, and really not liking pony games there is not much about this job that I can moan about. Sure I get to briefly touch upon some great games, occasionally there are games I don’t like even in the niches I enjoy playing. But at the end of the day, I see a lot of good games and I can see the inside of the gaming industry I have been enjoying for so long. I have met some pretty cool people and I hope to meet some more in the future. Every job has it’s downsides, but as long as mine is fluffy horses and virtual worlds designed for little ones I can’t really complain too much. But that also will not stop me from grumbling when I have the chance.