Is this who I think it is?

Wow, I missed a really winnah, I can see.

I lolled.

The real tragedy is that Gamerankings and Metacritic value people like Liz’ opinion just as highly as the opinions of people like Troy or Tom.

I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time, either. So I don’t mind getting lumped in with the Lizes. Desslock would be a better pairing with Tom.

Troy

Are there any game reviewers anywhere who make good money? I mean, what’s the absolute high end of the scale for whoever the most highly paid full-time game journalist may be? I just assumed that all you guys were in it for the combination of love of games and the many opportunities for schadenfreude.

It’s a double-date then!

The money was pretty much shit when I did some contract reviews. Then again I may have been getting screwed since I didn’t think I could ask for more. Something like $100 a review and you got to keep the game. Of course, perks like getting flown out to Cali to cover E3 were a nice plus. It made for some ok money on the side, I guess. This was something like 7 years ago, mind you.

Are you serious? That can’t be right. Do you get “perks” like “food”?

Really, what do you guys make?

I believe it. Have you heard of Electronic Arts? Do you know what their workers receive as compensation? Supply and demand at work.

The money was always shit for me as well, working as a freelancer. However, it’s worth saying that I never wrote for anyone particularly high profile, so the payscale might have been much better for other people, but that’s never the impression I was given. The way it seemed to me, the only people able to live off their writing in this field were the people physically working at magazines.

When I was at Tom’s house, he didn’t bother cashing any checks below a certain threshhold. One wall in his sitting room (!) was tiled with these “too small to bother” cheques.

The highest I’ve heard was about $1 per word back during the crazy Internet bubble.

I have some sympathy since this is finals season and he probably had pressure from Activision to publish that Friday. Nonetheless, he did issue a response.

Other comments questioned my ability to accurately review games. Maybe they have a point. As a finance major at a business school, I’m not your typical game reviewer.

Jose Liz: keepin’ it real.

Jose Liz is Kitsune!!

Kitsune wouldn’t touch a Western-made action game with a ten foot pole. Assuming he was killed or buried with a ten foot pole nearby.

OMG it’s Allison Stokke’s pole!

Yeah, I was just about to post that. What the fuck?

Unlike other reviewers who are actually graduates of even more prestigious universities like, you know, Harvard Divinity School? The place Emerson went.

Probably 99% of game reviewers are doing it on the side from another career so that fact that he’s doing something else full time probably makes him pretty average doesn’t it?

How much money did Jack leave him in the family trust? I cash $5 checks all the time.

Geezus Jose Liz is a terrible writer.

Big shocker.

Just bad… and lacks the humor factor bad of Matthew Klem.