We're hiring volunteers, yo.

[Mitch Dyer]

I wish I'd kept the whole thing I submitted to the site, but we're on the main page as lookin' for dudes and ladies who want to write about videogames in a little more serious way than most news blogs for the low low price of free.

Sorry. No money to dish out just yet.

Basically, Nukoda.com is the site; it's getting some visual face-lifting ASAP, and it looks hot. We're looking for news writers who can post more than a paragraph and a link to Joystiq... We love those dudes, but we are trying to be less 'reporting on reporting' and more source-y.

I'd like to see what y'all can do, so fire an e-mail to [e-mail] with some written samples and all that stuff. We're writing a 'writer's guidelines' that we'd prefer everyone to abide by, if at all possible as well. I hate to sound like we're trying to be hot-shit and classy, but we are taking a little bit of a different approach to writing about them there vidjergames.

Thanks folks. Talk to y'all soon if you're interested in writing news/reviews etc. about games, and eventually other geekeries... The site is expanding beyond the looks.

[Thomas Ippen]

what do you mean by "a little more serious way," exactly? does that refer to an increased amount of depth and info on every post, or a specific attitude the site intends to broadcast?

[Mitch Dyer]

Not really.... "Serious" meaning less joke-y headlines like "BIONIC COMMANDO SWINNNNNGS INTO PSN AND XBOX LIVE!!!!!" or "MLB 2K8 Strikes Out".

We're trying to be straight news, without less -- not "none/no"-- spunky attitude and character. Joystiq has the cynical, and Kotaku has the asshole-ery approach. That works well for them, but we're really, really trying to be more than a Joytaku.

Maybe "more" is the wrong word, but definitely "different".

[Greg Orlando]

More serious would suggest professionalism. It's odd, then, that no pay is being offered.

Professionals get paid.

No offense to anyone, but the idea of free labor (outside of the context of an internship for college credit) is rather odious to anyone who works very hard to be a professional writer.

[Thomas Ippen]

well, feel free to poke around my work and the work of my authors at quiksave.net. some of them are more passionate than others, but we're a dedicated bunch, and there's definitely talent. let us know if you like our writing, or would ever want to team up in some form.

[Mitch Dyer]

Greg,

I don't think that a different approach to game journalism automatically equals cash. It's a different way of writing about games, and because we're eliminating the whacky-go-nuts headlines and wise-ass approach to the articles, our as-small-as-any-new-site should immediately offer cash?

It's not "professionalism". It's an attempt at being more so than a lot of places. We're not exactly looking for high-class, top-dog professional writers, rather, those kinds of writers who are looking for an outlet to feed their own content.

Like the billions of other sites, we're new, and we're in it because we want to do it... If we're actually losing dollars in keeping the site we love alive, how are we supposed to pay people? It's not that we don't want to, it's something that'll come in time hopefully, but for now, it's a volunteer op.

[Alexander Karls]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

[Greg Orlando]

Harlan Ellison is right.

I'm of the belief that people should be paid for their work. If people are going to work for you, and you're going to benefit from their efforts, you should pay them.

I won't belabor the point. I will suggest that people who give their work away for free are, in fact, hurting themselves. They're also hurting writers who get paid and who struggle endlessly for a fair wage.

[Mitch Dyer]

I never said that people "shouldn't be paid" - it's simply that we can't afford to pay writers!

It's not out of some asshole-approach to the whole thing that we're deliberately looking for folks who want to get some experience... I spent the last three or more years writing willingly without pay. If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have paid freelancing gigs now. Everyone starts somewhere, and it certainly can't hurt to write for a small-time "for-the-love" site, as cheesy as it is. We've already had something like three or four people reply saying "Yeah, I'd love to write about games in my spare time!".

Greg, being a full time employee (or former, I haven't read the mag in some time) of Play Magazine, I can understand your philosophy of demanding pay for a writer. But I, being a dude who JUST got his kick getting cash for writing, and spent the last 1000 days writing pro-bono to get there, have a slightly different outlook.

I'm not saying mine is better... it's not. But it's a viable option for folks who are looking for experience... I don't see why it's being so heavily condemned. I understand the initial "But why?" approach to the argument, but the violent "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" responses are kind of shocking.

[Greg Orlando]

I'm merely trying to tell you that working for free, and expecting others to work for free, is beneficial to no one.

You'll probably understand more when you attempt to make some type of living off your writing.

[Mitch Dyer]

I'm sure I will. But for the time being, I'm helping manage a site that's cost more money to make than it costs to keep it alive. Being that we do this in our free time, around our full-time jobs, it isn't something we can make a living off of.

Someday, when I am writing for a living, I'm positive that I'll absolutely agree with you, because it's part of my job. It's not that I "don't understand" either. Right now it's not. It's a hobby that I plan to turn in to a profession. Not many folks I know get paid to do their hobby outside their full time job.

Those who want to write for free will. Those who don't, will go on to write for cash. I am doing both.

[Dan Amrich]

For the record? I wrote for free for an online site for three years. They started paying me after two and a half, actually. But in that time I basically worked for games. I followed up with PR people, I made a name for myself at the companies, and I generated over 300 clips. I spun that into several freelance gigs and ultimately full-time staff positions. Being the go-getter on the free site gave me permission to make mistakes and learn from them. When I got my shot, I was ready. And I was paid in games, which was nice.

That was about 15 years ago, so times are definitely different now; hell, the internet was just coming around when I did my thing. But writing for free is better than not writing at all, because it gives you a context and a structure. When you are trying to hone your chops. I would expect that writing for a site like Mitchell's would mean learning on the job and improving as you go. If you let them keep the games they review, that's fair in my mind.

Today, when I hire freelancers, I don't ask whether they've been paid before. I ask to see writing samples. I want to know if they have worked with an editor and if they understand that deadlines are real. I am more concerned about their professional behavior than their past payment. If writing for free for an online site helps you learn the ropes and improve your skills, then godspeed. I'll pay you if you do good work, and I don't care whether you were paid to learn how to do it.

[Rob LeFebvre]

well said. I totally agree with this. Experience, in any work world, isn't always paid.