Making it as an MMO blogger: The bloggers speak up part 3

What methods have been most effective for you in reaching out to game developers?

Beau: Staying consistent and getting to know people. The hardest part of blogging is to do it without burning out. If you stay strong, you become reliable (I hope!) Also, be confident. Write something every day.

Petter: As a member of the "ordinary" gaming press while keeping my blogging on the side, I usually take that route – I haven't even tried getting stuff for my blog, as far as I remember. Most of my contact with the industry goes through Gamereactor and is more likely to bleed over that way than the other way around.

Syp: The best method is to be direct, polite and daring. Devs, believe it or not, are not from another plane of existence where they cannot bear to commune with us mere mortals. They're gamers and real people, and the growing respect for blogs means that, depending on the dev team, they're more open to being contacted for interviews and features by bloggers.

Some companies have just one person they like to funnel PR requests through — if that's the case, you need to find out who this is (usually via e-mail inquiries) and contact them so that you're not ticking off others and/or marketing. But other companies are really okay with you chatting with devs one-on-one, as long as you ask permission to post their thoughts ("on the record" as it were) before doing so.

Ravious: Persistent, but not annoying, emails are good for big projects like interviews or contests. I also have gained a few contacts on IM networks. The door for bloggers is usually the community team's general email, which I believe should be used sparingly. Twitter is actually a pretty good way to alert the company to a blog or a specific post The most important part is to be professional in all forms of communication because one rabid email can destroy the chances of gaining a good relationship with the company.

Syncaine: Never tried actually. I'm not against the idea, but it's not why I blog. I don't need game dev attention to get my thoughts out about a game or certain design aspect, but at the same time I'd love to pick a few brains and ask why feature X or change Y happened.

Keen: I've had the honor of corresponding and sometimes meeting with developers many times over the past few years. Never once in my wildest dreams did I think that simply writing what I thought about games would attract that kind of attention. There's only one method that I use: Complete honesty. It may surprise you to hear that even when I speak poorly about a game that I am contacted by the developers.

CrazyKinux: Every means available to you can be used to reach out the developers. I've used every opportunity to make contact that's been presented to me. Whether by email, face to face when I was at Fanfest, LinkedIn, Facebook and recently Twitter. As long as there's a purpose to you reaching out to them, developers (especially CCP Devs) are usually willing to engage with you.

What do you feel are the key differences between bloggers and major MMO news sites?

Beau: Bloggers have many freedoms that major sites do not. On the other hand, a major site might be able to get that exclusive or interview much easier. Bloggers need to have fluid goals, and the ability to write something interesting when they can't get that interview.

Petter: Solo bloggers rarely do news in the way MMO sites like Massively or TenTonHammer do, mostly since they lack time or resources. And that's the way it should be, even though a lot of news do pass through the bloggers. I guess we read the blogs for opinion and the news sites for news (with columns like Anti-Aliased and The Digital Continuum adding opinion to Massively) that we can then turn into opinions on our blogs. :)

Syp: Subjectivity vs. objectivity. Bloggers and news sites can and do have a mix of both, but on the whole, bloggers tend to be more subjective and news sites more objective. As a blogger, I can be emotional when I want to be — excited when something really pleases me, all angry bear when I'm disgruntled — and it's par for the course, as long as it doesn't get too far out of hand. Because bloggers come from a very defined perspective that isn't trying to be all things for all people, we're able to be more honest from that perspective without having to apologize for it.

There are bloggers who definitely skew more toward more neutral objectivity, and there's a pull-and-push between them and the more visceral writers — a quiet war between those who urge us all to be even-handed, fair and deeply thoughtful with our analysis, and those who say that being a blogger is about the freedom to be more emotional and reactionary. Personally, I just write how I'm feeling on a topic, whether it's "fair" or not.

To put it in journalistic terms, MMO news sites are 90% reporting the facts and delivering interviews with 10% editorials, while many blogs flip that ratio around. We're the new editorial page, as it were.

Ravious: I think the biggest, most dangerous difference is freedom to write. Most bloggers don't have to worry about advertising revenue or an editor, but this freedom can give a blogger just enough rope to choke off the blog. The other big difference is on the newness of the information. Most bloggers cannot thoroughly cover every MMO offering in our growing gaming genre, and the MMO news sites would not be giving news if they were writing about old games.

Syncaine: News sites area businesses, and have bills to pay. My blog is just me writing whatever I feel like that day, be it a review, some random theory work, or blasting someone/something for whatever major/minor/petty reason. Both are useful, but provide very different things. I don't need to cover all the bases when writing something, I don't need to double check anything, and I can switch up the content whenever I please. A major site has to cover the major games to continue getting the traffic they need to keep the site running.

Keen: As a blogger I get to be reactionary. In fact, as a blogger I get to be whatever I want. News sites have expectations placed upon them to deliver certain things at a certain time. Real opinions are rarely apart of that. That's the biggest difference.

CrazyKinux: If there is one thing that differentiates the two I'd have to say that it is passion. Game bloggers are very passionate people; they need to express their opinion, to share their likes and dislikes and are fueled by the fire of passion. Major news sites on the other hand are there to report about games as an obligation, which demand a totally different mindset.