I’ll start with the number that most “how to become a games journalist” guides leave out entirely: the global pool of people covering games for a living has shrunk by 25% in the last two years, with over 1,200 journalists leaving the beat. In 2026 alone, roughly 349 people left the business against just 63 who joined — a net loss of 286, nearly matching the 297 lost across the entirety of 2025. If you’re considering this as a career, that’s not a footnote. It’s the actual environment you’d be walking into.
Where things stand: games journalism is genuinely contracting at the institutional level — IGN, Game Informer, Fanbyte, GameSpot, and Giant Bomb have all had layoffs recently, Vice’s Waypoint shut down entirely, and Kotaku Australia was closed as part of broader cuts. That doesn’t mean there’s no path in; it means the path has shifted hard toward independent and freelance work, and pretending otherwise does nobody applying for jobs any favors.
Why the Staff Job Path Narrowed So Fast
Games media got hit by the same forces squeezing digital media generally — declining ad revenue, platforms changing how they distribute traffic, media conglomerates (Fandom, Future Publishing, Valnet) consolidating and cutting headcount across their portfolios rather than any one outlet failing on its own. The pattern isn’t “games journalism specifically failed,” it’s that the ad-supported staff writer model across digital media broadly stopped supporting the number of jobs it used to, and games coverage wasn’t insulated from that.
What’s actually grown in the gap left behind is independent coverage — individual writers and small operations building audiences directly through newsletters, YouTube, and Patreon-style support, rather than through a traditional masthead. Researchers studying this shift have specifically framed it as the decline of institutional games journalism happening alongside a genuine rise in independent gaming media, not a simple story of the field disappearing. It’s a different shape, not necessarily a smaller total amount of good writing about games.
What Actually Gets You Published Now
If staff jobs are scarcer, the realistic entry point for almost everyone right now is freelance pitching, and that’s a specific, learnable skill separate from being a good writer. A pitch that gets a response is specific to that outlet: knowing what Game Informer, Nintendo Life, or GamesRadar actually publish, not just gaming in general, is what separates a pitch that lands from one that gets ignored. Building a small database of who covers what — the specific editor, what they’ve published before, how to reach them — matters more than blasting the same pitch to a dozen inboxes.
The realistic financial picture matters too, because nobody starting out seems to get told this clearly enough: pay in games journalism isn’t uniform. Quick news posts pay noticeably less than feature writing or investigative pieces, and freelancers who don’t know typical rates for each type of piece end up underpricing their own work by default. Knowing the going rate for a 300-word news post versus a 2,000-word feature before you pitch either one is a real, practical skill, not a nice-to-have.
Where the Actual Opportunities Are Now
Given the contraction at “tier 1” outlets specifically — over 100 of the departing journalists in recent data came from that top tier alone — the more realistic strategy is building visibility somewhere you don’t need an editor’s permission first. Twitter, Discord, and LinkedIn are where a lot of actual pitch callouts happen now, with editors posting directly when they need coverage of something specific, which is a more accessible entry point than cold-emailing a masthead that’s actively shrinking. Independent newsletters and YouTube channels covering games have also become legitimate destinations in their own right, not just stepping stones to a “real” job at a traditional outlet — several of the writers who left staff positions in the last two years built exactly that kind of independent audience afterward.
The Honest Version of This Advice
If you want to write about games for a living, the traditional version of that path — get hired at a staff writer role, work your way up through a masthead — is real but is a smaller door than it was five years ago. The freelance and independent version is a bigger door now, but it requires treating pitching, rate knowledge, and audience-building as skills you develop deliberately, not side effects of being a good writer. Go in knowing the beat itself is shrinking at the institutional level while growing at the independent level, and plan accordingly rather than aiming exclusively at the shrinking half.
We cover the related angle in Best Gaming News Sites : 8 Sites Every Gamer Should Know.
If you’re weighing this decision, it’s also worth reading What Is a Good Refresh Rate for Gaming?.
FAQ
Is games journalism a dying field?
Staff positions at traditional outlets are genuinely shrinking — a 25% decline in working games journalists over two years — but independent and freelance games coverage is growing in the same period, so the field is shifting shape rather than simply disappearing.
How do I start freelancing in games journalism with no experience?
Build a small portfolio on a free platform, study what specific outlets actually publish before pitching them, and start with smaller, well-targeted pitches to build a track record rather than aiming at top-tier outlets first.
What does games journalism actually pay?
It varies significantly by format — quick news posts pay much less than feature or investigative writing. Learning typical per-piece rates before pitching helps you avoid underpricing your own work.
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