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I’ve
been working for Electronic Theatre for nearly a year now.
It is my first job within the retail and publishing sectors and I
don’t mind working with the customers, young and old, helping
them to choose a game for themselves or their
children/parents/partners etc… Although it can get quite hard
when you have to research and remember literally thousands of
games. One of my many tasks is to write article’s and review
games for Electronic Articles, which is just fine if I
wasn’t born with writers’ block - a condition which has plagued
me my whole life.
There are advantages from working in games retail, such as
we often get games T-shirt’s, jacket’s and sweater’s and the
occasional free poster, the opportunity to play games before their
release date is great especially when your friends get jealous -
moaning at you that you’ve played Fahrenheit months before
they can get there hands on it. We often get invites to Launch
Event’s such as the PSP launch party; however it’s not unusual
to be lectured to for two hours and not actually learn anything
new. There are also other events such as the Electronic
Entertainment Expo (E3) in the US, which a few of my colleagues
got the opportunity to attend and what used to be the European
Computer Trade Show (ECTS) in London which we have attended on at
least three occasions. Because the Electronic Theatre acts
as both a retailer and an online press agency, we receive
lots of news and information daily so we are always up to date
online and in-store. We also get the opportunity to play on the new
wicked gadgets such as; the Mario Kart Advance Bit-CharG (a
miniature remote control car which you charge off the remote
control) and the ever-increasingly rare Virtual Boy.
On the other hand working for a games retailer’s can be a
curse, wherever you go, at all time’s of the day and night, all
people want to talk to you about is games, games and more games.
About three months ago all me and one of my colleagues talked about
was games for over a week before we realised how irritating it was
becoming - then realised there’s no way out of it.
When people ask me about new games or technology or the
industry; any response they receive they don’t tend to listen.
The public tend to believe what they read in the tabloid press or
other daily papers and games magazines - which a lot of the time
its pure fabrication. Magazines are often printed before the press
releases containing release date changes or other decisions -
that’s another advantage of working for an online press agency
– daily updates, often hourly. However, this does of course
require sitting in front of a computer for hours on end sifting
through pages of useless blurb to find one little piece of
information, which then leads you to more pages of useless
ramblings - a heavily predictable vicious circle. Also, playing
often more than twenty titles within a month, it becomes hard to
remember what every game plays like and explaining to people
the differences and advantages between two generic
First-Person-Shooters becomes difficult some months after release.
Although it can be quite challenging at times, keeping up
with the work schedules and remembering all we need to know, it’s
not a bad job. We have quite a lot of fun at times, and get to
spend a substantial amount of our working time playing games, which
we love or have waited for a long time to play (normally before
others can get a chance to play). So if you’d like a job in games
retail or journalism remember it’s not all just playing games -
it’s also a lot of work, but don’t be scared off!
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| Return to the Articles Archive 2005 here.
Each of these articles has been written
either independently of Electronic Theatre or by an external viewer. The opinions
discussed in these articles in no way reflects the opinions of Electronic Theatre.
If you wish to inquire about pricing of any titles
for these formats not listed on this site, drop me a line at kjoyce@electronictheatre.co.uk |
