Link to part 1I told you guys that I wasn’t done yet with this subject. I wanted to write about my personal experience of being a critic. Be warned, there are some serious consequences when you want to become a critic. Since now-a-days, everybody wants to become a reviewer. They think that they can make it in the reviewing scene. A million blogs are popping up left and right, all trying to be different from the last. I try to be different by talking about more then just games. I post a creepypasta once in a while or I talk about the gaming market. On this blog I truly try to write about the games I’m playing in my gaming life. Not the latest of the latest. But I have talked about that in great depth in the first part of this article. Anyways, though intro has been written. Time to invite my readers to comment on this subject and or this article.
I “can’t” enjoy anymore.
Honestly, I has been quite a while since I had a feeling that I truly enjoyed a game. Now, don’t get me wrong. All the games I have played, I enjoyed my time. What I mean here is that I always think about how I’m going to convert it into an article.
If you are following me on Twitter, you might have seen that I took a weekend off from my life basically. I went on a trip together with my mom towards the Ardennen, a region in the south of my country, Belgium. It’s a beautiful natural landscape. You can compare it to a mountain village in a certain sense.
While I was there, I managed to keep myself to my promise. I didn’t think about my Twitter, blog or anything else in my life. I only took my PSP to have something to play in the car. It was a 2 hour trip after all. Not counting my mobile phone, that’s the only electronic device I had on me. I had a notepad and various pens. You don’t want to know how full that notebook is now.
You have been warned
What I’m getting too is this: a warning to everybody who wants to start reviewing or writing a blog as a hobby or professionally. First of all, don’t try to be too professional in the start. You will give the impression of trying too hard. You must still enjoy what you are doing after all. Since you’re own curse will haunt you soon.
And secondly, you will need to find a way to relax on your own way. If you take it as serious as myself, and you try to write for an audience, you will think about what to write next. When I’m playing a game, I make mental notes of what I want to talk about in my article. It’s strange, but you are always thinking as a critic. You will need to get used to that.
Finally, start in a group. Don’t ever start writing alone. While I have started this blogging adventure myself, I had my forum where I could post my links too. They would read and share it to support me. Be sure that you have people who are interested in advance. Otherwise you will be writing for the visitor who is looking for information of a certain game.
It’s a numbers game.
In the end, being a blogger, YouTuber or any kind of entertainer ends up in a numbers game. Every subscriber or follower counts. Now, pay attention, you have these people who follow you on Twitter to get more exposure. I did an unfollow run a while back. My feed was spammed by too many different people. And after my unfollow run, I saw my follow number drop quite a bit.
I hit me then. The numbers are extremely important to us. We make a special video when we reach a special number of followers. But think about it. How many people actually do follow you. I admit that I have a ton of people I follow on YouTube that I have seen a few interesting video’s off, but I can’t keep up.
That’s what I notice with some of my blogger friends. They want to keep up-to-date with everybody they enjoy. People like myself, the guys on ButtonSmashers… and in the end, you don’t read or watch every single thing.
Be warned in advance guys, you can’t keep up with everything! So, don’t be afraid if you don’t have great numbers at the start. Try to keep stable numbers instead of occasional high numbers. If you try to aim high directly, you will fall deeper then you started.
Also, one of the biggest issues I faced was addiction. I got addicted to higher numbers. Yes, that even counted for my Steam library. I wanted to play more and more games to try and entertain you guys. Now, if there is one thing I want to warn the starters about is, try to keep time for yourself. You don’t have to share every single thing or game you play. In the end, it will bite you in the ass. People will ask your opinion and you will give yourself more work then you want to do.
To close off…
I might revisit this subject in the future. But to close off this article, I want to give you guys some helpful hint when you want to start out your own blog or grow your own project.
Be honest with yourself and your audience. If you need a break, let your audience know. If you loose people because off that, don’t let it get you down. If you need a break, take one!
Also, keep doing what you are doing. If you don’t get the exposure you deserve, keep working for it. You’re break might be around the next corner. It might happen one day that your article gets picked up by a more professional writer or YouTuber. So yeah, be patient.
Anyways, that was everything for now. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading my article as much as I enjoyed writing my thoughts here. I hope to see you here another time. 🙂
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