http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/in-its-image/ for the “machine” working, for instance.

Sorry, the patents have withstood critical review by patent offices around the world, many of the examiners coming from academia. The company has raked in millions using what you call a “fake and crazy idea,” from government and major corporations.

Anyone can say they do R&D in AI, so I’m not convinced that you are real. I think you’re a wannabe.

As for shame… corporations have no shame – they just have profit margins and stakeholders. unless one of those elements are impacted then very little will be done.

I learnt the hard way that your writing needs to be up to snuff if you want to take your freebie submissions forward. You take a few knocks and maybe resuscitate your ego a few times but you get there in the end if you persist.

Really enjoyed this article, keep up the work

Ha!?

Ahahahahaha!

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

The future? As if that hasn’t already been the case for the last ten-ish years? Oh my, that was funny!

I’ve got one: So the future of game publishing is a universal mandate for cranking out mediocre sequel after mediocre sequel? Oooh, another one: So the future of game development is obsession with making things ever prettier at the expense of everything else?

I suppose I just find it naive to draw a dichotomy between paying writers or not using them at all; it makes no sense, from either a personal or business financial standpoint. As to the general health of the industry that uses free labor in increasing amounts, well, I leave those types of musings to the more qualified to opine eloquently. I just know that bottom line is the only line for the corporations that control and finance large segments of games journalism.

If I were looking for signs that the writing is on the wall, so to speak, for paid gaming journalism, I suspect articles like this one would be a good indicator. And possibly not just gaming journalism.

As individuals who started writing years ago, we didn’t have as much competition then. Writing for free 5, 10 years ago was like taking up an internship. No pay, some competition, but it wasn’t impossible to move up in the world. Over the last few years, that low barrier for entry and the ridiculously high number of new blood pouring in is leaving many of the current writers out of work. At least, in the US. Allow me to explain.

Writing for free is easy. Actually, forget just writing. Games journalism is easy. People have YouTube channels, blogs, websites, podcasts…whatever it is, it takes minimal time and effort to produce. The cost of production has decreased so much that even in this “terrible economy” anyone can afford at least one game console of their choice and all the hardware and software to make content. At first, this sounds great! Everyone can contribute, and capitalism will succeed in allowing the best content to earn the most money!

But, as much as I wish that were true, it doesn’t quite work like that. It’s not like an old-fashioned marketplace where the guy selling the freshest fruit will be known throughout town. The internet spawns affection as easily as it spawns hate, and gamers are often the worst. A great, well written piece that may be found only by a few people could receive the worst venom because the reader disagrees with the points made. Now imagine that there are 50,000 writers with their own game sites. How the hell are we, readers and consumers, supposed to pick and choose which to read, go to, listen to, or watch?

Like all businesses, we listen to our family and friends, to marketing, to all those factors in life which point us to that pair of jeans instead of this other one without trying them on. If there were 10 starbucks right next to your house, all equally distant, which would you go to? What if there were 10,000?

Worse yet, as the capitalist system continues to work its magic by forcing those who cannot maintain their games journalism to close shop and go elsewhere, “hope” and, often, the promise of free games ensures that at least 5 others will take the place of the fallen. Eventually capitalism will make a balance…but with how long that will take, the rest of us likely won’t make it through the storm.

The reason I say that is twofold: firstly, most of us in the games industry got in one of three ways: right place right time, hard work, or connections on the inside. There’s no competing with luck, but who will a potential employer choose these days: someone who has worked hard for free to get a real job, or the dumb nephew of your coworker (or worse, manager) that just seems “perfect” for the job?

Hard work is no longer enough, and simply stating that writing for free will work nowadays is, in my experience, a crock. It did years ago, which I can attest to myself. I’m a product of such. But today, if you don’t have some special skill or trait, that little blog will be swept away by the tide of Google searches and tweets about how bad Duke Nukem Forever really was.

To refer to your second point, you are again correct and I was making the latter point with tongue firmly in cheek. Though to take that discussion on another tangent, one could also argue that a lot of paid writers are actually increasingly likely to write for themselves as the fact they are getting paid for it leads to a sense of greater worth. “I’m getting paid for this therefore I’m entitled to get lost up my own arse.”