Zalno

sucks to hear,boxman. When were you a writer for flixist? with some of the names involved, id assume definitely pre-2020 at the latest, maybe around 2015?

Bleak as hell there’s some movie site I’ve never heard of (favored Slashfilm when I cared about following Hollywood news) treated its writers like shit just like the big boys.

How do you feel about writing/blogging as a profession now? Something you’d make an effort, opportunities pending, to get back into again?

I would be surprised if the Dtoid writers got paid more. I'm pretty sure the pay was company wide, that company being Enthusiast Gaming at that time. I wrote for PC Invasion the same time you wrote for Flixist. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the pay was abysmal. I also got paid a similar rate at a previous freelance writing job I had before PC Invasion (a company not affiliated with Enthusiast Gaming). Between those two gigs, I closed the door on my writing career and never looked back.

Sadly, I think that has been the general state of freelance writing in all sectors, although the pay is worse in sectors like film and gaming, because companies can rely on hobbyist writers who either write for free or for very little.

It's unfortunately pretty normal for publications to only pay a livable wage to the editors and for the freelancers to get paid pennies. Truthfully, I doubt the editors make very much money either. The only writing path that would make for a true living wage is technical writing, unless you get really lucky or spend years hustling as a freelancer in order to move up into an editorial role.

I'm pretty passionate about this topic since I went to school for English with the goal of making a career as a writer. It didn't work out for me. I moved into the technology sector and it was the smartest career choice I made. Thankfully, I still write as a hobby, because writing truly brings me joy. I simply wasn't able to make a career out of it.

Speaking as someone who did a stint of games journalism writing over a decade ago for another website, shit like this is why I never wanted to get back into writing about video games as a career. Amongst other reasons.

I didn't think that Flixist existed past the first couple of years where it was a Modern Method website. I remember there was cross-posting on Destructoid, which we all hated, so they stopped that, and eventually the link to it on the top bar disappeared so I thought the website was done. I just checked it out and was surprised to see 50% of the posts were from Peter Glagowski. It's still kicking, I guess, but seems completely dead in terms of engagement.

I confess this is my first time hearing about Flixist, but in any case, this whole situation sucks. I wasn't a part of Dtoid back then, but from what you described, I also don't know why your post was considered such a breach of privacy and trust. If a company is going to shut down, unless it's a very famous one, I assume it's not wrong to talk about it. Maybe they didn't want people to know before an official announcement, and I can understand that, but yeah, the reaction to your post feels disproportionate.

A few months ago, I signed up for Upwork and wrote some articles for a gaming website. My pay was the same: $5 for every 5.000 words. Horrible, but I needed the money, and while I didn't find anything better, why not? But man, it was creatively stifling. I had to write some obnoxious guides, couldn't talk about the games I wanted to... it was very dull. Then, the guy who hired me was an arsehole and terminated the contract earlier because he had no idea what trophy guides are for and thought I had done one such article wrong. I was pissed but glad I was let go.

Writing is amazing, but it can be hard to find a good place to work, especially in this journalism segment. Since you enjoy writing, have you ever considered self-publishing a book? It's not easy either, but you have full control of your creative choices.

Man that's rough. That reaction was way too extreme.

Sadly, we didn't get paid or treated much better at Dtoid. When I took that break for a year and stepped away from being the CM, it was a similar and very bitter story for me, except I never went public with it, as I knew I'd be blacklisted from the community and was worried id be from the business as well, and I still wanted to do something in games writing back then, and I sure af couldn't give yall up.

There's no point going into detail now, but you're not alone. There was a lot of us burned, pre Enthuisiast, many more post Enthuisiast/Gamurs. The whole online writing industry is disgusting for the most part, and now days, I wish I'd had another passion.

But hey, it did get me paid to write a porno version of the Bible for a commission. My most vile achievement to date. So that's something.

I was only a contributor to Dtoid, so I have no idea how much the actual people got paid. I've been through a various amount of payment methods -- started just volunteering, but obviously got access to game codes and events (they even sent me to E3 in 2012 which was great). Then there was a money-per-click model, with payouts at certain numbers. Then they just started giving me $75 a month for a while. Then I couldn't log in anymore and eventually found out they don't want contributors (Gamurs) anymore. oh well! had a blast overall, I'm a dad now anyway so I probably would have stopped on my own soon enough.

Yikes. I would have declined payment at those rates. It's not worth the time it would take to add that into your taxes. 2.50 to 10 dollars per article. I know getting paid in exposure is a bullshit deal, but it IS something and at those rates it may as well have been for free. Unless you cracked out like 10 thousand-word posts a day, every day. And then you're in the ball park of like 20k/year after the 35% tax hit.

I used to be a freelance writer for about 5 or 6 years. The door is technically still open, so I can't say a lot, but it was for a tech advice/purchasing guide site that got pretty good SEO. I wrote about games initially and then they transitioned me into more technical writing about new PC specs and stats. I got my start when PUBG was new. I had to pitch what it was to the editor and then I had to tell him "hey, this Fortnite thing? It's bigger than PUBG now". And buddy... the fortnite articles alone made me some dough. I knew they paid well but I didn't quite realize how lucky I had it until later. They paid about 300 to 600 per article. At its height I helped them cover E3 remotely at 400/day. But they didn't always offer very many opportunities for pitches, so the year-end take wasn't as much as you might think. But at that rate it was easy money for an afternoon's work a few times a week.

Pay aside, the editing process was just out of my hands. I wrote as best I could, as clearly and accurately as I could, and then they owned the final edit. It's their site. Usually, unless they needed my input on details for clarity or like a research question, I didn't look at the final article at all. I wrote reviews for the, which are ostensibly more personal takes on things, but in the end it's their call on the final edit. I didn't always agree with their choices, but as long as I got paid I didn't care.

Given how much time I take to feel okay with even making so much as a comment, (I will never admit how long) I can't imagine what it is like being a writer for games, movies, or whatever. I have a great deal of respect for everyone that puts their heart into it regardless.

I tried getting a Dtoid gig and am kinda glad I never did. I'm perfectly happy with my supplemental income playing bass and a day job that I can forget about once I leave for the day

Again, massive respect to you and everyone that put their heart out into writing for businesses so cheap they could feel thankless.

"Flixist"

I know Dtoid is a mess now but the Flixist days were a rough time for the community. It was years before I came back to the site in full but I remember them cross promoting stuff and everybody hating it.

Anyway, appreciate you sharing your story. Seeing some of these other comments (and knowing some other stuff about how things went behind the scenes) seems you weren't alone. I wish the site had treated folks better over the years but I'm glad some of us have ended up together in the end.

Man, it really confounds me how eager I was to do whatever I could to be a part of Destructoid. I had such romantic ideals associated with it. And then I keep hearing stories like this. "Living the dream", except, it's kind of a nightmare.

It sucks because I would have actually checked out Flixist for those features you wanted to write.