Reality Check 04.25.09: Gamecasting

Posted by Alexandra Pusateri on 04.25.2009

411's Alexandra Pusateri gets recorded and uploaded in this week's Reality Check, where she begins a new mini-series on not-so-popular video game jobs. This week: video game podcasters.

Hi there! I hope you've had a good week and your next week is even better. If you haven't noticed by now, Reality Check is here to knock your gamer ego down a few notches. Recently, I've been getting a lot of feedback on my Gamer Widows column. I don't know if it was linked somewhere or something, but it's really awesome to hear some of your stories and experiences with video game compulsion. Thank you for those of you who opened up to me.

In the next few of weeks, I want to cover certain jobs that people don't think about in the video game industry. This week, I talked to a few video game podcasters.

In 2005, the phenomenon of podcasting swept the Internet with such force, it was dubbed Word of the Year by The New Oxford American Dictionary. On September 28, 2004, Doc Searls searched for the word "podcast." It brought up 24 results on Google.

"A year from now, it will pull up hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions," wrote Searls, who is a well-known blogger and senior editor of Linux Journal. On a project blog named IT Garage, he wrote an entry titled "DIY with PODcasting," where he commented on the upcoming fame of podcasts. Podcasts were so new and associated with iPods at that point that Searls even created an acronym for "pod" in the term. "Should we call it PODcasting, then, to make it clear that we're talking about a category and not one company's product?" he asked.

A podcast is an Internet-based audio broadcast that listeners subscribe to about various topics, such as yoga or traveling and everywhere in between. At an Apple event in 2007, CEO Steve Jobs announced that over 125,000 podcasts were being distributed via iTunes.

Today, Google lists 130 million results for "podcast."

Control This is an all-female podcast.

Heather Sanchez is one of the co-hosts of Control This, a video game podcast featured on The10K.com. Podcasting is informal, she says. "It's a little more fun to just have a conversation and talk about stuff that's going on. It's not as formal as you would do writing."

Her two co-hosts, Nikole Zivalich and Amanda Drake, agree. "We're all friends," Zivalich says. Control This started when Drake was approached by Podcast Manager Josh Sharp to do an all-female podcast about video games. She asked Zivalich and Sanchez, whom she knew from writing articles at GameGirl.com, to join the team.

Even though it's a friendly atmosphere, it's not all unprofessionalism, Sanchez says: "It's not like we're just chit-chatting. We do give pretty good facts and opinions and reviews on stuff. It's just cool that other people get to listen to it." Drake warns that sometimes you have to bite your tongue, though. Many listeners are generally supportive, but you have to be careful about what you say. Whatever is recorded is out on the Web for anyone to hear, which can cause some irate feedback.

Some have misconceptions about podcasting. Podcasters usually don't get paid for the amount of time they put into their project. Usually, the ones that are lucky enough to get paid for their work have been podcasting for years and have the followers to back them up. Expenses for large-audience podcasts include web hosting or servers, bandwidth, advertising, and contests. Sometimes sponsors will pay for these expenses, but not all.

The Gamers Garage is one of the podcasts on The10K.com.

Will Blanton, a co-host of the GamerPulse Podcast was drawn in because of the sponsorship money. Tommy Freeman disagrees. He is one of the hosts of The Gamers Garage and editor, producer, and recorder for The10K.com. He's frequently asked if he gets paid and how much. "Should I be?" Freeman asks. "If you know a place that'll pay me to podcast, let me know!"

The myths don't stop there, Freeman says. "People were like, ‘Oh, you're talking about podcasting? You're biased. You just want to talk about games they want you to talk about.' They don't realize that I talk about whatever game I want to talk about, and whatever I think." Although he – or his critics – never says who "they" are, it's implied: large companies.

Drake is personally against corporate podcasting: "We can express our opinions and talk about whatever. I would never personally have our show turned over into a G4-controlled show. It would lose the feeling of free opinion."

G4 is a television network geared towards gamers after it merged with TechTV in 2004. Fans of gaming have denounced G4 as a video game channel, since it seems more concerned with scantily-clad girls than game-related programming. "The result? A television lineup that looks like it was tailored for frat boys," writes angry blogger Leon Robinson.

Sanchez would be against going corporate as well. "When you get into networks and company-controlled stuff, a lot of the time they make you out to be how they think you should be perceived," she says. Many podcast fans are afraid of their favorite podcasters selling out, which becomes an issue when sponsorship is considered. However it does "feel awesome to know that you've done a good enough job to have someone pay you to promote their product or site," says Blanton.

Since podcasters do put a lot of time into their projects, the issue of family would come up. Freeman says his wife hates his podcasting hobby, but he tries not to let it interfere with his children. "There are those times when stuff comes up. On Easter, I told [Sharp], ‘Look, I'm gonna be late, I got stuff to do.' They understand that. They understand family comes first before everything else."

Podcasting may seem like a time-consuming hobby, but it's already rewarding for those like Freeman. "It's for the love of gaming," he says. Anyone with a computer, microphone, and recording program can create their own podcast. Just "make sure you have a quality product to show to potential sponsors," Blanton advises. Next time you subscribe to a podcast, or hear one and enjoy it, send a couple of dollars their way. Podcasting is a rough job – and they're doing it for the love.

Check out The10K.com for the Control This on Fridays and The Gamers Garage on Wednesdays – and the GamerPulse Network for its podcast released on Sunday.