I’m terrible with openings and bad with introductions, so hi, I’m Jamie. I’m a Staff Writer for Gamepur and have been since 2021. I love games and always have, plain and simple. I grew up in the 90s reading the golden age of video game magazines like Official PlayStation Magazine, Official Nintendo Magazine, Games ™, and pretty much anything I could get my hands on. Something about the passion with which the writers spoke about each game in features, guides, and interviews just enraptured me.
In the past, I’ve written for quite a few sites, but now it’s just Gamepur, so I can focus all my attention on writing the best articles possible. You can still find me in print through issues of Lock-On from Lost in Cult, and I’ve been News Editor for Switch Player Magazine up until its final issue (#69). I’ll never stop writing for print games journalism where possible. I love what I get to do for Gamepur, but nothing compares to seeing my name in a physical book or magazine that I could show my parents and say, “look! I’ve made it!”
The Long, Bumby Road
I’ve been working in games journalism for probably 10 years now. I’m 32 with two kids – time is just a blurred ball as soon as another day ends. When my wife and I were engaged, she went to university in Leicester, and I spent 2 years driving an hour and a half every week to see her until I finally moved there and, y’know, married her. I quit my stable job and got an awful job writing SEO copy that I literally fell into. It taught me to write well, and quickly, and I started a blog (now long dead) that gave me the confidence to put myself out there.
That blog gave me a portfolio to get some writing work in games for a wholesaler that I kept going until I started at Gamepur. Along the way, I picked up more and more work, and when my daughter was born in 2019, I quit my job and went full-time as a freelancer. I made enough to get by until I got this full-time gig, working all hours of the day around childcare. Outside of wanting to be a freelance games journalist as a lifelong dream, I wanted to do this because it would allow me to see my daughter grow up, watch her first steps, and never feel guilty or sad about being in an office. I have no regrets, and I promise you won’t if your motivations for a chance to work from home are similar.
Anyway, before all this being an adult and writing more words than are in a short story on a daily basis, I had the worst time in school. I was different from everyone else in so many ways, mostly because I preferred metal music over pop. Kids can be cruel, and they were, but that only drove me more into the games I loved. My best friend and I would play Metal Gear Solid for dozens of hours outside of school, and they are some of the best times of my life.
My teachers didn’t help at school, and not just because bullying in the 90s was “boys will be boys” territory. I’m dyslexic. It flares up and down based on stress and mental space, but in school it was awful. Teachers outright refused to read my work and told me I’d never make it as any sort of author despite telling stories to friends and writing them down any chance I got. I was even on the school paper for a while, reviewing games and imitating those writers I admired most.
The point of me telling you all that school stuff is to get to the core of why I’m here, why that journey from college, where I failed every subject miserably due to dyslexia, to a full-time job at Gamepur seems so simple. It’s because my mum instilled in me a deep sense of “I’ll prove you wrong.” She was a police officer in Coventry, went to football games and had to use the tiny truncheon they gave women back then to hold back hordes of drunk, angry fans. She was a punk, dying her hair every weekend to go out to shows and changing herself back for an accounting job in the week. She was a single parent for the most part, looking after me, working an hour away from home, going months without new clothes to keep me fed and happy. She is my biggest hero, and sadly she passed away completely out of the blue in 2018. It shook me to my core, still impacts me today with depressive episodes and all sorts of other issues, but it also made me stronger. She did everything necessary to get me into a good space, and now I work and live as hard as I can to do the same for my kids.
Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m fine. That emotion that I can tap into so easily is what I think helps me write better today than I ever have, what helps me be real, and hopefully, someone you can identify with while you read. Even if it was listening to Sum 41 on the school bus while everyone else talked about clothes.
It’s About the Experience
Emotion over, this is a much less emotional zone now! So what do I love? What games do I like playing and why? I got a Game Boy at 5 years old and nothing has compared to that feeling, so I adore handhelds. I play my Switch all the time, and opt for the Steam Deck over a PC. Both of these platforms have something in common, indie games. If you follow me on Twitter or just my stuff here, you’ll know I’m a big indie game fan writing an Indie Spotlight each month and reviewing every game from those I can.
I think that my love of indie comes from how interesting they are. You get your Triple-A games that have Nathan Drake jumping all over the place and amazing graphics, and they’re great. I love a good first-party title on PlayStation. Indie games post the best questions though, like “what would happen if a small, sleepy island was suddenly struck by a comet?” or “what would you do if you had to gamble your way off of a cruise ship over the course of a week?”
Indie games are like those books you like the cover and blurb for while browsing. Something like City of Thieves that’s pitched as a war story but descends into the tale of two people wandering through pockets of those surviving amid World War II and experiencing small, impactful tales that no one would have heard otherwise. I firmly believe that all indie games are worth playing, and will keep doing my best to broadcast them here at Gamepur.
I can’t deny that I’m a sucker for a good open world game though. Horizon Forbidden West has a special place in my heart, as does Fallout 3 and Tears of the Kingdom. I have to complete every available side quest and activity before moving onto the next main mission and no one can get me to play in any other way. I don’t have a favorite genre or type of game really, though, just games that make you feel. If a game is going through the motions without engaging you, what’s the point? I need a game to make me feel something, whether it’s angry, exposed, helpless, or driven, just something I can latch onto that makes it stick in my mind.
What I’m Proudest of as a Games Journalist
I hate bragging about achievements in real life, but I have no issue discussing what I feel like are the incredible feats I’ve achieved in games or just the best things I’ve done that are core memories and part of who I am. So here are a few of those to round this extended bio out and, hopefully, help you to get to know me a bit better.
I completed the Pokedex in Pokemon Blue. It took me years, I had to trade and trade back a Mew with my cousin and use a copy of Red to get all the starters and exclusives, but I did it. The certificate didn’t feel like a good enough reward, but looking back, I do think the experience of collecting all those Pokemon was the real reward itself. I also spent dozens of hours playing with only Magikarp in my team, and I swear I got Splash to actually deal damage one time.
My best friend and I once spent an entire day playing an F1 game that I hated. I was sick of losing to him so got him to play the main game and acted as the commentator. I pretended that each new race was a new friend and he drove like we thought they would. We’ve both never laughed so hard before or since that day.
I know Metal Gear Solid 3 like the back of my hand. I can walk you through that game without looking at the screen and tell you all about the optional encounters or items you’ll need and can get. I purchased my copy for £1 because the local game store had an offer that dropped the price if you traded in 4 other games. Yes, I traded in 4 absolutely awful and worthless games. No regrets.
I was the first person in my school to get GTA San Andreas when it launched, but no one gave me credit, so please do, dear reader! Me and my friends played the game for days and one of them spent a full 2 hours looking for a Remington car. When he got it, he immediately crashed and set it on fire. As it rolled off down a cliff and exploded, he shed a genuine tear.
Thank You
Okay, that is it from me. I wanted to end this by saying that I know how privileged I am to be in this job and generally in life compared to others. I don’t take it for granted and work extremely hard to write what I believe is the best work I’ve ever created. I promise to never stop trying as hard as I possibly can to bring you the next news, write the most in-depth and accurate guides, or thought-provoking features in games journalism. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and anything else I have ever written.
Published: Jul 13, 2023 10:21 am