[internisus]

In the interest of honesty, I'll preface up-front by clarifying that this job only pays actual money depending upon monthly website visitor counts. However, I hope that you'll read on because this isn't a huge time burn and is actually a pretty cool opportunity to self-publish basically whatever you want under the banner of a recognized videogame media company that's been around for a long time.

As I've mentioned here and there, I was brought on as a writer a short while ago for GamePro's new Metal Gear blog. The guy who was acting as editor got promoted or was offered a better job or something, and he recommended me to be the new editor. I got in touch with a senior editor at GamePro, and he asked me some questions. I responded with a long email that pleased and excited him in ways that I cannot imagine; I'll reproduce most of this email below so that you can see what I want have in mind for the site. Before that, let me lay things out.

I'm looking for three to five people, although I'm open to having more. I know most of you guys and your writing; I'd really like to recruit from this pool because the kind of thing we do is the kind of thing I want. You can write news, regular content, or features as often as you like; news will take some coordination so that multiple people don't write up the same material, and I've got a friend who is probably going to act as News Director. I think that two to three normal (non-feature) posts per week is a realistic goal for each writer and will result in a nice, steady stream of content.

You can write basically whatever you want (within sane limits; "GamePro sucks lolz" isn't going to make the cut, and it has to be related to the Metal Gear franchise). You'll get a feel for the sort of content that I have in mind to write myself in the email below, and I think this will give you a sense of what I see the overall variety of content looking like. Also feel free to browse through the site. If you can do the kind of writing that Ben did regularly, that's cool; I can't, really, so you should look at a few of my posts to see that angle as well. (Just by the by, I've been extremely busy for like the past five days straight and haven't been posting consistently; I'll probably have two or three new posts up in the morning.)

Money works like this: On a monthly basis, for every 250,000 increment of page views we reach, I get $250 to divvy up, up to $1,000. There are built-in buttons on each post for Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook, and Stumble. I'm totally new to this whole promotion thing and don't know much about what those web 2.0 things can do yet. I'm going to talk to my senior editor tomorrow about strategy, though, and I hope to eventually have a routine in place for promotion. I know that I'll wind up going around to MG fan forums and spamming, at least. But you guys probably have more perspective on how hard it is to reach 250,000 or 1,000,000 hits in a month than I do.

The way I see it, the thing to do is to have a tight team working consistently on the site and forging it into a really diverse and intelligent place to talk about all kinds of Metal Gear stuff; once the identity is in place, it should grow as a community pretty naturally.

I think I've covered everything. Like I said before, I think that the most important thing here is the freedom and opportunity to publish your own writing under an established media name; this is an open door. I mean, I can put "editor" on my resume now, roll it up, and smoke it like a cigar. And I can link game journalism sites to my own writing that's been published by another game journalism company. That's hot, right?

Let me know if you have any questions, privately or in this thread. I'll probably post this at TGQ also... and possibly IC.

Okay, here's the email I wrote to the senior editor and creative director:





I have a lot of ideas for OMG Metal Gear. Let me say up front, however, that none of this is meant as criticism towards Ben; he's done good work in posting regularly and building a base of content for the site. He's also been a very friendly and helpful contact.

Sid, you asked me some specific questions structured as three topics, so I'll try to respond accordingly.


1) What's your general vision for the site? What's a "worthy post"? How will you differentiate between worthy news and unworthy stuff?

A blog dedicated to a single franchise is very specialized in scope, but it also needs to feature a strong variety of content relating to its subject if it is to have lasting appeal among the wide demographic range of that franchise's fanbase. Most (though certainly not all) of the news items that Ben posted fall into two categories: 1) updates regarding MGS4 such as demo impressions, pertinent industry news and speculation, comments or public statements by staff related to Sony or MGS4, etc.; and 2) a kind of alert and archiving of Metal Gear fandom occurring elsewhere on the web--stuff like that MGS drinking game, a webcomic strip he came across, lists featuring Metal Gear, etc. Both of those categories are important to a site like this, so I would definitely like to have contributors on board handle them. I've been talking to a friend about the possibility of his acting as a kind of news director for the site; these kinds of posts would be in his jurisdiction.

In the meantime, I've taken Ben's advice and set up some Google News service updates for myself to receive daily keyword hits. I'll be watching for these kinds of items. But I certainly don't want to post them indiscriminately. Today, for instance, I came upon (yet another) parody video made by an MGS fan. It was hyped as being pretty funny, but I was completely bored and quit within a minute. I have no intention of posting about that video. It didn't capture my interest either on its own merits or as an original comment upon the Metal Gear franchise, so why should I waste potential readers' time with it? I think the same basic criteria apply to MGS4-related news; as we close in on the game's launch date over the next few months, not every announcement or demo impression is going to be worth highlighting.

A good news contributor can judge these items both 1) as a fan him/herself and 2) by considering them objectively. I dropped the parody video because it failed on both counts. It didn't engage me as someone who really likes Metal Gear Solid, and I don't think it has anything to offer others, either. Another way to explain is this: Not everything Ben posted interested me as a Metal Gear fan. For example, he wrote up a feature tying various characters to drugs that induce effects similar to their characteristics. I don't really care for this kind of thing. I know it when I see it; it's a fairly common type of goofy writing that provides a form of tangential fanservice. But I know that many people do like this sort of material, and Ben did a really tight job of it, so I'm very happy to have it on the site.

I would not and probably cannot do this sort of feature writing, but I definitely see the need to have a regular contributor who can.

Generally, I think the site needs to branch out a lot. Metal Gear is an incredibly rich franchise, and I want to bring in people who are eager to talk about them as videogames and not just practice being fans so that other fans will visit for a brief giggle. I want to write a negative review of The Twin Snakes, the unnecessary and grossly over-the-top Gamecube remake of the Playstation classic. I want to talk about the merits of relying heavily upon cutscenes in an interactive medium and what Kojima does with the technique--as well as the playable cinematographic metaleptic set pieces, such as asking the player to pull the trigger and shoot when Grey Fox is in the line of fire only to have Snake say "No! I can't do it!" I want to do a "Theme of the Week" series that discusses a literary, philosophical, or political topic that runs through Metal Gear's dense narrative.

But, on a different note, I also want to do a running series of "The Weapons of Metal Gear" posts that give some description and history of the real world counterparts of the SOCOM, the M1911A1, the Davy Crockett, etc., and each of these types of contributions will appeal to different types of fans. A franchise-specialized blog is the perfect place to bring them all together and develop a devoted and broad readership. No one of these kinds of writing is inherently better than the rest, and judging the worthiness of any topic or contribution needs to occur on an item-by-item basis rather than with sweeping generalizations. The best way to maximize the potential of a blog about Metal Gear is to explore as many ways of talking about Metal Gear as possible and secure interested readers across the board.

2) What's a basic guideline for your posting frequency? How many posts do you plan to write a week?

But in order to do that, a strong and diverse team of talented contributors is necessary. No one person can write in so many different ways and do it well. I don't know who the other contributors are whom Ben signed up to post on OMG Metal Gear (and I say this while fully realizing that I myself should have posted more frequently over the past month or so), but they aren't bringing anything to the table in my view. I'd like to contact them, share these ideas you're reading now, and ask them to level with me about how serious they are about being involved. I mentioned earlier that I've been posting on forums such as www.selectbutton.net for years; I know a lot of smart, capable writers (and Metal Gear fans), and they know me. I want to use these community connections to recruit new contributors, and then I want to discuss with them how (or whether at all) to structure our writing for the site. One idea is to just allow a free-for-all, but I'd much prefer to think about the different types of writing that might happen here and put them into categories, letting each writer focus on what s/he does best.

In the meantime, however, Ben's frequent news and feature posts won't be showing up any longer, so while I work on the human element I figure that I'll have to try to post at least once a day. I've just posted a detail breakdown of the MGS Mobile game, and I've already got a news post (about the recently confirmed U.S. forthcoming release of the MGS Essential Collection) ready for tomorrow. I'll be checking my Google News updates daily, and if/whenever something interesting comes up I'll post a quick write-up at the very least. If nothing newsworthy shows up, I have plenty of ideas for content and features of varying length, including what I've written above and more that I'll share below. So although I haven't been contributing as regularly as I ought to have, I'm eager to step up now and should be able to post roughly once a day.

Once I have a strong team of contributors in place, I think it would be good if each of us posted 2-3 times per week. I envision 5-7 contributors, including myself. That may be too ambitious, however; it will take me a little time to get accustomed to how many newsworthy items appear weekly, among other things. I'm basically making these numbers up without much perspective, so they may be unrealistic. I think it's what I'd like to see, though.

3) Do you plan to write any original feature stories for the site? If so, do you have any early ideas?

Yes! I've covered a few of my ideas above, but I have many more. I keep a text file of topic ideas for the site, and I've got some half-written features in the works. Here are a few I can toss out:

* A forum member on Select Button recently posted some thoughts about the way in which Solid Snake evolves as a character in MGS1 in parallel to the player's uncovering of the conspiratorial plot. I'll quote him with a link to the thread and offer my own discussion.
* The 20th Anniversary Metal Gear event saw the release of a music collection whose first track is a 14-and-a-half minute orchestral overview of the series's music. It's really a glorious treatment. I've looked for a breakdown of which segments came from which game and turned up nothing, so I thought it would be neat to do it myself. That would make for a nice site exclusive.
* A narrative of my favorite way to play my favorite action set piece in MGS3 (the fight against the Ocelot unit the morning after meeting EVA).
* Individual commentary on interesting or exciting set pieces throughout the series--for example, The Ladder in MGS3, a very long and straight climb up a shaft during which distant strains of the Snake Eater theme waft in and out. There's nothing to do but climb and reflect upon what you've been through so far. It's been said more than once that this is the best "boss fight" in the game.
* Family Ties: A look at the familial relations weaving throughout the Metal Gear narrative and a comparison to Greek mythology such as the story of Oedipus.
* A highly favorable look at the webcomic The Last Days of FOX-HOUND.
* A discussion of Raiden as a postmodern integration of the player.
* A link to and discussion of a critical approach that I've found online to MGS2 whose thesis is that the game reverses the narrative and formal structures of MGS1 in every respect.
* Can Love Bloom on the Battlefield? Profile publicized romances between real soldiers. "Of course, these soldiers were on the same side... But it just goes to show that war can bring people together." (This is a pretty tentative idea. I haven't researched it at all.)
* The awful F.X. Nine novelization of the original Metal Gear that I loved as a kid.
* Easter egg arcs throughout the series, like the Raiden mask or Johnny.
* The Hind D connection.
* A look at the under-recognized character Nastasha and the novel-length text available from the main menu of MGS2.

I've got a lot more where these came from. I'm not sure if all of these are features, though. Some might simply be content.



[end of email excerpt]

[108]

whatever you do, don't link to my mgs2 article :(

i get at least two fresh hate mails about it a day, though usually i'm able to immediately convince myself that these people's opinions are invalid because they don't notice the date stamp.
_________________

[internisus]

Actually, I feel obligated to link to it eventually--when I or someone else has discussion or some response to it. I mean, every good piece of writing that is related to Metal Gear should eventually be linked and discussed on this site.

And c'mon, man, you get so many compliments on that piece. There are lots of people who know and like you because of that piece and that piece alone. And hate mail is fun anyway.

You don't want me to link it? Get me a real job. Lollers!

[psiga]

If I had ever played one of these games, maybe I'd contribute. And man don't even think of telling me that I could make a feature out of playing each of these games for the first time, all back to back like, because I am actively convincing myself not to do this.

Even when DesuJester was telling me that we had to play Snatcher after watching Blade Runner HD Final Cut ($66 on Amazon, and well worth your weakening american dollars), and I could not come up with a good reason not to, I still refrained. I still refrained.
_________________

[Adilegian]

[Touran]

This sounds like fun.

A website about Metal Gear with content I would actually read, (not counting Last Days of Foxhound which I do enjoy) would be appreciated.
_________________
Man, I'm sorry.

[Ratoslov]

If I didn't get writer's block when making grocery lists, I'd be on this like... like some kind of metaphor, can I get back to you on this?

[Brooks]

[shrugtheironteacup]

With the alteration of Fucking Konami Week I had hoped to escape from the attendant impulse to play Metal Gear Solids that were not 3 (the only I've ever played to completion). Now, Guardian, you have ruined it with your cry for contribution.

So I am resentful, and offer this useless post of resentment.

..anyway good luck with this etc.
_________________

[Renfrew]

I am a journalist major so this might be an exciting opportunity for me. I'll try to crank out a few pieces on various subjects and send them to you.
_________________

[CubaLibre]

[Ratoslov]

The M1911 is a pretty cool weapon. Despite it's low capacity, it's a very popular design for two major reasons. First, it has a remarkably low profile for a autoloader pistol, so it's a very popular gun for concealed carry types. Second, it's been around for almost 100 years now, and so it's become the Honda Civic of pistols. You can get all sorts of stupid after-market mods for Colt 1911s, and it's arguably the single easiest firearm to get replacement parts for anywhere in the world.

Of course, Naked Snake really would have been better served by carrying whatever pistol the GRU soldiers carried so that he could acquire new magazines, ammo, and suppressors that fit his gun, but that kind of stuff gets abstracted out.

[Renfrew]

Do you want these articles to be any sort of particular length?
_________________

[CubaLibre]

[internisus]

[shrugtheironteacup]

[internisus]

I just got off the phone with my senior editor. This is an even better opportunity than I had realized. He gave me tons of ideas on how to manage the site. It's going to be Great. I'm really excited!

[shrugtheironteacup]

I will bribe anyone who ends up writing about the m1911 to somehow work in my irrational hatred of forward slide serrations.

But I'm unemployed so this bribe might not amount to more than a handful of nickels.
_________________

[jack klugman]

[CubaLibre]

Intern, if I were to do a weapons thingy, how much relationship would it have to have to Metal Gear? Rather than just a little book report on the weapon divorced from any videogame experience. I've beaten all three Solids but it's been a while for 1 and 2.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me.

[internisus]

Jack, if you or Psiga want to do a regular featurette documenting your reactions as you play through MG games, I'm down with that. Hell, if you AND Psiga want to do that, I still like it. Those kinds of things are fun and interesting reading, and we could run a dozen sets of "My first time playing Metal Gear Solid!" before I would get tired of it.

Cuba, the way I was planning to do it was with very little connection to the games, so yeah a book report. Small exceptions would be noting the prominence of the LAM on the SOCOM in so much of Shinkawa's artwork, quoting and discussing the famous M1911A1 boner speech Big Boss gives to Eva and later, in more detail, to Sigint, etc. I think it would be good to compare basic functional aspects of weapons like the Stingers and Nikita in gameplay to their real-life capabilities. Military hardware like early night vision or stuff like the anti-aircraft guns you can use or the story of the Davy Crockett nukes--there's not much point in comparing that stuff to the game, so those would be more like book reports.

Basically, if you get to use a weapon or piece of tech. in a game and if its functionality is nuanced, then the item's game incarnation should be a part of the story for comparison. If you need to brush up, there's always YouTube.

The way I see it, the pieces would be incomplete if you missed the opportunities to talk about the virtual versions of the real weapons.



I think I should get Simon Belmont to do a design analysis of MG Rex.

[Touran]

A final good-bye to Last Days of Foxhound would be nice; but I'm of the opinion that I may be a terrible writer. I'm much better at observation and analyzing than I am at weaving lyrical tapestries.

The comic hasn't run it's course yet, but depending on how it ends I could attempt pulling something together.

If your friend is gung-ho about doing the piece by all means, let him have it.
_________________
Man, I'm sorry.

[internisus]

Okay, I get you. But don't talk like the comic's run its course; we've got 3 days a week for the next few months to look forward to. I'm hoping it will actually depict the events of MGS... but to have the main characters die one-by-one? On the other hand, I can't picture a final strip other than the one we already got that kicked off the comic's two-month or so hiatus, so, really, I don't know what will happen.

[Touran]

I would say that it's going to end with a comic like the hiatus one. There's still quite a few events that have to happen before Solid Snake arrives in a submarine at Shadow Moses, and more than likely will end with Snake getting on the sub, or being launched at the island.

A full re-telling of MGS is something the author could pull off - it just doesn't seem like he wants to re-iterate the story told in the games so I'm going with a no.

Seeing how close the author gets to the actual backstory Kojima has cooked up for MGS 4 will be interesting. It's something I'm looking forward too.
_________________
Man, I'm sorry.

[internisus]

He made mention of that too in that news post about hoping to finish before MGS4 messes up what he's laid down, but I don't see it. I don't think much or maybe even anything of the comic's original material will be paralleled by MGS4's story and revelations. There are only a few events prior to MGS1 that I can imagine MGS4 going into--like was Eva the biological mother to the clones?--and I don't see anything done in Last Days that is in danger of contradiction like that.

[Six]

I kind of want to write you a big piece about Johnny Sasaki, without a doubt my favourite character of the series. I mean, how could you not love him? He's the everyman! The bumbling, incontinent everyman.

Besides, he's actually going to be a semi-important character in MGS4, but most of the scenes and interactions with him (or his grandad) in the previous games are easily missed.

[internisus]

Yes! I know! And I myself haven't seen most of those scenes, I think. I really want that piece! You should absolutely do it, even if it's the only thing you ever write for this site; I'll make it a feature and have them put it up on GamePro's frontpage and give it all the promotion I can.

[Ashura]

It would be great if you could do some clips of him from the various games, too, like all the hidden stuff you can do in 2, as well as how you can harass him in MGS3.

"SOMEONE'S IN HERE!"

Adilegian and I were talking about proposing some stuff to you. I need to speak with him a bit more about it, however. We have a bunch of MG related stuff we've done that we've not shown anyone.

[parker]

What about an article discussing the similarities between Peter "Just Don't Call Me Peg Leg Pete No More" Stillman and the Family Matters Cop Guy's character in Die Hard 1? Or the influences of the 2003 films Tears of the Sun and The Hunted on Snake Eater, or other Badass Cinema influences on the Metal Gear Series?
_________________

[shrugtheironteacup]

[Pat the Great]

250,000 hits is a lot of hits.

especially for a blog that's devoted to one particular series. maybe if you guys had a forum or something, i could see it. but 250,000 hits to read about The Last Days of Foxhound, or a feature on Johnny Sasaki? i suppose it's nice to say you worked for GamePro...
_________________
-pat m.
twitter

[bleak]

Hi internisus, I sent you an e-mail. Did you get it?

[Mr. Mechanical]

There's a site I check almost daily for GTA4 news but the guy also covers MGS4 news just as extensively. It's located here: http://mattyblog.cookynet.com/

Basically anytime a web or magazine preview hits the public in any country you can count on this guy to have it on his site with descriptions and news tidbits filtered into nice little bullet points. Sometimes he'll even have scans of the magazine articles in question so you can read them yourself. Just thought I'd toss the link your way, Inty, since it seems it would be helpful in keeping up with all the latest news and speculations for your blog project thingy.
_________________

[les meat]

…unbelievable, people have so much time on their hands to waste on this
_________________