Tell someone that you’re a video game journalist and chances are—they’ll think you play games all day. If there’s one thing I learned from my internship at GamerBraves, it is the fact that that is hardly ever the case.

Sure, throughout my 3-month-long internship, I did get to play a few video games. However, the greatest fulfillment is not the games. Rather, like any proper career, it is being able to look back and see how far I have grown since day 1.

Write and Wrong

As someone who studies film for his higher education, I can safely say it was a wrong move. Thanks to the ongoing lockdown, the film industry here in Malaysia is hit really hard. Logically, I moved to the industry that is performing better than most during the pandemic season—video games.

Without any design or programming knowledge, the next best thing I can offer is being able to write, because that constitutes the bulk of my work as a video game journalist. Writing about video games, tech or even the occasional film or anime news is my bread and butter.

Besides covering news, I also wrote content such as guides and reviews. Besides making sure that the information I share is accurate, SEO (search engine optimisation) also plays an important role in getting more readers. Despite not having any SEO knowledge when I first started, the team here taught and guided me—ultimately resulting in articles such as this:

I probably would have never learned about SEO writing, but being able to learn this on the job is a huge plus. From someone with no journalism knowledge whatsoever, I was able to learn how to write with the inverted pyramid in mind and even how to use certain plugins to keep this article organised. There are lots of opportunities to learn on the job and many of these skills are even transferrable to other fields.

GamerBraves and sister site support

Being able to hit our targets and KPI is not easy. Even though most of the writing is done individually, there is a lot of support, advice and feedback that I receive during my internship from the team here at GamerBraves. The same goes for our sister sites, Wanuxi and Gamer Santai which deal in Chinese and Malay content.

The majority of the staff here are writers, and basically every single person at the office is a gamer. Everyone is easy to talk to and is incredibly helpful. In addition, a huge advantage of working with our Chinese and Malay sister sites is being able to understand news in other languages. For example, we are able to understand gaming news from China a lot easier and would be able to write our translated articles much faster as a result.

Everyone shares a similar goal on top of the shared passion that is gaming. We work hand-in-hand attending and covering gaming conferences, sharing our review notes for the upcoming AAA game or interviewing industry big shots. Every team has their own specialities and areas that they are proficient in. Even though we cover news in different languages, there is hardly any language barrier at the office.

Make your friends jealous

Writing news and other typical journalist shenanigans, there are nice perks here at GamerBraves. We regularly get to try out video games and other products such as laptops and smartphones before they are even released on the market. 

Of course, the caveat is that we have to adhere to NDAs (non-disclosure agreement) and the like. In addition, the deadlines for video game and product reviews can be quite tight, but being able to complete these tasks is rewarding overall. Personally, I vastly prefer spending my weekend playing through a game for a review rather than spending that whole time staring at spreadsheets or emails like a lot of other jobs.

Also, another great thing is that the company is practically running on all cylinders—even when everyone is working from home. As long as I have my laptop and a good internet connection, I can do my work anywhere, anytime. The only instances where I had to come to the office was to review games on the PS5 (since I don’t own one). 

Occasionally, we can even bring the latest gaming laptops or smartphones back home to review. I barely had any clue about phone specs or technical PC lingo before, but I am now “that friend who everyone comes to for gadget advice” thanks to that.

Moving forward

Even after my internship is over, I am still working as a video game journalist here at GamerBraves. At the time of writing, I am still waiting for lockdown restrictions to ease so I can finally shoot my short film and complete my final year project for my degree.

If you also feel that being a video game journalist is something that you see yourself doing, guess what—we are looking for more interns! We are open to having more interns joining our team as journalists and video editors. Feel free to click on the hyperlinks to learn more about these positions.