A life in games journalism – Maximum Power Up Episode 103

More than a CV and considerably less restrained: two hours of magazine launches, deadline pressure, unlikely trips and the people behind a career in games journalism.

Episode 103

Originally released on 9 September 2020, this episode of Maximum Power Up is a long-form interview about my life in videogames journalism. It begins with my first break on ST Action under editor Nick Clarkson and follows the route from staff writer to editor as the Atari ST market began to contract.

The conversation moves through Mega Action, the Bad Influence! magazine and television orbit, the Europress years and the company’s acquisition by IDG Media. From there it reaches PlayStation Pro, its famously laddish covers, GamePro UK and several other magazines that rarely receive much attention now.

What we talk about

• Getting started: joining ST Action, learning the trade and eventually becoming editor.
• A changing magazine market: what happened as the ST declined and the publishing business moved towards new consoles.
• From print to television: working around Bad Influence! and the peculiar overlap between games magazines and children’s television.
• The PlayStation years: launching and editing magazines during one of the industry’s fastest periods of growth.
• Life beyond the page: games events with the team from Loaded, an unplanned journey to Mexico and the stories that never fitted into a masthead.

Why it belongs in the archive

Magazine credits record the finished work, but they rarely preserve how it felt to make it. This interview fills in some of those missing details: the mentors, daft decisions, changing technology and chance encounters that connected one publication to the next.

There is no official transcript or chapter list for the episode, so this page preserves the original uninterrupted programme and a guide to the ground it covers. The audio streams from Maximum Power Up’s original host.

Listen on the original Maximum Power Up episode page (opens in a new tab)

Find Maximum Power Up on Apple Podcasts (opens in a new tab)