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Hey, new girl.
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Hey.
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And breathe.
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Greg Miller
What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kinda Funny Games cast for Wednesday, January 21, 2020 26. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside writer, editor, video host Matt Kim. Hi. Hi, Matt. You just came off a stunning kind of funny games daily. Great job.
Matt Kim
It was a really good show. I really enjoyed it.
Greg Miller
I'm glad we finally got to do this. Like you said on that show, I'd been trying to get you on the show for years and years and years. Then you moved away, then you moved away, then you moved back. Exciting for me.
Matt Kim
Yeah, exactly. Specifically for this.
Greg Miller
Just for this? No, of course. Matt, if somebody doesn't know you worked at I years. More than six years.
Matt Kim
Yeah, a little over six years. Yeah.
Greg Miller
And then you got laid off over the summer.
Matt Kim
Yes.
Greg Miller
As part of the changes at ign. And there's a lot of that happening in the industry. A lot of changes in the industry, whether it be developers or games media. So I figured when you were in, I was like, why not do an episode. So you've been laid off. Games Media Edition everybody. If you didn't know, this is the kind of funny games cast. We talk about the biggest topics in video games each and every weekday live on Twitch TV. Kind of funny games YouTube.com Kind of funny games podcast services around the globe. If you are watching live and have a question about what it's like in the games industry right now, if you should get into it, anything under the games media sun, super chat it as we're live. YouTube.com kindafunnygames thank you. Because of course we couldn't be part of the games media if it wasn't for our Patreon producers over on patreon.com kinda funnycarljacobs Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. You're the best. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show. So you've been laid off. Games Media Edition.
Matt Kim
Yes.
Greg Miller
Where do you want to start? Mac, I hear. I guess the most important thing. Matt Kim. We'll start with the headline part of it.
Matt Kim
Okay.
Greg Miller
So you've been laid off.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
I want to know what that moment was like and then I want to talk about how you got to that moment. What your what your path to Games Media and IGN was.
Matt Kim
Okay.
Greg Miller
But take me back to August. July.
Matt Kim
August. Yeah.
Greg Miller
Normal LA day. It's smoggy. Will Smith drives by you. You're out there just doing the damn thing.
Matt Kim
It was a beautiful LA day. I do remember this. The weather. I don't. So I don't know how much. I don't know how much actually I can actually share about the actual.
Greg Miller
Please. Yeah. To be clear, we're not trying to get in trouble.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
We're not looking for dirt.
Matt Kim
But, but, but in for. I think for anybody who's ever been laid off from a. From a corporate setting.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Matt Kim
I think it's very much like exactly that. Right. You wake up, a mysterious meeting appears on your calendar. You hop in for a meeting, you get some bad news. Your. Your. All your accounts are immediately shut off.
Greg Miller
You're locked out of everything.
Matt Kim
And then. And then you're just sort of. You just sort of. You know, you're. You was a. It's like that Simpsons joke where Milhouse's dad gets fired. Right. It's like, you know, that's it. Good luck and goodbye. Like I don't remember saying good luck. No, they were kind. They were. They did say good luck. So I did get that. And, but, but then. Yeah. And then and then you just have the whole day for yourself. And then, then the day. Days turn into weeks and turns into months and then it's been. But like, like I said, I think I announced this on LinkedIn. I have a very supportive girlfriend and she gave me a lot of like flexibility to sort of not immediately go into panic mode, just jump into the
Greg Miller
first job you could.
Matt Kim
Yeah, it was just super nice. And then we moved. Right. And so then we moved up here. And so then a lot of the, like the post layoff time was taken up by packing up our apartment in LA and then moving all up here and then unpacking. So it was as far as. Yeah, as far as it's been. It's been kind of a whirlwind couple of months. And then this January really feels like the first sort of like, okay, let's, you know, let's buckle down, let's go out there and let's, let's see what's out there.
Greg Miller
And it worked, right? That's what got you on the show. You put up on LinkedIn. Following my layoff from IGN late last year, I found myself in a fortunate position where I didn't immediately have to go find work. Now, after a short break and a move back to the Bay Area from la, I'm ready to head into the new year, ready for my next opportunity. So if you're looking for an award winning writer, editor, media specialist and editorial strategist, check out my portfolio and let's talk. Yep, well written. You're a good writer.
Matt Kim
That's what my services are for.
Greg Miller
Here's my one question before I want to rewind Tom and everything. Did you expect it? Had there been rumblings? Because as somebody who lived through IGN layoffs and stuff, there was only one time ever I remember and it was Scott Bromley who called it the night before. He was like, no, I'm getting laid off tomorrow. And Colin was like, no, you're not. What are you talking about? Blah, blah. And then it happened.
Matt Kim
No, I definitely don't remember thinking that it was gonna happen. And definitely don't think it's gonna happen to you. Right. But like at the same time in
Greg Miller
the full stop you again, we're not this. Businesses are businesses and we have so many friends who still work at ign, yada, yada. If you were to say there's IGN layoffs tomorrow, who's gonna go? I would not have said Matt Kim, your name was all over the site. You had so many bylines you wrote all the time.
Matt Kim
But, but like all My colleagues. No one deserved to get laid off. Right. It was like. It was, I believe, eight of us on the editorial team and it was like. It was just.
Sponsor/Ad Reader
It.
Matt Kim
I can't speculate as to why. Of course, I don't know how it happened, but, you know, none of us deserve to get laid off. It was, it was bad all around. I think looking back in hindsight, you're kind of like, well, IGN has been doing sort of like small layoffs like over the past like three years, like annually, you know. And so I guess if you're looking at that way, you're like, well, I guess, yeah, that's been part of the pattern. But I think I definitely didn't wake up that day being like, I'm gonna get laid off.
Greg Miller
Final day. Stretch it out. Okay, so then rewind time for me, man. For you. How does this journey begin?
Matt Kim
This journey begins after college when I one day see a. And I had blogged about games throughout college. So I was always just like noodling words about games. And then I've. I've done like some like work for others from like small indie sites where I got no money and things like that, but that was like college stuff. Then one day after college, I actually see a job listing for a writer position for a website called Inverse. Back when they were still a startup.
Sponsor/Ad Reader
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Matt Kim
And they weren't looking for a games writer, they were looking for like an entertainment culture writer. So I actually began my career covering like Hollywood in la. Like I went to like, I interviewed like movie people and talked about like TV shows and things like that. And so that was sort of my start.
Greg Miller
Were you based in Hollywood?
Matt Kim
I was based in la, yeah. And so that's sort of like that gave me that like, I think because the Inverse was, I think primarily New York, but they need an LA guy and I have to fill that. Yeah. So I fill that role for them. And then. Yeah.
Greg Miller
What year is this? Ish.
Matt Kim
2015. Okay. Yeah, 2015, 2016 I think. And then yeah, that was like my full time, like my first like it wasn't full time writing gig, but it was like it was enough that I was able to quit my part time cash register job.
Greg Miller
Oh, where were you ringing people at?
Matt Kim
Daiso.
Greg Miller
Oh, okay.
Matt Kim
Really fun. And then really enjoyed it. But then yeah, and so like, like I wrote about, I wrote about like movies and TVs and comics and like personal finance, like all sorts of different things.
Greg Miller
And what was your degree in? What did you go to college?
Matt Kim
I went to. I got a degree in History.
Greg Miller
Oh yeah, okay.
Matt Kim
I mean, but like, like, okay, so like I've been explaining this, but like history is just. You read thousands of books and you collect millions of little data points and then you, you, you bring it all together. Jumping. Yeah. Jumble them into a, into a story that makes sense for people. And so like, no, not unlike journalism, 100%. Yeah. I had a, I think I had more fun in history than I would in a journalism classroom. I would say. But no, but it is to me. But okay, it is important to get journalism training. My first editors at Inverse were actual like, were like journalism trained editors and they showed me the ropes and they taught me like the basics and all the, all the like important parts. And so you do need a journalism like training and experience to do journalism.
Greg Miller
Okay, yeah, we'll get to all that. I know the amount of questions I get and I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this with you. The amount of questions I get of how do you do it? What about this? Am I too old? Is there enough room anymore? I always give these answers on Greg Ways and whatever and I'm confident in them. But I also, I'm always like, remember it's been 20 years since I was on the outside. Like I left IGN and started my own thing. So I'm, I'm, I see things, but I don't know what the day to day is anymore. But we'll get to all that. We'll get to all that. So you're doing inverse for a while.
Matt Kim
Doing inverse for a while. Then I move up to SF and
Greg Miller
then I get what brought you to set.
Matt Kim
Inverse did have an SF office and so I thought. But it was little to my knowledge. It was mostly just like the tech and engineering side of there. I kind of thought there would be, I don't know, I thought like, maybe I move up there and I can do some like, you know, start up a beachfront in the west coast. But instead that didn't happen. But I did get an opportunity to go into game starting full time when Cat Bailey reached out to me and was like, hey, you want to join us Gamer?
Greg Miller
We love Cat Bailey here.
Matt Kim
You want to join USgamer as my news editor? And I said yes. And so I did that for three years.
Greg Miller
Okay, okay.
Matt Kim
At in San Francisco. And then. Which I was, I'm super proud of the work that I did there. And it was, it was wonderful working for them. And then I got another call out of the blue from Tina Meaney, who was EIC at IGN at the time. And she says, hey, I really like your work. How about you join me at ign? And I said, well, I mean, look, I love US Gamer, but also like IGN is calling.
Greg Miller
So yeah, yeah, you got to go. You got to go. That's the big league.
Matt Kim
Yeah. And then I said, yes. And then so I. And then that was my last like success years.
Greg Miller
And so when they bring you in, is it straight to the news team? Like, I, you know, this is also the thing of like when people ask me even how IGN works, I'm like, I don't know. I stopped. I. You know, 2015 is where it ends for me of what it's like to be in the bullpen anymore.
Matt Kim
Yeah, no, it definitely. I was hired as a news reporter and I. Because I was doing news at US Gamer and so. And so Tina reached out to me and for specifically the news work that I was doing. So yeah, I joined immediately into the news team and just start getting to work there on the news side of things. And from what I hear, I did a lot of good work. And you guys cited me so that you were.
Greg Miller
You're frequent on kinda funny games daily. Back to the point where I was like, Matt got laid off. Matt got laid off. We hear him all the time.
Matt Kim
I know.
Greg Miller
So then we get caught up. Yeah. Layoff happens. You have this Runway to figure out what you want to do or think to breathe for a second. Is there a part of you that looks at the landscape and goes, I gotta get the fuck out of this. Oh man, I'm gonna go back to Daiso.
Matt Kim
Look, I would love. Daiso was a real steady and good employment. Good employment opportunity. No. Shame on Daiso. One great. No, it's. Yeah, it's one of those things where like, it's. It's. Yeah, it's like. I think. And you know, and this is just to highlight some of the stuff that's been happening, but I think like the Verge and Inverse also underwent some games. Games recently. So it's just. It's. It is bad out there. It's hard out there. And I think I made a post on. On Blue sky where I was like, you know, BS Tim survive till 25 became wait till 28, you know, and it. And it's. Yeah, so it's. It's one of those things where like, I love. I love working in a newsroom. I love the media industry. And I. And I want a strong like publication. Like, I want lots of publications. I want there to be as many magazines and websites as they Possibly can you know that all that can all like cover because there's. And that was one of the things that you feel happened around you while I was at IGN is that like when we were at ign, like all these sites started closing down, right? And suddenly. And while on the one hand you're like, oh well, like now I'm busier than ever, but on the other hand, like I should not have to. We should not be as IGN doing the work of like five other websites, you know, 100%. It is, it is tough. It's. And it's not just games media, it's like entertainment media and it's also the regular media.
Greg Miller
Well, I mean, you know the headline I put in, right? So you've been laid off whatever parentheses Games Media Edition. Because of course there's the game developer side where this continues to happen all the time too. And what's shocking for me being so old and having done this for so long, is seeing the layoffs evolve, right? Because when I was in my younger days at ign, right, and so I'm thinking I, I mean I'm, I can, I can, I can picture my old hutch. So I'm still thinking of the 2009 when we're in the old studio before moving downtown to the IGN Amazing space that they had 2010. But it was that layoffs weren't business motivated like they are now of stock prices, that they were motivated. The fact of okay, cool, it's time to finish our game. So we're ramping up the team. We're bringing on contractors or we're bringing on people that we say are going to be full time and then as soon as the game launches, we don't have to worry about DLC and patches and all the ongoing shit you have to worry about now. So we're going to lay off dozens of people who were there that made it, got us to launch. And so teams would have the core studio that you would then glom onto for lead up and then lose it all, shed it and then bring them back as you leave pre production on the next project. And that is what the layoff cycle was. And it sucked. And everybody hated it and wanted it fixed and wanted to figure out a way to be sustainable so you could live in again. You're making people move at the time, even back then to go tear up their lives, to go be part of these things. And now, of course it is. Let's get everything as a game, as a service, let's get everything as a live service. Let's Get a battle pass in there. Let's do this.
Matt Kim
It's an incredible contradiction that there are probably more games being made at any time in human history now, and yet there are constant layoffs everywhere in terms of people who get to make them right. And, and it's, and that's just the current mindset where the people all the way at the top believe that they can make a thing just as good as anyone else with fewer and fewer people. You know, that's true for games and that's true for publications, you know, and it's just. Yeah, and it's bad. That's my hot take. Is that.
Greg Miller
But you haven't, you haven't been shaken. You're committed. You're not going to go anywhere else to media.
Matt Kim
Yeah, I mean, I'm. No, hold on. Never say never. Never say never on that one. I mean it's one of those things where like I would like to stay in media, but like, I'm like, I'm. I around. I'm on the, I'm on the, I'm on an earnest job hunt right now and there are just no media jobs. There are no media jobs. And the few that there are, I am applying to. But like, I like, it's one of those things where like, it's like media, you know, a lot of people are looking for like, for people with my skill sets in terms of people who can write stories, just they want you to write stories for their brand and I'm happy to do so.
Greg Miller
Sure.
Matt Kim
And I like, you know, I would be happy to lend my skills doing that for companies, for outlets, for anywhere. But I do like writing, you know, so I just want to keep, you know, keep doing that and not not having to learn cashiering again.
Greg Miller
It's so different now. The tap to pay, it's very, you know what I mean? I, I don't. The one thing, because I'm a former cashier as well from Walmart, you know what I mean? And I just feel like nowadays it might be more fun because nobody uses cash. And remember in the old days when it would be the thing of like, hey, I'm giving, I ring you up and then I say, this is how much? And then they handed me money and then they would give me the change where they're like, now add that in. I'm like, I can't do that, sir. I'm stupid. Like, I don't. Do I give you more? Do I take less? I don't know. Lots of super chats, lots of stuff coming in from kind of funny folks. Kobe, aren't super chats just like you can on YouTube.com kind of funny games and says the games industry has been operating at an all time high and much of games marketing relies on games media. Why then is games media being impacted when it's so crucial to the business?
Matt Kim
Matt, that is a million dollar question, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, right, because now like we are effectively. We do effectively highlight the small. Like that's why people want IGN and GameSpot and polygons around is that there's only so much like an in house PR team can do. And we have all these platforms with YouTube channels and Twitter X accounts with millions of followers that if they can get coverage on one of our sites it blows up. Right. And that is a genuinely useful and enviable thing to be able to do. And that's something that we want to do if we see something cool that we're like this is from a small team or this is from a team that doesn't have the GTA 6 budget that can automatically just show up a little logo and immediately get 100 million views. Right. That's our passion, that is what we want to do. And the fact that it is being cut down is above my pay grade. Yeah.
Greg Miller
I mean why is games media being impacted when it's so crucial to the business? There's the doom and gloom answer to this and then there's like the real answer. You are a person not only of a. The small. We always talk about the pie of gamers. Right. And then the amount that would actually go to IGN or a website, then we're getting down to the amount that would watch a kind of funny video. Then we're down to you are a very special person who clicked on a headline that is not mass mainstream marketable. Right. You are here talk a very, very, very inside baseball part of the industry. So many Gamescast listeners saw this today and went oh, it's not a preview or a review. I'm not going to do that. Which is totally fine and understandable. So I feel like I can give you the doom and gloom answers better. Right. Where it's like games media is so crucial to the business. We enthusiasts, not even press fans, the people who would listen to this kind of podcast are such a small group. Yeah. Like we like to think that like oh well the Metacritic and this and all this really gonna. It really doesn't sway the masses on this giant scale. So when you're talking about why is games media being impacted the way it is I think it's similar to what we're seeing when we talk like we just did about Ubisoft or when I rant about EA or whatever where you get the big dot coms, the big sites. And it's not so much about the content on the site. Sometimes it is about the banner ads and the eyeballs coming to the site. And so you brought up you know, trying to spotlight a game that has a smaller reach and you know, indie game like even for us, even for a kind of funny a site that is so small in our community, so great if I put up game. You've never heard of Indie Review. The amount of people who click on that is so small. You know what I mean? Like the fact that people weren't learning about and Roger until Game of the Year when I talked about it in all these shows and blessing and streamed it. It's like there's been all these different avenues to get into that and talk about that. But not people don't want that necessarily. So why is games media being impacted when games are at an all time high? It's because sometimes for a lot of people the content isn't what people care about. Which is why to your point where I want more sites and I want to see stuff. I love seeing Game Informer be independent. I love seeing Giant Bomb being independent. I haven't had a talk, I have not had the chance to talk about it on content. I love seeing mothership launch.
Matt Kim
Yes.
Greg Miller
Hey, here is an. You know this. We have a feminist perspective on gaming. We're gonna come out. It's not gonna be daily updates. It's going to be well thought out and we need your funding. You need to pay for like. Yes, like that's what we need to do. And so games media and tell me if I'm off base cause I want your opinion obviously and I'm just ranting now but it's like is in such an interesting pivot transformation that we've been going through for a while where so many people point at kind of funny like oh man, you guys were ahead of the curve on Patreon and this, that and the other and we were on how we do it and now it's about things like mothership doing it as well and again for them having realistic expectations of success. So it is three of us and I don't know that. I mean I know it but I don't have my head the amount of people on motherships full time staff. But like there's three of us which means we have to make this amount of money, which means anything else is gravy, and we can pay it back and pay it forward and. Yeah, like, that is the future of where we're at.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
I think, personally.
Matt Kim
No, I mean, I agree with you. I think, like. And, you know, no one's starting. No one's starting, like, like these motherships to become, like, the next, you know, the Michael Bloomberg. Right? Yeah. Like, they want to. They want to pay their stuff. They want to make a living to. To. To do what they want to do, which is write about and cover games and cover the games that they want to cover. And they want to be able to do it without having to worry about going into bankruptcy if they ever, like, get sick at a hospital, you know?
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Matt Kim
And I. I want that to be the future. I. I, like, I want. I think. I think as long as the passion is there and as long as the people who have the. The verb to do it or are putting up. Putting up these sites or, you know, I want them to succeed, I also, you know, would like some more magazines.
Greg Miller
I like, dude, oh, my God. I. I have. You know, you're insulting it, of course, and shitting all over it. But as a journalist, right, And a degree in magazine journalism, like, I get so stoked now when the Game Informer hits and me and Ben sit there and go through it and read it together and he asks questions about games. And it's like, still such a callback to my life of an EGM person, you know what I mean? And, like, doing the Dragon Quest preview recently, I was like, oh, man. I went to the EGM archive and read all the coverage they did on it back in the day that I should have read, but I didn't back then. I'm an idiot. Like, that physical form factor, I would love to figure out and crack. I would love. And I mean, this is a future that doesn't exist, I'm sure, for us, but get to a point where there's enough kind of funny people that we could do a kind of funny magazine, you know what I mean? Have a really fun piece like that,
Matt Kim
you know, I just. It's just. I want more. And I don't think. I think there's sort of a worry. Some people say, oh, what if it gets crowded? Right? I'm like, I don't know, man. And, like, there's been, like, the news, the media industry was, like, so successful for, like, 200 years, you know, like, what changed in the last, like, 30 years that made it, like, all Of a sudden different. I feel like I know an answer, but I'm not going to say it on there.
Greg Miller
Oh, okay. Shit.
Commercial Narrator
Fuck.
Greg Miller
Is it the bad guys?
Matt Kim
Is that the.
Greg Miller
I think again that the crowdedness of it is such an interesting question about it. Because I think again, the kind of funnies, the giant bombs, the Mothership blog, by the way, I saw people I've never heard of this. Go to Mothership Blog. Also go listen to Chris Plants post games with Maddie. They did. And the co founder, whose name is escaping right now, they just did it last week. It was really, really good. Two weeks maybe. Anyways, crowdedness almost to a degree, I feel like is the monster in the closet that doesn't exist.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
And like, I would love to get to the point where it's so crowded that we're panicking about that. Right. Because right now it was when we started the Patreon. I remember what it was two months or within six months, easy allies started. And I remember. Or maybe it was Danny, but it doesn't matter. Both of them started so recent, so soon after us. And I remember being like, all right, here, our numbers are going to dip. Our numbers are going to dip on Patreon because they're coming to Patreon. And it was the opposite, Right. They brought in their fans who then we could get a convert a percentage of and vice versa. And it's the same thing now of when you're talking about let's throw an IGN and a game spot into the conversation, right? And this is maybe Pepsi Coke's a better example of it. There might be a crossover in those gigantic circles in the Venn diagram of people who can support both, but they pick one or the other. Yeah. When you're talking about things like us in these sites, we're talking about. You're talking about very small circles. So it's way easier to cross over. And it might. It could easily be the fact that the people who support a kind of funny and a Danny don't go support a mothership. But there are going to be that crossovers.
Matt Kim
It's. It is one of those things where, like, this is. This is sort of like we're moving towards the thing that people want in their lives, which is a greater degree of like customization for what they can consume for what they want to consume. Like, like all. I love the work that we did. IGN is a very generalist website. Right. Like, we cover everything, you know, and so we're, We're. We appeal to the biggest audience as possible. Right. But Like a mothership does it, right? A mothership has an audience and it's going for an audience that wants to read feminist criticism of video games. Right. And that is its own separate thing. And then at the same time you just like, well, let's say like, oh, you know, I'm really passionate about like feminist critique in games, right. And you can support mothership, but then you also are like, but I also really love how like games are being made by the people who make them. And then you can support like Matt Leone's, you know, right. His oral history program. Right. And those are two separate. Like those are not competing for the same audience. But if you happen to be interested in both things, suddenly you can now subscribe to both of them separately. And that'll be your sort of like news intake. You're sort of like media intake.
Greg Miller
And this is the same thing as you start spinning off of that Indian former with Jill. Right? I mean, Janet's on everything. Janet's an all purpose player, right? But pen to pixels for Janet or any of the podcasts you do or Min max or what, you know, I mean, like, there's so many ways to go. And again, it doesn't have to be you're getting the annual subscription from them. It can be you're contributing when you can. Or as we always talk about it, it's the view, it's the download, it's the thing. Like everybody's trying to make it work. And so the. As the cycle of the matrix continues, right. It's that funny thing of to rewind time to. When I was sitting in, you know, the suburbs of Chicago reading ign, not realizing that it, you know, I was reading Imagine Games Network and it was all these individual platform sites that came together that then became channels that then just became ign. You almost have a similar deal going on right now where you are on the information superhighway in the video game critique, whatever content grocery store and you have to go aisle by aisle and pick up what you want and put it in your cart rather than have it all farmed for you. But also I would say that you can easily subscribe to all these things and then you have your thing. Because that's what my Spotify looks like every day when I step out there and I'm like, who put up new stuff today? Oh man, Clubix had a new thing. Yeah, I gotta hear that. And then don't even get me started on substacks. Like, that's a brave new world of so much great shit's going on out there.
Matt Kim
Yeah, like, yeah, it's like, you know, it's like using Reddit. You can sign up for the specific subreddits that you want to do. You don't use all of Reddit.
Greg Miller
You know exactly the fire hose of content on Reddit. Well, it seems like this would be a great time to remind you that Kinda Funny wouldn't be here 11 years later if it wasn't for your support on patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple and Spotify. You can go there and pick up your Kinda Funny membership and of course get all of our content ad free. Get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and an exclusive podcast called Greg Way 15 to 20 minutes every day. And of course get good karma for supporting our 11 year old business. Of course get your super chats in so we can Continue this conversation YouTube.com kindafunnygames but right now, since you're not using your benefits, here's a word from our sponsor.
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Greg Miller
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Greg Miller
From the co writer of Rogue one Come see you in hell. A new Hollywood satire kind of like the studio, except you'd never get away with this on television. Starring Shannon Woodward.
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Greg Miller
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Greg Miller
You should Jon Cryer. You think I don't know bullshit when I hear it? I represent Sean Hannity and John Boyega.
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Greg Miller
Wherever. See you in hell. Wherever you get your podcasts and at See youeinhell tv. Hey, you. Join us in person for our live in review of Howard the Duck. That's right. Howard The Duck joins MCU in review. Wednesday, January 28th at 7:30pm at Cobb's Comedy Club for SF Sketchfest. You can come watch me do all the podcasts within a podcast you love. Andy will be going. Nick will be shopping for pants during it, but everybody else will be there too, for you to come hang out and see. All you have to do is go over to kind of funny.com sketchfest right now to get your tickets before they sell out. Because come and watching a bunch of people talk about a very old Howard the Duck movie is really selling tickets fast.
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Greg Miller
And we're back. Matt, I think I have a question here from Max Maddox Bennett. I want to get in in a second. But even before we get there, what's fascinating to me is something you talked about, right, of like, more games than ever. There's all this stuff happening, blah, blah, blah. I remember being on Game Scoops back in the day. And this is the old, old, old, old podcast room. So 2007, 2008. And Damon equating what we were doing, he's like, there are more rock stars in the world right now than there are video game journalists or whatever we called it at the time. And I remember being blown away by that. And then here we are again, as the pool continues to shrink. It feels like in terms of what I think the traditional path would have been, because you dial it back to me in fourth grade when I decide I want to write about video games. It was very easy, right? I will get a degree in journalism or writing, and I will go work at EGM. I will go work at GamePro. I will go like there were so many avenues, let alone the dot com boom of there was all this stuff, whereas now the pathways are so much more jaggy. Which leads to Max's question. Who wrote in, of course, for a Greg way. But I, and I answered this. But I want Matt's opinion since he's here. Hey Greg, longtime watcher, first time Patreon. Pleasure question for you. As someone who has been in games media and games journalism for a number of years and has seen how the industry has changed and fluctu. Would you advise people who want to be in games media to stick with it, slash, try it? Or has the window closed now that you're back on the streets? You know what I mean? Panhandling out there. I'll write game news for money. Do you say, Are you saying everybody stay away, don't do it? Are you still encouraging people to jump in the pool?
Matt Kim
Look, I think, I think. Okay, here's the real answer is like, for, like writing in general, for journalism in general has always been one of those things where you kind of do it on the side as hard as you can until it becomes like a full time thing and that you can, you can quit your cashier job to, to do. Right. Like it is incredibly hard to do it. Just jumping in full time right away as you only thing, as your only thing, right. You, you, you step in and maybe you. And but like getting in is actually easier than I think people realize. Right. Is you, you. And this is, I mean, okay, to be fair, this is how I did it back in 2015. Yeah, I went to websites that I liked that had, you know, content that I thought I could write for. Right. I would look up editors and their email addresses and I would just email them and I'd be like, hello, my name is Matt Kim. I'm a big fan of your site. I have this idea for an article and then you just, you send them off and then you're going to get a lot of hey, thanks for reaching out. No, we can't do this. But sometimes you can get like a little like, hey, yeah, absolutely, let's do it. And then that's sort of, that's how you do. And you do that enough times that eventually kind of becomes a full time thing. But to answer this specific question, has the window closed? It's definitely harder now than I think it is 10 years ago. It's definitely tougher for sure. But like, don't give up on your dreams would be my optimistic answer. But the realistic answer is Prepare for disappointment.
Greg Miller
That's a great way to put it. I think you're spot on. And I think the answer goes so much deeper than just like, is it a good time to try it or jump in or is the window closed? The window's never going to close. As long as there's content to be made and as long as there are even kind of funnies or whoever's indie formers.coms motherships, there's always going to be places that need content and need writers and need host producers. Whatever the thing you stumble upon. And I haven't done since 2015, I'm like, well, I haven't done it since 2007 or whatever. 6. It's the idea that. And I think, you know, I've been stealing this as I said I would as soon as I heard it the first time. I watched the John Candy documentary recently, right? I like me. And if they talked to Conan o', Brien, Conan, you know, convinced John Candy is his like group or whatever. Conan's group at Harvard convinced Candy to come down and speak there or whatever. Conan got to be the guy who went and picked him up from the airport, right? And so like he's talking, his experiences are strictly from a. I'm a fan and I'm dealing with this large guy. And at some point he said to John Candy, like, you know, I've been thinking about doing comedy. And Candy looked at him and said, you don't think you do. And I think that's exactly what we're talking about where the people who do this stuff, you, me, every other name you. I think people know out there, we gotta do this. I always knew that I was going to do this no matter what. And it was that drive and it was that fire and it was that passion. The people who. And this is not meant to insult anybody who's listening, who feel are gonna be the people I'm about to talk about. The people like I really want to. Oh, I've been thinking about it. Oh, it's like, no, like, you gotta go, you gotta be doing this. And I definitely myself, you I used to talk about all the time. Fourth grade I knew I wanted to do this. I want to go back and shake that fat little kid as a fat old man and be like, then why aren't you doing it? I knew in the fourth grade and I never wrote my. My first reviews I wrote were when egm in like seventh or eighth grade was like, we need a. We're looking for a part time editor. And I was Like, I'll write my first two reviews and send them in and I'm sure they'll be great. They were garbage. You know what I mean? Like, I should have been doing it every day. I should have been sharpening that pencil. I should have been sharpening that tool. And so to get to this point right here, what you're Talking about in 2015 is exactly what I used to do. Yeah, I was in Dan Shu's fucking email inbox all the time, asking inane questions, trying to act like I knew what I was talking about. But you know what I mean? Like, what should I major in in college? You know, should I get a Mac or a piece? Like, you need answer because nobody was emailing Dan.
Matt Kim
Shoot.
Greg Miller
But like, that is the thing of, like, the people who want to do this, the people that I've seen on the outside, where I'm like, oh, you're going to do this. Fucking Roger.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
When I met. When I didn't even meet Roger and I heard Roger the first time and then DM'd him and I was like, you're gonna work for us one day. You know, Here he is 11 years later out there regretting all of his choices, but that shines through and that is the way it is. And so, you know, I go back all the time of. Even though I have this great career and I got it very young, it was still like, I count all those applications I sent during college and never got a rejection letter. I count all the freelancing I did after college for inque, gamer and weird.coms that would give it to me. And then of course, like my story goes, if you've never heard it, you know, my Mizzou Edu email address gets shut down. I make a gmail, I contact IGN 13 times for 13 different jobs. Finally, on the 13th time, those first 12, never a rejection, never a response, right? 13th time I'm contacted, interviewed and hired within 24 hours. Yeah, like, my life changed overnight. And that's not how it works anymore. I don't think they would hire you sight unseen and not bring you to San Francisco from the middle of the country.
Matt Kim
Simple times.
Greg Miller
But it is still the idea that, like, you will stand out if you're doing this. And I think now more than ever, my advice has always been to do. But it is to do everything it is to. You should be reviewing, you should be making TikToks, you should be making podcasts and they'll take none of it is to. You're not doing any of that. To become the next big Tiktoker. It'd be great if you did. It'd be awesome for you if it did. It's more that you get it. So you're comfortable in front of a mic. So you're comfortable doing this. Because when I got contacted and hired on that 13th time, at the end of my first day, Chris Roper walked up to me and said, all right, any questions for us? And I said, yeah, why now? He went, what do you mean? I'm like, why are you? I applied all these times I've been applying in college. Why now? And he said, you proved you could do it.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
You would convince them to give you a blog and a column. And so you wrote every week and you wrote every day. And we finally saw that and understood that, oh, this guy's got something to say.
Matt Kim
Yeah. No writing, like, if you want to write about games, you should write about video games. You know, damned if it's ends up in a place, right? You should, like. And that's. And it's one of the nice things. Like, one. During, like, November, December, I was unemployed and have a job, right? But I just finished Dispatch. You know, I just sat through and I was playing like an episode a night, and then I finished it up, and I was like, I have 1600 words that I want to write about dispatch. Yeah. I had like, two thoughts. I had two headlines in my head and like 800 words a pop, and I just started writing them. And then I was, you know, lucky enough that I've been doing this enough time that I was able to, you know, reach out to Tam at Gamespot. I was like, hey, I have these two articles. I have these two pitches.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Matt Kim
About Dispatch. One of the best games I played this year. You want them? And thankfully, they were like, yeah, let's do it. And I was like, okay. Which is just like, you want to write? I finished up the games, and immediately I was just like, I just gotta doodle this down.
Greg Miller
Get something out.
Matt Kim
Get something out on this. And it's just one of those. It's like, definitely, if you're passionate about it and you want to do it, then you should just do it.
Greg Miller
Yeah. Another one that I heard recently was Michael Bean talking to James Cameron on his podcast.
Sponsor/Ad Reader
Right?
Greg Miller
And one of the things James Cameron was talking about with actors is like, actors loving the process. The process is part of it. I think so many people jump to video wall microphone. We're hanging out with friends. Like, I want to do that. It's like, well, you gotta Love. Not only playing the game, which sounds stupid, but then critically thinking and laying in bed every night being like, all right, well organize this thought, let alone writing, if you want to do that, what's it like to write that? What's it like to write a script? What's it like to do? Like you have to enjoy that process because if you don't like any of that, then this isn't going to be the end product for you.
Matt Kim
Like not to get like self help guru, you know, big megaphone guy. But you know, you really want to like impress yourself. Like sometimes you, you know, sometimes you write something and you write down like a little thought you had about a game and you're just like, damn, that was a really good sentence I just wrote.
Greg Miller
This goes back to how I tell people to approach making content now and making shows is that if you are going to make a show with your friends and you're going to do like ign, you're guaranteed to fail. There is an ign. Nobody needs another ign. What they need is an indie former. What they need is a mothership. What they need is specialized content. And more importantly, at an even more boiled down base level, what you need to be doing is making content you'd want to consume. Yeah, that's the biggest thing if you're impressing yourself with your writing. Like the amount of times I get in a car and I'm like, man, kind of funny. Content was great today. Yeah, I want to listen to more of it. Like I was on everything today sucks. That sucks. And I'm not knocking out. You know, I have to be in a mood for post games. I have to be in a mood to go over here and jump into stuff or listen to Jason Schreier. Like I have different seasons I need to be in or whatever. Like you should enjoy what you're making.
Matt Kim
Yeah. Oh yeah. If you're not having fun, you know, don't do it, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
Greg Miller
This is an interesting one. I saw that. I think about every now and again and it will catch up to me, I'm sure, one day. And it kind of already has. Let's get into it. In the Twitch chat, hornetselestials8.04 said, maybe this is YouTube. I apologize if it was. I wrote for over. I wrote over 1,000 articles for a website called PC Invasion. A year after my layoff, the site owner took the website offline. All of our work was just gone. And I think about that a lot. You know, we're talking about you want to write, you have to like, for me, there's a very special time at IGN when, before my IGN started, where it was IGN blogs.
Matt Kim
Right.
Greg Miller
And it was Javi and it was Brit and it was Fozzie and all these community members and me and Showbot and like where we'd be writing content for the site, obviously, but then you'd go, I blogged every day for years over there. Just something I wanted to put it up. And not only did it make a community, it was my journal. And I thought that was so cool. And I wrote this entire, you know, my introductory, introductory piece, which now would be an IGN article. Article was a blog of, hey, Harry's almost died moving to San Francisco. And like, that's gone. That's lost the time. You know, my post about, hey, well, hey, I have cancer. And then, hey, I've beaten cancer. And all my thank yous to everybody, that's all gone. Because at some point IGN switched over their servicing thing and they killed blogs that way. And I was like, ah, that sucks that it's gone. I think about that all the time with the, the freelance stuff I did here or there, whatever, like trying to keep. If you are going to go into this, you need to be keeping your stuff archived somewhere. I worry about it, even with us in YouTube or whatever of where it can all go.
Matt Kim
Yeah, no, I have, like, I'm. I have a portfolio site that keeps all of my stuff that's, you know, like saved on the website.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Matt Kim
In PDF form. And then also if you do that one little trick where if you do a print page but then you can save as a PDF. Yeah, you definitely have to keep. Yeah, I've lost. When I was at US Gamer is gone now. Like all of US Gamer as a domain is, I think, gone. But luckily some of those articles were taken over to VG24 7 as like a really like, charitable act because I don't think they had to do that. So it's good that some of my US gamer articles are on VG24 7, but most of them are gone for good.
Greg Miller
Yeah.
Matt Kim
And I definitely think, yeah, it's one of those. It's one of those things where like new digital age, like you like at the time you could just clip out your newspaper clippings or your magazine pages and you just have.
Greg Miller
And that's what's so crazy to me, like, you know, being a kid of this generation. But like, I have this weird like in between, like I'm, you know, I was there for the baton passes. I remember life before the Internet and after it. And so like in my blue bin in my basement in the back corner are just copious piles of the Tribune that I wrote for. And then also my journalism, like when I did J200 or whatever, it was where I wrote for the local paper that's part of the school. Like, I have all my clip outs pasted into it. And then I remember doing that, like, even then this is archaic. And then it's like, well, now shit's just gone.
Matt Kim
You know what I mean?
Greg Miller
Because I wasn't keeping a spreadsheet and print to this and do this.
Matt Kim
It's awful. Oh, man. Magazine writing. My white whale.
Greg Miller
Yeah, you never have.
Matt Kim
I've never gotten the print by line.
Greg Miller
Game Informer, what are you doing over there?
Matt Kim
I should hit them up. Game Informer. Expect my email.
Greg Miller
Do me first, though, because I, I. When they were like, I want to write something like, yeah, sure. And then never.
Matt Kim
They might do that to me too.
Greg Miller
I probably have to pitch them. Who's got the time?
Matt Kim
Who's got the time? So busy.
Greg Miller
Let me write about Vanessa Carlton. We have some more super chats in here. I like this one for shout outs of stuff, of people doing similar things or cool things. Ambrosia Jam points out also a unique amalgamation. God damn it, I know the word, but you know, I'm trying to say here.
Matt Kim
Amalgamation.
Greg Miller
Amalgamation. Thank you. It's. I got a stupid mouth of this conversation is Kit and Krista. Shout out to K and K. Y' all should bring them on the show. They've been on before. Kid and Krista have done stuff with us before, for the record. But yeah, we love Kit and Krista, of course, who were the face kind of of Nintendo Right for so long. Then they left and they do their own thing and their insight's awesome. When Doug Bowser retired and all that, that was the first podcast I went and listened to because I knew they had the inside dirt on what was going on there, the legacy and how they're passing the baton there. I thought that was all great. The Portland Kevin said I'm in my 40s and I wanted a podcast about games for decades, but I only started doing it a few years ago. You just have to do it. And then a shameless plug. P.S. game Club. So there you go. P.S. i'm sorry. P.S. plus Game Club. Go listen to that over there. Same thing here, Foxy Steve. I started podcasting and content creation 2013 and all it was was my iPhone on a stool in my basement. You got to start somewhere. Yes, this is another Old Greg adage of the number of people who show up at meet and greets back in the day or autograph signings. Oh, me and my friend want to do it or why aren't you doing it? Oh, well, he doesn't have the right mic and I'm like, no, it's going to be trash. Just go do it.
Matt Kim
Let's do it.
Greg Miller
Talk it. Don't even record it if you want. But like, you get out there and
Matt Kim
start going, all you need is a dream and a song in your heart.
Greg Miller
That's all it is. That's what you need to do.
Matt Kim
Yeah. And an iPhone. At this point, all you really need is one iPhone.
Greg Miller
It used to be so complicated to do any of the things we did, and now you can just do everything amazingly for the thing that's in your pocket already. You're just playing bad games on to begin with. So, Matt Kim.
Matt Kim
Yeah.
Greg Miller
What's next? Where do you. Where do you go from here? You know what I mean? We. You're back. It's January. New life, new. We've relaunched you.
Matt Kim
Oh, yeah.
Greg Miller
What do you want to accomplish? What's up next?
Matt Kim
What do I want to accomplish? Let's see. You know, it's truly should have come prepared. And I really wish I had something other than like, find a job, you know, but like, a job would be nice. Like, unemployment's been kind to me, kinder to me than I think it has to been to other people. And my sympathies are with them. Yeah. But yeah, employment sounds good. And whether that's in media or whether that's in something else, I would hope that it's still in games because that is what I've spent a lot of my time and passion on. And I'm still something that I'm clearly passionate about because being here, I'm just like, man, I love talking about games, so hopefully still in games. But other than that, I don't know what. Okay. Actually, I was telling my girlfriend this, and this is something that I was excited about, is okay, whatever I'm going to do next is going to be different from the thing that I've been doing for the last nine years of my life, which is a long time to do one thing, which is writing about games. And whatever I do next is for sure going to be different. And so I'm excited about whatever that is. I don't know what that is.
Greg Miller
Well, I'm excited to see it happen. Matt, you know how much I love you, how talented I think you are, how much I enjoy your work. I'm happy you're back in the bay too, because now I can bug you to come up here more.
Matt Kim
I know, right? It was great. I'm glad we were able to finally make this happen after multiple sort of false starts.
Greg Miller
Yeah, yeah. But you can't look so good when you show up. You also had this great coat when you walked in. It's cold.
Matt Kim
It's cold. Which means all my winter clothes are back out of storage.
Greg Miller
Winter clothes?
Matt Kim
Yeah, winter clothes.
Greg Miller
Rest of the country laughing at us. Our final super chat comes from eboss22. Leave it on this camera. I can't tell who's taller. I need a back to back. I'm six.
Matt Kim
Pretty close.
Greg Miller
Pretty close. No, if you're an audio listener, it's
Matt Kim
not close at all.
Greg Miller
I dominated them, but the, the chairs, they make it look different. Matt, thank you up here and hanging out with us today.
Matt Kim
Thank you for having me.
Greg Miller
Of course. Everyone, thank you for watching. Keep up with Matt. What's your preferred social media to be followed on?
Matt Kim
I am primarily, I am exclusively at this point on Bluesky at Law of td. But I think if you just look up Matt Kim, my face is my profile. So just, you know, it's right there.
Greg Miller
Easy enough. Okay, cool. And if you need to hire Matt Kim, go to LinkedIn and find him there.
Matt Kim
That's true. Okay, great.
Greg Miller
Matt, thanks again for coming through here. We got the BS up there for you right now, everybody. Of course. Thank you for watching another episode of the Kinda Funny Games cast. Remember, we are all about live talk shows so you could be record them. YouTube.com kindafunnygames Twitch TV kindafunnygames Podcast services around the globe. We'd really like you to pick up a membership. Patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple Spotify. You do that of course. And you get everything ad free. You get the ability to get me and my podcast 15 to 20 minutes every day called Greg Way. And of course you get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. The day is not done. Joey and Nick are gonna run a restaurant full of rats. I can't wait to see this. But if you're not joining us on that stream until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.
Release Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Greg Miller
Guest: Matt Kim (former IGN writer, editor, and host)
This episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast pivots from the usual game reviews and previews to address the major, current topic of layoffs in games media. Host Greg Miller welcomes Matt Kim—recently laid off from IGN— for a candid, inside-baseball conversation about career turbulence, shifts in the industry, and the realities facing both current and aspiring games journalists. The show explores personal experiences, industry patterns, and practical advice for those hoping to enter (or survive in) the games media world.
[03:38 - 06:13]
[07:19 - 11:36]
[12:04 - 14:52]
“The people all the way at the top believe they can make a thing just as good as anyone else with fewer and fewer people. That's true for games and that's true for publications… and it’s bad. That’s my hot take.”
— Matt Kim, [15:13]
[15:21 - 17:56]
[17:01 - 21:10]
[21:10 - 27:10]
[30:32 - 41:17]
“You want to write about games? You should write about video games. Damned if it ends up anywhere, you should just write.”
— Matt Kim, [37:58]
“Make content you’d want to consume… If you’re not having fun, don’t do it.”
— Greg Miller, [40:34]
[41:17 - 43:39]
[43:52 - 45:18]
[45:28 - 47:38]
This introspective, advice-rich episode offers a rare look inside the emotional, professional, and economic challenges sweeping through games media. Both hosts are candid yet passionate, providing a nuanced reality check and encouragement for anyone navigating (or entering) this field.
For those seeking wisdom on breaking into games journalism or weathering its storms, this episode is essential listening!