Best Friends and BEYOND!

This blog exists because of my loving wife, Aliera, and best friend (his words), Greg Miller. My entire life I wanted to cover video games professionally. My goal at six was to don the mantle of Sushi X, a mysterious reviewer for Electronic Gaming Monthly. I mentioned this to my mom; she shook her head and said I should find a reasonable job. I would bring up the idea of games journalism as a dream job but teachers, friends and colleagues indicated that it wasn’t likely. Well, that was that. Dreams crushed. I went to college, started a job in finance and my only contribution to the industry was purchasing content.

I started listening to Podcast Beyond around 160 and anytime someone asked how to break into the industry Miller would respond “all you have to do is write every day.” I thought it was great advice for all the kids out there in school and trying to break into the field. I was going to reconcile dividends, continue playing games and not think twice.

I wouldn’t consider myself slow, but it took years of encouragement from my understanding wife as well as Miller screaming in my ear week after week before I realized that I didn’t need to work at IGN to start writing about games. It wasn’t the first time Miller offered this advice to a listener but one time it finally clicked “this is the best time to break into the industry. You can start filming yourself, writing what you want and just creating content. Don’t care about views, likes or anything else except for honing your craft.”

I owned a keyboard, semi-reliable Comcast internet connection and twenty-five years of gaming experience. Holy Sh*t! I already possessed everything necessary to start covering video games. I wrote my first piece, sent it to my wife who was thrilled that I was creating something for the first time since college. I thought it was only going to be once and awhile thing, but Aliera had other plans. She fanned the spark of creativity: helped brainstorm the blog name, setup a WordPress account, purchased a domain, found a template and practically forced me to start a new ongoing hobby. I was thrilled every step of the way!

Greg Miller provided something I didn’t realize I needed, a role model. His tale of rejection from IGN thirteen times before being hired, devotion to his craft, honest feedback and warm personality helped me understand that this was a sector of the industry that wasn’t closed off. It didn’t matter if only you, myself and the spam-bots read this post…I was still contributing to the conversation.

Miller is always courteous to fans, willing to kneel down for a selfie, approve 1,000 friend requests manually or respond to thousands of comments. He doesn’t put on airs and is just in the business because he is Greg Miller. He is unabashedly biased to the Playstation brand but never falls victim to fan boy blindness. Greg remains humble to his success and seems genuinely surprised to command the following he does. He is an excellent example for anyone covering games professionally or as a hobby.

Today, Greg creates Kinda Funny content which is worth your attention. Aliera supports me emotionally and creatively every day, is the lucky editor who always reads my posts first and fixes any comma splices. And I’m living my dream job; covering the industry, talking to fans, reviewing games and seeing my blogs on the front page of IGN.

Thank you Aliera, thank you Greg, you’ll always be my favorite IGN personality, and thank you, yes you, for reading! This is Sushi-X (no one else is using the nom de plume), until next time; Level Up Friends!