The Atypical Jobs of Typical People- Part I: Greg Miller
When The Roundup’s Editor-in-Chief, Blake DeLong, approached me about the idea to examine a variety of occupations I immediately had an idea as to who I would attempt to reach out to first. Greg Miller has been a writer and content producer for several different noteworthy groups ranging from IGN to Kinda Funny. All throughout his career, Greg has been covering things video game related in the industry along with DC Comics every once and a while. The Roundup had the pleasure of Interviewing Greg and several other members of the video game industry during and after RTX 2015.
Unlike the two lovely hosts of The Know (Ashley Jenkins & Meg Turney), that Blake DeLong interviewed at RTX 2015, Greg Miller entered the Gaming Industry through a more “traditional” route. Greg Miller attended The University of Missouri in Columbia, commonly referred to as Mizzou. While growing up in the Chicago-Land area Greg decided that he wanted to write about games. So he went to the best Journalism School there is in order to gain the skills necessary to cover this entertainment medium: The Missouri School of Journalism.
Greg, as a magazine student was a writer and covered stories for the student ran magazine Vox “for one semester.” Greg culminated this with his capstone at Mizzou “being an editor at Vox for a semester.” After graduation, Greg wrote for the Columbia Tribune “for a year and a half.” He then went to write for IGN for several years. During this time frame he covered all things Playstation related at IGN. From the Playstation Podcast Beyond, to IGN’s talk show esque Up at Noon, Greg succeeded in delivering enjoyable and informative content to the IGN community. He worked at IGN until this past January when he, along with 3 other coworkers/friends, decided to break away and form their own Channel on Youtube called Kinda Funny.
The first time I met Greg Miller in person was at RTX 2014, in Austin, Texas. For me personally, it was probably the peak moment of the entire event. Greg, along with several other content creators of the gaming industry (but him specifically), were and still are a huge inspiration to my writing and coverage of all things gaming related. After standing in line for over an hour, I was the first to meet Greg along with Adam Kovic who at the time still worked for InsideGamimg. I expressed to Greg my intentions to write about video games while he signed my Xbox 360 Controller that I broke 200K Gamescore with (which probably felt shameful since he covered all things Playstation related for IGN). After which he informed me that I should look into the Missouri School of Journalism, that I should “learn the Missouri Method.” I took that to heart personally and have followed through with his suggestion and sent my application to The University of Missouri in Columbia as soon as possible (I received my acceptance letter officially last week and will be attending there next fall). Later during RTX, Greg picked me to play Destiny, Bungie‘s new shooter, on stage in front of everyone at the convention and watching online. This was because I yelled “BEYOND,” the name of the Playstation Podcast he was then in charge of for IGN, when he asked for volunteers. After this I managed to take a “fantastic” selfie with him and I was honestly surprised and pleased by how down to earth and sincere he was in person.
Over the past year, Greg has been incredibly insightful when it came to answering my questions about Mizzou over Twitter. He even recommended some fantastic establishments to eat at while in Columbia. This lead me to ask him over Twitter if I could interview him for this series at RTX 2015. We agreed on a Saturday during the event, but Greg had to cancel because something came up, but he offered to do the interview over Skype instead. As a content creator that has seen the coverage of gaming slowly transfer from a solely text-based medium to a blend of video and text, I found his opinions and comments about the industry were thought-provoking and backed in facts. When I asked him why he thought that the change occurred he explained that “well, it’s giving the consumer what they want. Right? I think that you have seen it time and time again that the user base wants their content in a specific kind of fashion. Whether it be print or through videos.” This trend and change that Greg mentioned is relevant not only in the coverage of the video game industry but also in News and Sports alike. Consumers want their content faster and Greg made the point that “it is easier to interject opinions into the content if it’s through a video.”
When I asked Greg if he wished he had done anything differently during college, he said that “since he wanted to write about games, he should have been writing about games all throughout college. Not for the Trib, or Vox, or anything like that but for a blog, a fan site, something like that.” He pointed out that he should have been “more consistent” with his writing. Tying in with that comment, I asked if Greg or any of the other members of Kinda Funny had any intentions to add a text element to their content. Greg explained that “Colin (a member of Kinda Funny) kicks the idea around every so often that he would like to get back to that, but right now we are so strapped down by 5 guys in our company and traveling from event to event that we just don’t feel the need or have the time to do so.” He also expressed his regrets about only taking “a single photography course” while at Mizzou. He thought that he would simply write for IGN after college and he would just need to have the skills to write in order to be successful in the field of gaming journalism. He laughed as he explained over Skype that he wished he “had learned how to close a stupid green screen,” since he had just filmed a video before our recording. Essentially, Greg expressed the idea that to enter this field as a content creator or journalist, “you need to be an Omni-tool, you need to be able to work with a lot of different things. I never thought that I would be editing clips for Up At Noon for IGN with Premier, but that is just how it happened.” Luckily for myself, Mizzou offers several classes that help journalists learn how to utilize various forms of software in order to create the best content through their Convergence Program.
My interview with Greg, although brief, proved to shed more light on the ever-changing environment of the Gaming Industry. I enjoyed learning tips from him about the industry and, hopefully, one day I might even work alongside him. Only time can tell. If you want to learn more about him check him out on Twitter @gameovergreggy or on Kinda Funny’s Channel on Youtube.
