Peek Inside the PR Mind

I had high hopes for my PR buddy, Michael. (By the way, he added Atom RSS). But I'm actually overjoyed (strange word, but accurate) at reading his last few posts. In Reflections on an Industry, Micheal writes about his stint as a journalist, and how it's prepared him for his job on the Xbox PR team. I particularly like this tidbit:

"...the computer and video games industry is the GAMES industry, not the GAMING industry. The “gaming” industry involves people losing their life savings in table games and slot machines, and Vegas is the capitol of the gaming industry. When it comes to video and computer entertainment, it’s all about the games, not gaming."

I also think this should give any of you hoping to break into the biz some hope:

"I wasn’t trained in PR. I never took a class, I never wrote practice press releases, and I certainly never earned by stripes by hustling and bustling as an assistant account executive at a PR agency [...]

I know that I have a lot to learn, even after doing this for the last two and a half years. But I do have one leg up – I’m not constrained by the methods and tactics of an older generation of PR veterans. [...]

There is of course a lot more to it. Creativity in PR is certainly something that’s lacking, and as ironic as it might be, this is true for the games industry as well. [...]

But now as the industry matures from a smaller group of hardcore gamers to a multi-billion dollar business, PR overall is getting an influx of talent from those who've studied PR under masters who have been practicing it for longer than I’ve been around. As a result, the way PR is done around games is changing. The change is subtle, but it’s there, and it’s reaching into all aspects of the industry"