blogging

The Pleasure of Writing About Games

4:30AM Maggie Greene | Over at Gamers With Jobs, Julian Murdoch looks at the craft of writing about games — and how being a gaming journalist has improved his relationship with games. While I’ve found writing about games has significantly cut into my time I can spend playing games — and there’s a difference between playing for pleasure and playing for pay — I’ll agree with many of Murdoch’s thoughts in regards to going into situations with a new perspective, one that is frequently quite positive: More »

Nintendo Contractor Fired For Blogging

12:20PM Maggie Greene | In case anyone needed a reminder that nothing’s ever anonymous on the Internet, and yes, your arse can get fired for stuff you put in your personal blog… or MySpace page… or Facebook page… comes the sad tale of Jessica Zenner, a 23-year old employee of Nintendo, was fired for her personal blog (allegedly). Of course, there’s a “she said, company said” element here, and while Zenner says higher-ups never informed her of any Nintendo policy on blogging, a spokeswoman for the company said “[Zenner] was expressly discouraged from doing what she did. I’ve seen everything that she’s written and it’s really not work appropriate.” One post on Zenner’s blog–titled “The Daily Weed”–begins with her disputing her friends’ perception that she is a pothead. She digresses into a wry tirade against one of her bosses: “One plus about working with [a] hormonal, facial-hair-growing, frumpy [woman] is that I have found a new excuse to drink heavily,” Zenner writes. “My gut tells me that this woman hasn’t been fucked in years.” … [Rebecca Jeschke, a spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation] says labour laws vary from state to state, so free speech may not always be enough to protect a blogger from getting pink-slipped. According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, there isn’t anything in current Washington State law that specifically protects bloggers. Ranting and raving against your boss is probably not the smartest idea in the world, even if you’re writing under a pseudonym (Zenner posted pictures of herself, despite writing under the name “Jessica Carr”). It just goes to show that even tech friendly companies have their limits – Zenner is one of a longish line of people to be fired after their personal blogs were discovered by superiors. Game Over: Nintendo Contractor Fired for Blog [The Stranger, thanks Stoli] More »