PGC Helsinki 2018 Pecha Kucha sessions: BlockchainGamer.biz editor-at-large Jon Jordan

[Music] okay so I'm sorry if you don't like hearing about egotistical games journalism for the cause for the next six minutes 40 seconds it's going to be an egotistical game journalists talk it happens I've been a game tradition for 20 years so that was my picture Kuchar sorted out in 1999 I became games journalist I started work at age magazine there's no age magazine it's probably the pinnacle of games journalism as a fascinating time what happened I left after a year and started a very well-known magazine called mr. Dreamcast hands up if you've heard of mr. Dreamcast one there mr. Dreamcast lasted all of three issues this is me doing the Chuchu rocket launch great times the Dreamcast was a much underrated console and Chuchu rocket launched the first one of the first console enabled games on the Internet by 2001 I didn't have a job so I sat outside pubs wearing funny hats so was interesting so mainly in my life

as a game journalist for 20 years I've been freelance and very quickly you realize you have to be good at certain things in game journalism if you want to be a freelance game journalist you have to be independent so I thought was gonna make a brexit quip here but this is not actually this is 2002 this is the Queen's Golden Jubilee that's the fight to their end by when she once you've been a freelance game journalist for a long period of time or a few years you just realize I'm good at writing stuff you have to be good at hitting deadlines and Heaphy good wearing sunglasses so the thing that I started to offer being free Russians for a while it's like to travel and that's become a really important thing and I think for my career has been important as a game journalists have to go meet people so this is me actually III I think you out of this photo bizarrely enough come on touch you out later on let's go to GCN III and the funny thing is about the games industry is you meet people and once you bet the months you kind of you never leave the industry and you still kind of bump into them in 2004 very important year I found a blue

founder blond hair dye which is awfully might one of my signatures and it is kind of important that people recognize you and remember you so in 2005 and it's take any photos of myself so I have a drawing but 2005 I had been a freelance game challenge for a long period of time I'd actually kind of the pinnacle of my freelance career I was actually writing for the FT at that point and I really had really focused on a business and financial journalism about games and that's really I think where my kind of passion lies will come on to that later 2016 oh that's gone a bit odd isn't it mm 2006 I joined a prog rock band it didn't actually this is this is some people in the in the room might recognize themselves this is the founding partners of Steel media came on to poi gamer it's a business journalist it came very interesting for me to actually become part of a business I'd written about business is quite blase Li for a long period of time run out of photos in 2007 as well used to play hockey so there's action shot but being a journalist and running a company was it was quite eye-opening my shirts anyone who runs a business knows gets

quite scary it's important to understand cash flow you have to understand how to manage employees and Pocket Gamer you know it along for a few years 2008 was an interesting year in many regards this is me in Finland because the big thing was happening then was a Nokia was relaunching engage anyone remember engaged something else quite big happened in 2008 and it wasn't the credit crunch but for mobile games the app still happened and I have to say you kind of think I've been all over the App Store I didn't get it at all probably I was too busy running accompanies this in 2009 it's slightly better photo a boy band I have to say they're rather rather a white boy band there so some of the members in this group have actually gone on to a bigger better thing so you might see micros a very young micros in the back row they're now a top matte indie developer by 2010 though the AppStore taken off in mobile games was a big thing and Pocket Gamer was in its heyday this is me in a Barcelona Mobile World Congress talking to gamble and the weird

thing that happened that I didn't know was going to happen when I found a passion for free-to-play mobile games big hand for free trade mobile games in the audience know you all still hate them then you really do but I found I really love free-to-play mobile games and I'm pretty much the only game since I've ever met who really loved sweet play mobile games this guy here anyone who that is Mills so it's Mills from us too he hates free play mobile games that's why he made Monument Valley or his company made Monument Valley but this goes back to when you meet people in industry they it's very small entry just you kind of stay around and it's good to go out and meet people this is me in Iceland anyone know not create any one with the big man in the middle is Jeff Scott Jeff's got one for a tap so so at this point this was say the heyday of mobile games it was great there's lots of things going on in the industry you could travel around the world be paid to travel round the world go to Iceland and drink beer with paradox entertainment but as a journalist by this stage I was still writing although not so much as I had been I guess by 2013 I really started to think about what is game journalism and

I sight to realize it's kind of the knowledge and you're putting it out there it doesn't have to be written so this is me at the Apple App Store in London with I don't know if he's Jamie here Jamie's somewhere in the conference that's Jamie so but that was the that was the launch of Angry Birds go and this is me I think in Lithuania but I started to do global presentations which is kind of why I do Pecha Kucha I think I'm good at them because I think I need to get a better present a present a ting good and that's kind of something now that I kind of realized oh here's another photo anyone recommends anyone hears that famous famous authors so all these guys that we all work - hmm seen roughly the same time on the far left Casper field Hoosick now a game developer Owen Ben lack in the middle leg matic observer he's a journalist but a financial journalist and then Keith Stewart who was the editor entered a guardian for a long period of time but now he's a proper journalist a proper book author I should say and I'm anyone who's still a games journalist of course in life other things happen as well so had some children and here's two of them that obviously slowed you down a little bit and makes you think about what you

want to do and at this period of time aside having kids and the business have been going for a long period of time no such thing am I really still a games journalist and I took some time to kind of ponder say 2017 actually took some time out didn't do anything at all which is very good thing to do after a few 10 years or so of being in a certain job I would recommend it and I really thought about what I wanted to do and I decided I did want to be a game journalist and I started doing a lot of detailed articles about financials and kind of data and mobile mobile user day from that kind of stuff and then in 2018 Pocket Gamer connects I found blockchain and that has really resurrected my passion I found the thing to all the things I like games and psychology and business and financial so we're all encapsulated in blockchain so now I am as with ham so nice he puts mr. blockchain and I hope to have another 20 years of writing about mobile games blockchain game [Applause] [Music]