What a month it has been for Ready Up. January is traditionally a quiet time in the games industry, but we shook things up by advertising for a new Staff Writer. Our call to arms went out around the gaming world and caught the attention of many through our forums, newspapers, the fantastic Square-Go magazine and even on the Xbox 360’s NXE dashboard. All in all we received 700 applications for the job.
What started out as being a fun way to get a new staff member for the site quickly became a serious responsibility as we read email after email imploring us to give a chance to each and every applicant. The amount of times we read the words “life long dream” and “all consuming passion” was quite stunning. We had applications from all walks of life; postmen, lecturers, policemen, chefs, a royal marine, a stand up comic, even a guy who paints 1000 ft high comms towers. Despite Ready Up being a UK site we have applications from Athens, California, Dubai, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Malta and South Korea. I’ve been offered chocolates, flowers, money and someone’s right leg in exchange for joining our band of jolly bloggers. We were frankly overwhelmed and moved by the response, but not just for Ready Up’s sake. Is it not testament to the fabulous gaming community that we are all part of that there would be such a response and such enthusiasm at the prospect of working very hard for no money, just for a chance to be involved?
Whittling the applications down was incredibly painful. No one applied casually. Everyone worked so hard on their applications and we had hundreds of blogs, articles and CVs to read through, giving each our full attention. Let me say now that the quality of work we saw was incredibly high. Professional games journalists should be shaking in their boots, because a new generation of highly knowledgeable and gifted writers are coming.
We had X Factor style rounds; we had quarter and semi finals. We used every method of selection we could and finally we had four people who shone. Each brought different skills and experience. Each is their own person with their own passions and ways of expressing them. Each is now a member of our collective gaming family. Over the next week they shall post their very first blogs and I hope our readers will all check in and read them at 12 pm each day this week.
696 people did not get the job. I hope though that not one of you will give up on your writing, on your gaming, on your dreams. You are all members of the Ready Up family. Join us on our forum. We are Ready Up, we play games.
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