A decade ago, I took advice from Greg Miller on Podcast Beyond. I wish I knew the episode in question, but the gist was this; > If you want to work at IGN/cover games, go out there and do the work. Start a blog, write, get in front of a camera. Do it. When working the stock room at Kmart, I took this advice to heart. I started a blog called *Go Left Gaming*, based off a [Miyamoto quote](https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/02/toad-is-zelda-the-untold-story-of-luigis-mansion-2) about rewarding the player that goes to the left and explores off the main path. I started my third YouTube channel (and it’s the one I have stuck with to this day). This advice directly inspired me to pursue a degree in journalism. On May 18, 2013, I [[Guacamelee! Review|published]] my first[^1] written review for a game. I picked *Guacamelee!* and I opened with this cringe, > What happens when you mix avocados, onions, tomatoes, limes, garlic cloves, and peppers? You get a delicious bowl of guacamole. Now what would happen if you took memes, intense platforming, rich environments, deep combat, hilarious dialog, and gorgeous levels into one game? You would get *Guacamelee*. *Go Left Gaming* is defunct now. I imported all of my posts here to Max Frequency and shut down the original .wordpress site. Maybe I should have kept it up, but I just wanted one place for my online work to live. Max Frequency is that place. My work on *Go Left Gaming* would help me land gigs at some places. I would go on to write for PlayStation Insider, PlayStation Wire, and DualShockers.[^2] One time, I even interviewed at Twinfinite to write about MOBAs. Of course, the biggest gig was being a [[Announcing Wiki Stories — A Limited Run Newsletter|guide writer]] for IGN for five years. At the time, I thought the door was open. Greg’s advice worked and I was going to work full-time at IGN. Despite a handful of interviews, it never happened. Looking back on the 10 years, Greg’s advice did work, just not the way 18-year-old Max expected. Now I have what I always strived for and I built it myself. I have two great podcasts that I pour myself into producing. I have a website that is all my own where I can write whatever I want, at my cadence, without being beholden to SEO trends. I am just as creatively free as I was in 2013. It just took a few years to figure out I always had the opportunity I wanted. So if you’ve read or listened to any of my work in the past decade—from my in-depth histories on *[[The History of Breath of the Wild|Breath of the Wild]]* or [[Chasing the Stick – The History of Naughty Dog|Naughty Dog]], to my reviews, to the hundreds of [[Podcasts|podcast]] episodes I have recorded—thank you. Here’s to the next 10 years! 🥂 --- [^1]: It turns out that *Guacamelee!* was my second written review. During my massive archival effort in 2024, I found my review for *[[Sly Cooper - Thieves In Time Review|Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time]]*, which I published on my IGN Blog just a few months prior in February 2013. The intro is still cringe. [^2]: I’m sensing a theme here.