Back in the past there were no gaming "Journalists", you had reviewers and staff writers. It was a young mans game and the objective was to network and kiss ass until you got a job at your favorite games company. It was not a job you wanted to be doing as you approached your 30's.
Then the OG PlayStation happened in the mid 90's and gaming hits a zeitgeist, it was "Cool" now and for adults and was the TITS! BEER! PLAYSTATION! era, so much money being thrown around on "Press trips" and promotional merch being shoved at these guys and they thought the party would never end. Along comes the internet and eats their lunch for them it wasn't good enough that you could write and were passionate about videogames any more, publishers now required degrees in order to even get a job writing for a games magazine (early 2000's).
This is where the rot sets in. These new hires didn't get a degree and mountains of debt to write about Crash Bandicoot or Halo or to have people respond to them "Oh, so you just play games all day?" when they told them what they did for a living. They took those staff writer positions to use as a stepping stone to write for any other outlet topic that had credibility Music, movies, fashion, cars. That's when they started calling themselves "Games journalists".
Along comes the internet again and eats their lunch for them, this time it's video. Here we are current year.
kotaku.com
