What's the Buzz??? with John Warren

On the premiere episode of What's the Buzz???, John welcomes Vertical Slice founder and editor Chris Kerr to the show. After more than a decade with Game Developer (Gamasutra before that--remember that????), Chris has gone independent with his specific brand of trade and industry reporting.

We discuss the move to an independent outlet, changes in Chris' approach to reporting as a result, the state of games reporting generally, and much, much more.

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:30 The immediate segue to talking about Gamasutra's name

00:02:40 Vertical Slice is a great outlet name

00:07:14 After three weeks, what's the biggest surprise so far running Vertical Slice?

00:15:48 The dangers of single-source reporting

00:20:00 Posting for clicks in a hostile attention market

00:25:42 The unimaginable difficulty of being a junior journalist in 2026

00:32:25 Why commission game reviews these days?

00:37:45 "A mature industry needs a mature press"

00:41:50 The circumstances behind leaving Game Developer

00:52:20 The "this is nothing" era of trade posting

00:58:00 What is Xbox preparing for?

01:10:10 Nintendo's just kind of doing their own thing, huh?

01:14:00 Labor makes games, not IP holders

01:16:35 Games are just taking so long to make right now

01:25:10 How Vertical Slice's Repository began and where it's going

01:30:00 How is Vertical Slice dealing with legal reviews as an indie?

01:33:30 The Vertical Slice elevator pitch

01:36:00 Outro

What's the Buzz??? with John Warren is part of The VGBees Podcast Network, which you can support by going to https://vgbees.com/join and becoming a member of The Hive today!