That’s me on the left with a Cosplayer from the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.
It used to be that I lived and breathed technology. It was my job and one that my son loved: He could understand why no-one had as many gadgets and video games as we did!
Based in Christchurch, New Zealand (yep, the city that was devastated by a major earthquake in February, 2011), I was a newspaper journalist with the city’s major newspaper up until August, 2015, when some bean counter decided that mine writing position and those of some of my experienced colleagues weren’t worth having and we faced “disestablished””.
After a few days of in-depth thought and talk with my family, I decided to take severance (I’d been there 20 years so it was a good payout. Thanks former employer, you paid for my new car) and look to a new future in writing.
Two years on, I’m still looking for that new future in writing so have to work part-time for an airline lugging bags and loading aircraft but it’s an honest days work and the people I work with aren’t as up themselves as some of the people I used to work with at the newspaper.
In hindsight, I’m happier now than I was when I was working for the newspaper. Sure I miss the overseas trips and stuff, but life moves on, right?
My writing work has appeared in the The Press newspaper, Fairfax New Zealand’s nationwide website stuff.co.nz, the Sydney Morning Herald, Gamefreaks magazine, Game Console magazine, Hyper magazine (Australia), PC World (New Zealand), Tone magazine and gaming website Gameplanet. I also used to write a popular video-game centric blog Game Junkie on stuff.co.nz – well, I did until Stuff decided they didn’t want to start paying me to write it (I’d done it for six years unpaid although it wasn’t part of my regular day job) so that’s stopped, too.
I’ve attended E3 three times (2005, 2009, 2010), the Tokyo Game Show once (2008) and interviewed such gaming lumineries as Joseph Tung, from Bungie, Bruce Shelley from Ensemble Studios, two guys from Sony Santa Monica (sorry, I’ve forgotten their names), a guy from the Creative Assembly (I’ve forgotten his name, too) and Peter Molyneux, from Lionhead, twice. I feel blessed to be writing about something that I love and plan to do it for as long as I can (or my wife tells me it’s time to grow up).
Another interesting fact is that I remember when I used to load games on my ZX Spectrum computer using a tape recorder! Yes, I’m that old but I’m not really as old as you think.
I used to do a weekly video game segment on KiwiFM with radio announcer, Glenn “Wammo” Williams where we discuss all aspects of video games and game-related hardware – but he buggered off to London to live so that put paid to that. I’d like to think I’m one of New Zealand’s most respected video game writers. In my spare time I like to go walking in the rain, drinking pina coladas … oh, wait, no I don’t: I like to play with gadgets, spend way too much on Steam games that I’ll probably never play, ride my Colnago bike and play video games.
So, thanks for calling by and visiting my site. I really, really appreciate it and I hope you like what you see. I like to think that I bring a fresh approach to things and I don’t tend to do news. There are enough video game sites/blogs doing daily news round ups. I like to do long reviews and [when I have time] feature length pieces.
So, hang around, have a good read and if you like – and I hope you do – comment and come back for more. I try to update at least every couple of days. Happy gaming.
We also had a ZX Spectrum which used tapes. I learnt all the words to “Feed the World” through one of those tapes. Can’t remember what the game was but I did think it was pretty darn cool that you could load a game AND listen to a song at the same time.
I was at TGS ’08 also! Unfortunately, no pictures of me with cosplay girls, but I did manage to get politely told off by a Capcom security guy for videoing inside their merchandise booth…
Why didn’t we catch up then??? You should have told me you’d be there!🙂
Hey – long time reader! When you were writing at Stuff did you feature a blog post about some software guys sent in that was like a little joke auto game junkie blog writer? I just had a flashback to something like that. I couldn’t anything when I went searching – do you have a link to that at all?
Gabriel, hi. I remember the blog and the app you’re talking about. It was written by a fellow Game Junkie reader. Do you want to email me what you’re after at ? Or I can contact him directly for you and pass your email on? Let me know.
Hi – thanks for your reply. I actually literally just found the item on Stuff, but thanks anyway! I was just trying to show a friend that’s all🙂
Yeah, I remember that. It was from a software developer I know through Twitter. I don’t think there’s a link: It was just a program he wrote up for me.
No problem. Thanks for visiting!
You are “New Zealand’s most respected video game writer”.
How can I not approve a comment like this, Mr Harvie? A pity that Fairfax didn’t think the same🙂
I wish you were still writing on Stuff. No idea who Angus Deacon is, but his Far Cry 4 article is utter rubbish. Reads exactly like paid advertising.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/60102254/e3-2014-hands-on-far-cry-4
Thanks, mate. I wish I was still writing for Stuff – but it’s blog management refused to start paying me to write the blog after I left Fairfax last August. Thanks for reading.