He graduated from Indiana University with, among other things, a Certificate of Journalism and a bachelor's degree in Chinese linguistic studies, at the age of nineteen. He had also studied Russian and many Arabic languages (Farsi, in particular) with hopes of joining the CIA as a field agent. He was indeed scouted by the CIA, who told him he could have a job when he was old enough to legally purchase alcohol. In the next two years, he founded a small business the nature of which is far too boring to mention on such a fun website, and has never needed money — much less a job, for that matter — since.

He relocated from Indiana to Las Vegas to California to Europe, and eventually Tokyo, where, out of morbid curiosity, he found a job in the video game industry. He has worked nonchalantly in marketing, PR, and game design in the industry since 2002, leaving companies when he starts to get bored. Frustrated very often by the IQs of people in positions of power, he began troll-blogging about his experience in the industry by using a too-complex metaphor of homelessness. This would be his start in "videogame journalism".

His five-year plan:

1. To publish a novel (a thinly-veiled autobiography of what it's like growing up Totally Awesome in the Information Age), tentatively titled "the pistol points at mount everest".

2. To push further forward with his minimalist rock band Large Prime Numbers, in which he plays guitar and screams. They have recently started putting together songs that are not always 100% incoherent, and a devout (small) fan base (of extremely hip, fashionable, male Japanese twenty-somethings) has started to develop. In 2009, they played at the Biggest Party in Tokyo, have a dozen shows booked for the summer, and are slated to record an album (titled "a shotgun reads the phone book") with Nirvana and Pixies sound engineer Steve Albini in Chicago before the end of the year. They will then hand the album out for free to anyone paying to attend one of their live performances, so long as the recipient agrees to have his or her picture taken and sign his or her name in a logbook so as to prevent anyone from receiving multiple copies.

3. To obtain a PhD in economics.

4. To finally accept a six-figure-salary job and become an Actual Millionaire.

Meanwhile, his hobbies include regularly humoring modeling agency scouts and appearing in catalogs for everything from eyeglasses to tea kettles. Since moving to Japan, he has only paid for three haircuts (the rest have been free, though would have been Very Expensive if they hadn't been free). He collects vintage Japanese electric guitars, has completed marathons in the past, and is currently twenty pounds into a plan to gain 60 pounds of muscle. He is a vegetarian because he dislikes the flavor of animals, not because he appreciates their personalities.

His taste in video games is best summarized by this roughly novel-length article on Action Button Dot Net.

In case you lack the will to scroll to the bottom of that page, or get thrown off by the 300-something comments, his favorite games include Street Fighter III, Gears of War, Pac-Man: Championship Edition, Mother 3, Half-Life 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, not Metal Gear Solid 4, and (most importantly) Out of this World.

Prior to joining Kotaku, Totilo worked for four years as MTV News' first full-time video game reporter. His work appeared on-line and on-air across MTV, MTV2, MTVu, MTV's international channels, MTVNews.com and the MTV Multiplayer blog, which he founded. He also has written about video games for The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, IGN, and Gamespy. One of his best-known projects was a series of critical exchanges written with former Newsweek games writer N'Gai Croal.

In 2007, the online magazine Slate selected Totilo to participate in its first ever Game Club, a weeklong virtual roundtable of gaming criticism, modeled off of Slate's annual movie roundtable involving the top critics of cinema. He participated in the 2008 version of the Game Club as well. In 2006 he was named by Edge Online as one of gaming's 50 most-influential journalists.

In addition to his work as a games reporter, Totilo has worked as a story editor at VH1 and an assistant editor at Brill's Content. At VH1, he co-created the reality show Hogan Knows Best.

Totilo holds a masters' degree from Columbia University's graduate school of journalism. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and cat.

He considers The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask to be the finest video game ever made.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

In the past, she served as Kotaku's Associate News Editor, and prior to that, ran Gamasutra's sister site Worlds in Motion, covering the business of online games, social networks and virtual worlds. She chaired Worlds in Motion's inaugural summit at the Game Developers' Conference, and has consulted on subsequent summits.

She writes reviews, features and cultural commentary for a variety of outlets, and her work has appeared in Variety, Wired, Slate, The Escapist and Paste Magazine, among others.

Before writing about games, Alexander studied theater, with a two-year degree from New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. When she's not gaming, she's being a little too obsessed with indie bands and the local music scene in Brooklyn, where she currently resides.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Good, a second-generation newspaperman, is a 1995 graduate of North Carolina State University. In 2000 he earned his master of science from The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. In previous assignments he was the beat writer covering subjects as diverse as the U.S. Marine Corps, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the JonBenét Ramsey homicide. He and Kotaku editor-in-chief Brian Crecente were colleagues at the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colo. from 2001 to 2004.

Good currently resides in Springfield, Ore.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Joining Kotaku in 2006, Luke was previously a Recruitment Officer with the New South Wales Fire Brigade, and holds a Bachelor of Arts (History & Political Science) and a Graduate Diploma in History from the Australian National University.

Luke believes the pinnacle of video gaming is The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and sobs like a small child when anyone disagrees.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Fahey began writing video game news and reviews in 1998 as the Head Writer and Peripherials Editor for the now defunct Videogamers.com. Life steered him away from the industry a year later, but after working jobs in computer tech support, viynl sign design, web development, graphics design, and a breif stint as a gas station manager, he eventually found his way back, joining the Kotaku staff in late 2006. Other jobs Fahey has held include shoe salesman, telemarketer, arcade attendant, dishwasher, bagboy, and several retail positions in the video game, computer hardware, and video rental business sectors.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Prior to joining Kotaku, McWhertor worked as a senior software developer at a Boston area S&P 500 technology company. He joined Kotaku in a freelance capacity in 2005, after writing for a number of video game blogs on a hobbyist basis. McWhertor became a full-time editor at Kotaku in 2006, ending nearly a decade of mind-numbing web development.

He co-founded Meat Bun in 2008, a video game inspired apparel and promotions company with customers and clients around the world.

His first video game was Williams' Make Trax, but it was Sega's Shinobi that deepened his appreciation of the video game medium.

McWhertor holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida. He lives in Los Angeles with hundreds of t-shirts and Japanese toys.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Prior to joining Kotaku in 2005, Ashcraft worked for Quentin Tarantino's now defunct film distribution company, Rolling Thunder Pictures, where he assisted on The New York Times best-seller "What It Is... What It Was!", a look at blaxploitation films.

He graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in Art History.

Writing professionally since 2003, Ashcraft is a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine, where he has covered topics ranging from digital filmmaking to liquor chemistry and from Japanese politics to robotics. His work has also appeared in Popular Science, The Japan Times and design journal Metropolis Magazine as well as publications in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy and South Africa. He has been interviewed about technology and gaming on television in both the United States and Japan.

In 2008, Ashcraft authored his first book Arcade Mania!, which writer Warren Ellis called "a fascinating, funny and sharp-eyed look" at Japanese arcades. A French-language version was published in 2009.

Ashcraft lives in Osaka with his wife and two sons.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.

Prior to becoming a full-time gaming journalist, Crecente was an award-winning police reporter for 12 years at major dailies around the country where he covered everything from wild fires and daily crime to the contested presidential election and serial killers.

Crecente has written about video games for the past nine years. His work has appeared in Playboy Magazine, Paste, Variety, Stuff, Wired and MSNBC, as well as several U.S. newspapers and publications in the UK and Portugal. He has also appeared on national TV and radio and has been quoted in newspapers both in the U.S. and abroad.

Crecente was named one of the 20 most influential people in the video game industry over the past 20 years by GamePro in 2009 and one of gaming's Top 50 journalists by Edge in 2006. He also sits as a judge on several national and international video game award panels and frequently attends conferences in Europe, Asia and the U.S.

Crecente holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Maryland - College Park. Crecente lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and son.

With a team of writers located throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Australia, Kotaku currently has about 3.5 million readers who view more than 50 million pages a month.