Tom Regan is a London-based writer and ex-PR with almost a decade of games industry, copy writing and entertainment journalism experience. But who is he? Read on to find out…

Gamer origins: Face the music

Having spent his formative years playing in questionable bands, working in recording studios, interning at an artist management company, and spending many evenings in half empty rooms as a small-time live music promoter, Tom eventually stumbled his way into the games industry.

What started as voluntarily writing about his favourite hobby while pulling pints quickly blossomed into a viable career. The eureka moment? Realising that other writers at the same press events were actually being paid to do this magical job.

After a lot of hustling and an insufferable amount of bustling, Tom began writing news for IGN, and amassing bylines for sites like WhatCulture!, God Is A Geek, Official PlayStation Magazine and others along the way, before becoming Tech and Gaming Editor for Baronet Entertainment’s short-lived The Metropolist.

Fun fact : In between earning a few pennies for articles, Tom also freelanced for gaming event tech company NJ Live, lugging around TVs and Xboxes while sweating a lot at celebrity-attended game launch events.

PRmageddon – A flirtation with the dark side

Briefly dropping his writing dreams, Tom decided to completely sell out by doing the unthinkable for any games journalist in 2015 – landing a job that paid more than 20K. Becoming an account executive at award winning PR agency Indigo Pearl, Tom hopped over the fence, using his journalist experience to pitch exciting ( and not so exciting) video games to magazine and website editors.

Working with a wonderful team, he helped release dozens of AAA and indie games, launching everything from Rock Band 4 to Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Hotline Miami 2 to more quirky stuff like I Am Bread and Prison Architect. It was a great time, but Tom knew that deep down, he wasn’t done with writing….

Fun fact: If you were on Tom’s first and last solo-helmed PR press trip to Paris flogging an ill-fated Android console, no you weren’t.

Regan the Ronin

Following his glamorous two year tenure at Indigo Pearl, Tom crawled back to the undignifed life of freelance journalism, writing for tech outlets like Engadget and Ars Technica, as well as securing bylines at mainstream and gaming publications such as Stuff, Trusted Reviews, Red Bull, Official PlayStation Magazine, EDGE and Games TM, amongst others.

Fun fact: Tom also hopped on a plane to cover both Gamescom and E3 entirely on his own back. The less said about the gun-shots heard from his Echo Park apartment while frantically churning out previews at 2 am, the better.

Tominator Salvation

After years of freelance, Tom was then appointed as the global gaming editor for Wikia’s Fandom. He’d made it to a staffer gig! There Tom oversaw the site’s growing gaming section, commissioning a team of exciting freelance writer newbies and veterans alike, while working alongside the fun-loving sales department and hilarious video team at home and abroad, in order to produce high quality games content.

Fun fact: In 2018 Tom was even named one of the UK games industry’s rising stars by Gamesindustry.biz. Nice.

Third time’s the charm, right?

Fandom was a blast, but as the prophecy foretold, all good things (in media) must come to an end. Three years later Tom returned to the wild west of freelance writing. Since re-joining the freelance fold, an older, wiser (and wearier) Tom has become a regular contributor to the UK’s most prestigious independent newspaper The Guardian, writing all manner of gaming reviews, features and op-eds there.

Redhead Redemption

Post 2020, Tom has leant more into the social media space, working alongside award winning social agencies like We Are Social and Biborg to deliver social copy for world-leading gaming brands like Candy Crush, Blasphemous 2, Call Of Duty and er, Kelloggs.

Tom still really likes it when he can write about angsty music, and has managed to expose bands like Good Charlotte, HEALTH, Rolo Tomassi, Refused, Free Throw and Bowling For Soup for the nerds they really are – it wasn’t a phase mum!

Since 2020, Tom has also written for many of the world’s biggest gaming websites – IGN, VG24/7, VGC, Gamesradar -as well as penning words for universally known outlets like Sports Illustrated, GQ, NME, Techradar, Inverse, etc.

Fun fact: When you interview most musicians they don’t have a PR sitting in to chaperone like in games. This led to Tom accidentally holding Refused’s Dennis Lyzxen hostage on Zoom for an hour and ten minutes, while the poor man looked increasingly worried that the interview would never end.

2023 and beyond

In 2023 Tom broke into the new fangled book market, co-writing the first ever visual history of video games, Game Changers: The Video Game Revolution from Phaidon Publishing. He proudly penned 43 of the 300 entries, sharing the pages with writers he admires like Simon Parkin, Christian Donlan and Grace Curtis.

Outside of journalism, Tom has leveraged his (now worryingly mature-looking) experience to help provide consultancy and copywriting for world-leading brands like Pepsi Co, Microsoft, PlayStation, Activision, Techland, Team 17, CCP and Atlus. He has also written video scripts for sites, YouTube channels and live conferences for IGN, PlayStation Access, Xbox and Fandom amongst others.

What’s next for Tom Regan? Hopefully working with you!