12p a word seems better-than-most for many games journo places, from my basic mental math of old rates, which have not improved.

Yep. And it's far better than what you'd get for music criticism. Or writing for Newsjack or whatever the current R4 equivalent is. Or writing science fiction. When I was doing freelance stuff I never, *ever* encountered pay as high as 10p/word.

Better than pretty much any comicbook criticism I've been paid for...