Brian Crecente
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Brian Crecente, sometimes credited as Brian D. Crecente or Crecente, is a staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News. He is also creator and moderator of Red Assed Baboon a website about "gamers on games" and is the current editor of Kotaku, which focuses on video game culture. It is a Gawker Media affiliate.
Crecente graduated from Anne Arundel Community College in May 1992, then received a Bachelor of Arts in "Journalism, News-Editorial sequence" and another in English for "American/British literature" from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Crecente has written for Geek.com, Gamezilla, Extended Play, Access Magazine and Jester.com as a freelance writer. His print credits include the University of Maryland Diamondback, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Palm Beach Post and recently he has covered the crime beat at The Rocky Mountain News since February 2001. In January 2006 he was named the video game writer for the Rocky Mountain News, ending his 11-year career as a police reporter. He also currently writes for Playboy Magazine, Stuff Magazine and British gaming magazine 360.
As a newspaper reporter Crecente was selected to attend IRE and NICAR's 2003 Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp and went on to write or assist with a number of high-profile computer assisted stories including a manual recount of the 2000 presidential election, an analysis of Denver's police-involved shootings and the discovery of a south Florida speedtrap.
As a game journalist Crecente has broken a number of major stories including being the first to detail the specs for the Xbox 360, interviewing the creator of a game based on the Columbine shooting, the FTC's investigation into the Hot Coffee scandal, the president of the ESA quitting and was temporarily blackballed by Sony.
Crecente served on the 2006 Spike TV Video Game Awards judges panel and is a judge for the Independent Games Festival. In Oct. 2006, he was named as one of Gaming's Top 50 Journalists.
He became editor of Kotaku after replacing Matthew J. Gallant, a former editor of Gizmodo on November 8, 2004. Since taking over the site, Crecente brought on Brian Ashcraft as Japan Associate Editor, according to their site. Ashcraft is now the site's night editor.
Crecente's niece, Jennifer Ann Crecente was murdered on February 15, 2006 in Austin, Texas. He wrote a blog about her murder.
