I find it funny how many comments here complain about the infusion of politics into games media but not one mentions the fact that games media in general is a prime example of "access journalism". Most gaming media outlets live in fear of losing access to pre-release copies of games because it would mean their reviews will lag behind their competitors. This means they go easy on games (the average review score on any large site is not 5/10). Games consumers then reinforce this dynamic by complaining loudly and angrily when their favourite games get scores they think are "too low". Compare this to movie or music reviews where critics are more than happy to tear popular releases apart.
This is the same thing that drove me nuts about "gamergate". It's like talking about how bad it is that the paint is peeling while the whole house is on fire.
I do agree, the bickering about politics is a little silly when you consider just how terrible the actual "journalism" part is. I think there's a general feeling that all journalism has faltered a little bit in the face of the Internet and a 24 hour news cycle, but I'm not even sure video game journalism was ever good. I'm not sure it was ever really 'journalism'.
I'll admit I do miss the older generation of video game 'journalism' nonetheless. Had its problems, but the thing is, it did feel like people were sharing their genuine and honest opinions as a capital-G "Gamer" more often. It became mostly known for the stereotypical attitudes that people have since come to dislike, which you can see manifested sometimes e.g. in old Penny Arcade comics. The only irony is that it feels like somehow, people's more progressive attitudes manage to have even less nuance than the older "unrefined" opinions that have since been walked back on by many. You can see this especially in the bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games-I'm not really sure how a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance in such a short period, but I'll be damned, they really managed to do it.
What happened in this time period, though, is interesting. There's really no such concept as a "capital-G Gamer" in a society where pretty much any kind of person plays video games to at least some degree. There's still a spectrum of different kinds and different levels of dedication, but the lines are firmly blurred. Gaming is just another thing that people do, on computers, phones, whatever, wherever.
To me, the modern era though, won't actually be colored by how gaming went mainstream, or by any event involving gaming at all. It'll be about how everyone became phony and full of shit with pandering to trends and moral grandstanding. I'd be willing to place a wager on that one. Unfortunately, that isn't specific to gaming, gaming journalism, or any kind of journalism.
Player reviews for games aren't much better, unfortunately. So many games get review bombed for political reasons. It's the Amazon equivalent of "this book sucks because my package was late" but orders of magnitude more frequent. It's nearly impossible to find high quality game reviews.
I think reviews in general suffer a lot from the commodification that's happened as the gatekeepers have conglomerated. I never trust reviews from publications that have a whole team of reviewers anymore, you have to find individual, usually independent, reviewers who have their own fanbases to have any trust. Best video game reviewer is dunkey, best music reviewer is anthony fantano, I haven't found anyone I love for movies or film, but I'm always looking.
> the average review score on any large site is not 5/10
Because this score is in relation to the whole market, not just the reviewed games. Journalists only review the promising games, which means usually from established studios, or from unknown developers when they received some positive feedback from the community. But as it's their job, they still see the whole market, they know how low the bottom, and how high the ceiling is.
Sure, insider access to studios and pre-release games is important to media, but that’s… also the same for movies and books and TV and music publications? And the argument about the scoring is so old and trite. There are so many games coming out nowadays that the bad ones just don’t get the time of the day. Does median score on Pitchfork hover around 5?
But even apart from that, written reviews aren’t the big traffic drivers they used to be. Bits of gameplay narrated by staff, guides, walkthroughs etc, and other commentary are only increasing in how much they matter traffic-wise.
The truth is that for the most part (with notable exceptions) people on both sides of the divide are adults, and nobody is going to blacklist a website because they didn’t like a negative review.
Publishers also generally do not get to influence review scores, the firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot and subsequent exodus of editorial staff is still An Event that everyone remembers and knows about.
Not that I am much into gaming, but I just checked out the site and the one article I clicked on was literally the writer bitching about how the coffee machines were depicted in Starfield. I miss the gaming sites of the 90s and early 00s, you could expect to read passionate articles from gamers. Just reading the headlines on the main page makes me feel like they have some agenda to push, in a political kind of way, and you won't be finding any good game reviews here.
As a fledgling coffee nerd, that article is very clearly a coffee nerd being a bit tongue in cheek. The thesis is not "Starfield is bad because the devs made bad coffee machines", instead he's connecting the lifeless NPC's to the strangely designed coffee machines in a way that should make it pretty clear that it's not entirely serious. Totally fair if the humor didn't land, but I thought it was amusing. Those coffee machines do look absurd.
Based on the link it sounds like they want to carry on with what they've always done but get more money. I get the desire but I doubt the content is going to go back to what it was 25 years ago.
The way I see it today, ideological reviews are what is mainstream. It's not about how the game is, it's how inclusive they are to minorities that is what reaches the front page. It's fucking bizarre but it makes sense when the goal is to reach as many people as possible. On both sides of politics it's just rage bait depending on which way the needle swings. Rage bait creates the clicks that brings the mass appeal not just "nerdy gamers."
I'm a nerdy gamer. I just want to know how good of a game stuff is. When you go to actual niche forums you find real information without the bullshit. You aren't going to find that at all on mainstream mass media sites like the Verge, Motherboard/Vice, Kotaku, et al. I think the goal of aftermath is to just create another mainstream outlet. I hope they prove me wrong.
I don't know anything about Kotaku, but I read that same article and thought it was pretty clearly a tongue-in-cheek faux investigative article and laughed at it.
Careful, it’s gatekeeping to prefer that your game journalists have ever played a game at all other than when researching for an article.
They write like this because it’s how anyone writes on a topic about which they have no experience. If you embed me as a wartime reporter, I’ll talk about the weird food and noise, not what most people reading the article want to read about.
1. Why would you cite a trivial non-political example to support your position that they have a political agenda?
2. What separates someone simply having beliefs that inform their lives from them having a political agenda? And where did you ever get the idea that politics is this thing that lives in a bubble, so innocuous as for its effects to be separable from our lives, such that we all have agreed to conduct our lives and careers without mentioning anything related to that bubble? Is it possible you see political ideas you agree with throughout each day and don't find them to be an agenda because they don't make you uncomfortable?
If you actually read the article instead of reacting violently to the headline, you'll find that the coffee machine subject is just a conceit to talk about Starfield's clumsy aesthetics and lack of cohesion as a whole.
How do you reconcile being a journalist, who WANTS to write an in-depth piece (being a writer and all), and the powers that be wanting you to write an advertisement for their game? You lambast something innocuous like the coffee machines to get your furvor for writing out.
A lot of the blog news sites beyond just gaming had a vibe switch in the 2010's.
You used to find passionate and hungry writers with something to say. Then it became bitter and jaded misanthropes that don't recognize they're misanthropes. They tried to keep an alt-media rebellious tone, but warped it into tired boomer-splaining.
A tragedy really. I had to admit it was over when someone argued an opinion I already agreed with and they were still pissing me off.
> one article I clicked on was literally the writer bitching about how the coffee machines were depicted in Starfield. I miss the gaming sites of the 90s and early 00s, you could expect to read passionate articles from gamers.
You and I have very different memories about what "passionate articles from gamers" were about in the 90s and 00s.
It's a turbulent time in games media: See how Yatzhee just quit The Escapist, taking with him most of the video team.
Either way we slice it, we'll all soon see what is what brings people to certain publications? The brand? Long form, high research articles that just take too much research? The wokeness/andti-wokeness posturing? Is it a matter of just a few extremely talented people, carrying a publication?
We all can make our guesses, but the market will say who is right.
I recently came across The Game Discoverer Newsletter, which seems to be about 100x more insightful and data rich than boilerplate journalism like Kotaku. They also have some other interesting data tools for game developers.
More broadly, I'm not sure general "journalism" really has a bright future outside of the big names that can field huge advertising budgets. I'm more convinced that niche sites should specialize on a specific topic and figure out a use-case that makes it worth subscribing to from a business perspective, not an ideological one.
I enjoyed Kotaku enough to keep reading through all of their Theil/Hogan bullshit, so I'm very happy that there is now a spiritual successor, that ditches the legacy crap and lets those bloggers do what they do best.
I wish there were some more of their more "journalist"-type peer that made the migration over, but Kotaku seems to have done fine without them, so I don't think that's going to be a problem.
I will say that the site design is really bad. I hope they get something less "stock" pretty soon. I don't mind minimalism and clean design but...this isn't that. It looks like the pre-made "blog" template from some site-builder app. A design that highlights what they do best, while keeping news available chronologically, would really make the website comfortable to browse. Though, I do wonder if I'm just the odd man out, still going to a website to read gaming news. If they're delivering it through some kind of feed or whatever, I guess it doesn't really matter what the site looks like. Still; if they care about the site looking good, I hope they change it soon.
Other than that, a quick perusal of the content that's available seems to be very in line with what I would have found on Kotaku, so I'm very happy to just move all of my reading over to aftermath. It's a great plan and I wish them all the best in it! They've at least got one reader (though, not quite a subscriber; at least with what is currently offered).
I would love it if some of the other old-timers could make it back. I assume the people I really liked, Steven, Jason, Kirk, Maddy and of course Fahey, since he no longer is with us, are very unlikely to come back. I also miss their Japan pop-culture reporting from Richard Eisenbeis and Bashcraft. The latter was a big part of what made me visit kotaku instead of Destructoid or Polygon.
Thanks for that heads up, I’m subscribed to their discord community (sigh, why is it discord), and excited to hear what comes next from the leaving employees.
What is it about news media, newsletters, etc that makes them so bad at pricing their subscriptions? When you consider the fact that the average reader will want to read a variety of publications/newsletters about topics, charging $7/month for JUST your news site is, I'm sorry to say, delusional.
This isn't to single out Aftermath specifically, I see this kind of thing all over the place. Lots of substack newsletters are particularly detached from reality when it comes to what they charge.
Yes, journalists need to be adequately paid of course, but I think this can be done much more effectively by charging a more reasonable monthly rate that will broaden the customer pool.
It makes more sense when you consider that many of the journalists who have gone into newsletters are there because they felt that the need to appeal to "average readers" and build a broad customer pool (edit: often at the insistence of their evil bosses) was restricting their genius and that they'd have a better time narrow-casting to a smaller (but more consistently monetizable) fanbase.
That price point seems about right to me. I just signed up to The Economist Podcasts+ for a similar price because I listen to virtually every piece of content they produce. Sure it's just one publication but it's an excellent one in my opinion. If these folks think they can bring a similar level of value, go for it. I personally wouldn't pay a single solitary cent for people to write about video games but that's just my personal preference.
I think the logic is that getting anyone to get out their credit card and pay anything at all for content is a tough barrier, and the difficulty of crossing it doesn’t scale linearly with the asking price. That and micropayments remain an unsolved problem.
People used to pay a few bucks every day to read the news. People will pay $7 a day on coffee. But people are used to free, ad-supported news so they'll never pay what's required for real journalism.
They say "worker-owned." I'm not sure about a new journalistic outlet, but in the context of lesbian bars and communist coffee shops, this means the business will last about a year.
Is this a good or bad thing? I don’t really know much about kotaku.
But I do know game journalists don’t exactly produce the greatest content, everything from “the game is too hard 1/10” to IGNs obvious paid for scores to “this game has a male character, therefore it must be sexist”.
i do wonder how many people are willing to pay almost $100 annually for blogging. defector seems to be successful-ish with that model? if you can make it work, the editorial independence is probably amazing. i don't really care for kotaku now or back in the day, but wish them luck nonetheless - funding for journalism in general has been badly broken for a long time.
The Autopian's been doing pretty well with it, too.
I think there's two things interacting here that make this more tractable than first impressions - first is that the cost of running one of these sites as a sustainable business is a hell of a lot lower than whatever crazy shit the PE & hedge funders were pushing for. I also think people's willingness to pay for quality content is higher than has been assumed, and I think part of that is a lot of us have seen what the cost of free content is over the last couple years.
I think you're right that these sites will never be more than niche by subscriber count, but I think there's more appetite now than before and I think it's entirely possible to make a sustainable business here.
I'm also generally in favor of a world where writers and creators get paid a decent wage to write and create things I find valuable or interesting, so I'm biased here.
I always preferred Joystiq (RIP) to Kotaku, but I'm happy to see more sites moving to this model. I'd much rather just pay writers money so that they give me content than have to wade through ads anymore. And I think it's a model that can work: Defector has been a great successor to Deadspin. Now if only they would do that for the AV Club...
I can't afford to subscribe to every site starting up. None of them have day/week pass options or the ability to pay to read one story out of their archives, so it's $7/month or nothing. My budget for this isn't going to grow just because subscription sites proliferate.
I know we love decentralization here but I'd love if all these co-op sites shared an umbrella subscription, MaxFun style, where you could direct most of your subscription fee to the sites, or even the individual writers, that you want to support. Shared infrastructure, focused support.
Kotaku is one of the only game outlets that actually got blacklisted by publishers for negative coverage. What's the integrity violation you're so upset about? I hope it's not a completely made up one like gamergate
That was my first thought, I am sure that there were some incentives from Gawker that contributed to it but Kotaku quickly became one of the gaming sites that I strongly avoided around 2017 when it seemed like they would get a crusade against any game that had some problems and just run it into the ground. (Mass Effect Andromeda was the straw for me)
if you look into the names of the founders, all of them are activists, one of them has a colorful gamergate history, one mentions labour issues in their byline.
their position statement is in the fourth paragraph, it starts with "widespread labor organizing, industry-changing mergers and acquisitions, sweeping layoffs", and then reads "We need a curious, independent press to hold power to account, to cut through the marketing hype, and to elevate the voices of those affected by the gaming industry’s upheaval." they bring up the issue of labor again, "we’ll keep you up to date on the worlds of video games, board games, comics, movies and tv, nerd culture, tech, streaming, and the labor issues that surround them"
would it be safe to assume that their goal is to be a kind of jacobin for gaming? jacobin's digital only pricing model is $30/yr, which $3/mo against aftermath's $7/mo, and i'm comparing them here on selective paywalling model. jacobin doesn't have dedicate gaming section, but they do write about video games from a socialist perspective, in their culture and labor sections.
i would say it's safe to assume that aftermath is going after a niche audience, people who want an indepth coverage of the video game industry from a socialist perspective, is that an attractive enough value proposition? they might also be explicitly trying to build an activist audience to be able to put political pressure on gaming industry. this is another possible reading from "holding power accountable". i'm not sure if that's compatible with their pricing model though.
How could someone who worked for Kotaku not have a "colorful gamergate history"? What does that mean, exactly, when Gamergate was a hate campaign originally targeting Kotaku writers based entirely on false allegations? Or were they one of the organizers of gamergate somehow?
You're perfectly entitled to dislike their work but it's weird to see people use language like this.
Also, what's wrong with being an activist? Is it bad to care about things now? What is their activism for? Are they an activist for something bad? If you specify what it is about their activism that's harmful it's much easier for people to understand the concern.
Labour issues, for example, are extremely relevant in video games since labour conditions at game studios frequently contribute to games shipping unfinished or in a bad state, and players actively dislike that. Games press cannot avoid covering labour conditions with how frequently crunch and layoffs harm the quality of shipped games.
It's wild to see the sheer impact of Gamergate on online culture. The fact that this thread is filled with GG talking points baffles me. The level of vitriol for Kotaku specifically made no damn sense, given how diverse the writing staff was.
I always interacted with Kotaku the way everybody should interact with a publication: there were some writers I liked, some I didn't, and some clickbait. It declined in quality over time until I stopped reading. That's all there is.
And if you really want to blame somebody, blame Kieron Gillen. Kotaku just merged New Games Journalism with the gossipy Gawker model to create a weird hybrid. Weirdly, a lot of what people complained about wasn't the Gawker stuff but the deep games criticism. The "hipsterdom" of it all. That was the best part! It was the clickbait that was annoying.
AlexandrB|2 years ago
This is the same thing that drove me nuts about "gamergate". It's like talking about how bad it is that the paint is peeling while the whole house is on fire.
jchw|2 years ago
I'll admit I do miss the older generation of video game 'journalism' nonetheless. Had its problems, but the thing is, it did feel like people were sharing their genuine and honest opinions as a capital-G "Gamer" more often. It became mostly known for the stereotypical attitudes that people have since come to dislike, which you can see manifested sometimes e.g. in old Penny Arcade comics. The only irony is that it feels like somehow, people's more progressive attitudes manage to have even less nuance than the older "unrefined" opinions that have since been walked back on by many. You can see this especially in the bizarro way that people have become regressive about sexuality in video games-I'm not really sure how a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance in such a short period, but I'll be damned, they really managed to do it.
What happened in this time period, though, is interesting. There's really no such concept as a "capital-G Gamer" in a society where pretty much any kind of person plays video games to at least some degree. There's still a spectrum of different kinds and different levels of dedication, but the lines are firmly blurred. Gaming is just another thing that people do, on computers, phones, whatever, wherever.
To me, the modern era though, won't actually be colored by how gaming went mainstream, or by any event involving gaming at all. It'll be about how everyone became phony and full of shit with pandering to trends and moral grandstanding. I'd be willing to place a wager on that one. Unfortunately, that isn't specific to gaming, gaming journalism, or any kind of journalism.
loveparade|2 years ago
ajmurmann|2 years ago
HDThoreaun|2 years ago
PurpleRamen|2 years ago
Because this score is in relation to the whole market, not just the reviewed games. Journalists only review the promising games, which means usually from established studios, or from unknown developers when they received some positive feedback from the community. But as it's their job, they still see the whole market, they know how low the bottom, and how high the ceiling is.
drawkward|2 years ago
klausa|2 years ago
Sure, insider access to studios and pre-release games is important to media, but that’s… also the same for movies and books and TV and music publications? And the argument about the scoring is so old and trite. There are so many games coming out nowadays that the bad ones just don’t get the time of the day. Does median score on Pitchfork hover around 5?
But even apart from that, written reviews aren’t the big traffic drivers they used to be. Bits of gameplay narrated by staff, guides, walkthroughs etc, and other commentary are only increasing in how much they matter traffic-wise.
The truth is that for the most part (with notable exceptions) people on both sides of the divide are adults, and nobody is going to blacklist a website because they didn’t like a negative review.
Publishers also generally do not get to influence review scores, the firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot and subsequent exodus of editorial staff is still An Event that everyone remembers and knows about.
greg_gorrell|2 years ago
delecti|2 years ago
Jeslijar|2 years ago
The way I see it today, ideological reviews are what is mainstream. It's not about how the game is, it's how inclusive they are to minorities that is what reaches the front page. It's fucking bizarre but it makes sense when the goal is to reach as many people as possible. On both sides of politics it's just rage bait depending on which way the needle swings. Rage bait creates the clicks that brings the mass appeal not just "nerdy gamers."
I'm a nerdy gamer. I just want to know how good of a game stuff is. When you go to actual niche forums you find real information without the bullshit. You aren't going to find that at all on mainstream mass media sites like the Verge, Motherboard/Vice, Kotaku, et al. I think the goal of aftermath is to just create another mainstream outlet. I hope they prove me wrong.
netbioserror|2 years ago
grumpwagon|2 years ago
menacingly|2 years ago
They write like this because it’s how anyone writes on a topic about which they have no experience. If you embed me as a wartime reporter, I’ll talk about the weird food and noise, not what most people reading the article want to read about.
seanw444|2 years ago
add-sub-mul-div|2 years ago
2. What separates someone simply having beliefs that inform their lives from them having a political agenda? And where did you ever get the idea that politics is this thing that lives in a bubble, so innocuous as for its effects to be separable from our lives, such that we all have agreed to conduct our lives and careers without mentioning anything related to that bubble? Is it possible you see political ideas you agree with throughout each day and don't find them to be an agenda because they don't make you uncomfortable?
klondike_klive|2 years ago
rideontime|2 years ago
hnreport|2 years ago
butlike|2 years ago
e12e|2 years ago
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/
dogleash|2 years ago
You used to find passionate and hungry writers with something to say. Then it became bitter and jaded misanthropes that don't recognize they're misanthropes. They tried to keep an alt-media rebellious tone, but warped it into tired boomer-splaining.
A tragedy really. I had to admit it was over when someone argued an opinion I already agreed with and they were still pissing me off.
mcphage|2 years ago
You and I have very different memories about what "passionate articles from gamers" were about in the 90s and 00s.
bigbillheck|2 years ago
mempko|2 years ago
throw3823423|2 years ago
Either way we slice it, we'll all soon see what is what brings people to certain publications? The brand? Long form, high research articles that just take too much research? The wokeness/andti-wokeness posturing? Is it a matter of just a few extremely talented people, carrying a publication?
We all can make our guesses, but the market will say who is right.
falcor84|2 years ago
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-escapist-staff-resign-foll...
keiferski|2 years ago
More broadly, I'm not sure general "journalism" really has a bright future outside of the big names that can field huge advertising budgets. I'm more convinced that niche sites should specialize on a specific topic and figure out a use-case that makes it worth subscribing to from a business perspective, not an ideological one.
Links:
1. A good overview post: https://simonowens.substack.com/p/how-the-gamediscoverco-new...
2. https://newsletter.gamediscover.co
3. https://gamediscover.co
mcphage|2 years ago
To be fair, it doesn't have a bright history outside of that, either.
WithinReason|2 years ago
catapart|2 years ago
I wish there were some more of their more "journalist"-type peer that made the migration over, but Kotaku seems to have done fine without them, so I don't think that's going to be a problem.
I will say that the site design is really bad. I hope they get something less "stock" pretty soon. I don't mind minimalism and clean design but...this isn't that. It looks like the pre-made "blog" template from some site-builder app. A design that highlights what they do best, while keeping news available chronologically, would really make the website comfortable to browse. Though, I do wonder if I'm just the odd man out, still going to a website to read gaming news. If they're delivering it through some kind of feed or whatever, I guess it doesn't really matter what the site looks like. Still; if they care about the site looking good, I hope they change it soon.
Other than that, a quick perusal of the content that's available seems to be very in line with what I would have found on Kotaku, so I'm very happy to just move all of my reading over to aftermath. It's a great plan and I wish them all the best in it! They've at least got one reader (though, not quite a subscriber; at least with what is currently offered).
ajmurmann|2 years ago
mcphage|2 years ago
ncallaway|2 years ago
Thanks for that heads up, I’m subscribed to their discord community (sigh, why is it discord), and excited to hear what comes next from the leaving employees.
slothtrop|2 years ago
KoftaBob|2 years ago
This isn't to single out Aftermath specifically, I see this kind of thing all over the place. Lots of substack newsletters are particularly detached from reality when it comes to what they charge.
Yes, journalists need to be adequately paid of course, but I think this can be done much more effectively by charging a more reasonable monthly rate that will broaden the customer pool.
tomku|2 years ago
mvdtnz|2 years ago
zztop44|2 years ago
bobsmooth|2 years ago
klausa|2 years ago
They’re not paying to get news/articles about _a_ topic, they’re paying to get news/articles _from specific people_.
brucethemoose2|2 years ago
Can it?
For many, just paying anything at all is the initial hurdle.
robertlagrant|2 years ago
gaws|2 years ago
vehemenz|2 years ago
SmoothBrain12|2 years ago
lloydatkinson|2 years ago
But I do know game journalists don’t exactly produce the greatest content, everything from “the game is too hard 1/10” to IGNs obvious paid for scores to “this game has a male character, therefore it must be sexist”.
scudsworth|2 years ago
roughly|2 years ago
I think there's two things interacting here that make this more tractable than first impressions - first is that the cost of running one of these sites as a sustainable business is a hell of a lot lower than whatever crazy shit the PE & hedge funders were pushing for. I also think people's willingness to pay for quality content is higher than has been assumed, and I think part of that is a lot of us have seen what the cost of free content is over the last couple years.
I think you're right that these sites will never be more than niche by subscriber count, but I think there's more appetite now than before and I think it's entirely possible to make a sustainable business here.
I'm also generally in favor of a world where writers and creators get paid a decent wage to write and create things I find valuable or interesting, so I'm biased here.
dlbucci|2 years ago
starkparker|2 years ago
I know we love decentralization here but I'd love if all these co-op sites shared an umbrella subscription, MaxFun style, where you could direct most of your subscription fee to the sites, or even the individual writers, that you want to support. Shared infrastructure, focused support.
jerojero|2 years ago
They need a bit better website design though. You shouldn't need to scroll through an editorial column to get to the articles.
imwillofficial|2 years ago
I think I’ll pass.
zztop44|2 years ago
kevingadd|2 years ago
AmericanChopper|2 years ago
Herbstluft|2 years ago
nerdjon|2 years ago
lloydatkinson|2 years ago
esotericimpl|2 years ago
[deleted]
r113500|2 years ago
their position statement is in the fourth paragraph, it starts with "widespread labor organizing, industry-changing mergers and acquisitions, sweeping layoffs", and then reads "We need a curious, independent press to hold power to account, to cut through the marketing hype, and to elevate the voices of those affected by the gaming industry’s upheaval." they bring up the issue of labor again, "we’ll keep you up to date on the worlds of video games, board games, comics, movies and tv, nerd culture, tech, streaming, and the labor issues that surround them"
would it be safe to assume that their goal is to be a kind of jacobin for gaming? jacobin's digital only pricing model is $30/yr, which $3/mo against aftermath's $7/mo, and i'm comparing them here on selective paywalling model. jacobin doesn't have dedicate gaming section, but they do write about video games from a socialist perspective, in their culture and labor sections.
i would say it's safe to assume that aftermath is going after a niche audience, people who want an indepth coverage of the video game industry from a socialist perspective, is that an attractive enough value proposition? they might also be explicitly trying to build an activist audience to be able to put political pressure on gaming industry. this is another possible reading from "holding power accountable". i'm not sure if that's compatible with their pricing model though.
kevingadd|2 years ago
You're perfectly entitled to dislike their work but it's weird to see people use language like this.
Also, what's wrong with being an activist? Is it bad to care about things now? What is their activism for? Are they an activist for something bad? If you specify what it is about their activism that's harmful it's much easier for people to understand the concern.
Labour issues, for example, are extremely relevant in video games since labour conditions at game studios frequently contribute to games shipping unfinished or in a bad state, and players actively dislike that. Games press cannot avoid covering labour conditions with how frequently crunch and layoffs harm the quality of shipped games.
jccalhoun|2 years ago
throw4847285|2 years ago
I always interacted with Kotaku the way everybody should interact with a publication: there were some writers I liked, some I didn't, and some clickbait. It declined in quality over time until I stopped reading. That's all there is.
And if you really want to blame somebody, blame Kieron Gillen. Kotaku just merged New Games Journalism with the gossipy Gawker model to create a weird hybrid. Weirdly, a lot of what people complained about wasn't the Gawker stuff but the deep games criticism. The "hipsterdom" of it all. That was the best part! It was the clickbait that was annoying.
klausa|2 years ago
I think you got the cause and effect backwards here, unfortunately.
unsubstantiated|2 years ago
[deleted]
kevingadd|2 years ago
Maken|2 years ago