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Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

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Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#11

Post by smcl »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #5
SmoothBrain12 wrote: post #2

What a time to be alive

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”.

This is a pretty hyperbolic take on games reviewers, other than the paid reviews which does exist but is pretty easy to identify and ignore. I've seen games being criticised for being too hard but even Elden Ring, Lies of P et al aren't getting 1/10 for that. I've seen people lamenting the same lazy copy-pasted male character being the protagonist again and again, but never decrying that it's outright sexist that a male character exists in a game (and you're kind of telling on yourself with this one, tbh)

There's plenty of great games journalism out there. I'm similarly unsure about Kotaku, but let's not get silly here.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#12

Post by overthemoon »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #5
SmoothBrain12 wrote: post #2

What a time to be alive

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”.

There's some lazy, parasitic, and axe-grinding writing in games journalism, as in all kinds of journalism. I am personally annoyed by how often I see Reddit posts and YouTube summarized like they're a story. But the good stuff is good, and this is IMO a good trend. Aftermath itself might suck, but I'd like to see more passionate video game writers get an opportunity to run their own outlet rather than churn out stupid bullshit about Twitter posts to create more surface for ads.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#13

Post by WithinReason »

keiferski wrote: post #8

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…

Thanks! There is RSS too: https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/feed

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#14

Post by xxs »

Goronmon wrote: post #7
lloydatkinson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

From my experience, "great content" to gamers is just content that confirms their pre-existing opinions and biases. Anything that goes beyond that is labeled "bad journalism".

This part is true for most people and most topics, including politics. A lot of the gaming audience would be young(er) people that are part of the scene - so the strong feelings part is given.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#15

Post by xxs »

overthemoon wrote: post #12
lloydatkinson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

There's some lazy, parasitic, and axe-grinding writing in games journalism, as in all kinds of journalism. I am personally annoyed by how often I see Reddit posts and YouTube summarized like they're a story. But the good stuff is good, and this is IMO a good trend. Aftermath itself might suck, but I'd like to see more passionate video game writers get an opportunity to run their own outlet rather than churn out stupi…

>Aftermath itself might suck,

The initial articles are well written.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#16

Post by greg_gorrell »

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.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#17

Post by netbioserror »

greg_gorrell wrote: post #16

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, a…

Frontpage littered with activism and first-world whining. Looks like it was the worst parts of Kotaku that left.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#20

Post by nerdjon »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #4

The staff were the worst part…

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)
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