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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

#121

Post by ajmurmann »

djur wrote: post #70
seanw444 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, considering Kotaku is well-known for gaming articles filled with political activism and social justice, this is not surprising at all to me.

My recollection was that Kotaku had an entire subsection of the site dedicated to posting pictures of attractive women doing cosplay. I don't remember much political activism -- do you have an example?

They generally have a lot of quality content, but will slip in political commentary. IMO, this review is a decent example: https://kotaku.com/1850858948

The political commentary starts a paragraph after the summary box. Huge article and maybne two paragraphs fit the bill. The anti-capitalism stuff always makes me roll my eyes, but it's a game review, just ignore the parts you don't care about.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#122

Post by butlike »

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…

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.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#123

Post by jchw »

AlexandrB wrote: post #104
jchw wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

> 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's important to recognize that the stakes were lower back then. When games cost hundreds of millions to develop and market and are expected to have revenue in the billions bad reviews have the…

> I don't know if I agree. If you look at the most profitable gaming sector - mobile gacha games - some of these games are extremely "horny".

Oh I'm not arguing horny games don't exist or can't be popular. That's the thing with being dishonest with yourself and maybe with regressive attitudes towards sex in general: it's not that people are any different biologically than they used to be, it's just the social climate that people are living in. People will happily parrot on about how everyone is "pornsick" nowadays and then open an incognito window right after. I've experienced the whiplash of witnessing people like this personally. I'm sure it's not literally everyone... but I think in general it's underestimated just how two-faced the average person will happily be.

I don't really know a ton about gacha games, but players of gacha games have certainly developed a ... reputation on the Internet, and media coverage of this has not been very kind either. If social norms hadn't been shifting so much, I'd imagine that micro-transactions and a cutesy art style would be the things people lambaste the most about games like Genshin Impact and their playerbases. Instead, it has taken an oddly dark turn.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#124

Post by butlike »

netbioserror wrote: post #47
fells wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out lots of people play video games!

Turns out a lot of people don't care about those people's political hot takes when they just want to read news about video games!

What is 'news about video games?' Can't you just read a dev blog for the technical aspects, and ask the game store clerk what to buy?

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#125

Post by pr0zac »

lelanthran wrote: post #82
Jeslijar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Yeah, agreed. The first name in that list is a guy who gave great reviews of a game by a developer who was sleeping with him. Of course, due to one (or both? I forget which) of them being married, of course that fact had to be a secret . In any other publication, the author's sexual liasons with the subject of the piece is considered a clear conflict of interest. Not so in gaming, it appeared.

What, there are still people that believe this? That Nathan Grayson never wrote reviews on any game by Zoe Quinn is easily verifiable, like you can just go look at the webpage. The claim has had zero veracity for years, that its false is widely known and documented, theres multiple Wikipedia articles discussing how and why its wrong.

I don't think I've ever read an article on Kotaku, I never read any games news and barely even play them anymore other than occasional Doom Eternal to blow off steam. But I know Grayson and Quinn's names because of how widely and loudly this argument getting disproved was.

I'm honestly kind of amazed to see someone still claiming this. Like I'm back editing more stuff into this because my brain is so confused and still thinking about it.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#126

Post by PurpleRamen »

AlexandrB wrote: post #72

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…

> 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.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#127

Post by [deleted] »

kevingadd wrote: post #113
r113500 wrote: post #59

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…

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?…

[deleted]

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#128

Post by djur »

ajmurmann wrote: post #121
djur wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recollection was that Kotaku had an entire subsection of the site dedicated to posting pictures of attractive women doing cosplay. I don't remember much political activism -- do you have an example?

They generally have a lot of quality content, but will slip in political commentary. IMO, this review is a decent example: https://kotaku.com/1850858948 The political commentary starts a paragraph after the summary box. Huge article and maybne two paragraphs fit the bill. The anti-capitalism stuff always makes me roll my eyes, but it's a game review, just ignore the parts you don't care about.

The paragraph you describe criticizes some of the characterizations in the game and a lack of options for character customization, both of which seem to be safely within the ballpark for game reviewing. The reviewer clearly has an anticapitalist perspective, but I don't think that's sufficient for "political activism". Reviewers always have some kind of perspective that affects what they emphasize and de-emphasize.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#129

Post by pr0zac »

hightrix wrote: post #100
lelanthran wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed. The first name in that list is a guy who gave great reviews of a game by a developer who was sleeping with him. Of course, due to one (or both? I forget which) of them being married, of course that fact had to be a secret . In any other publication, the author's sexual liasons with the subject of the piece is considered a clear conflict of interest. Not so in gaming, it appeared.

Wow! I thought you were joking but the first name is the dude at the center of what started “gamergate” and everything that followed it. Thanks for pointing that out. This site is just another in a long list of game journalism sites that is worthless.

How are there still people that believe this? I seriously thought the claims about Grayson were so widely discredited that even the people still saying gamergate is about "ethics in journalism" stopped making them because it was so embarrassing. Like its obviously not true, go look at the Kotaku website, he never wrote any reviews about Quinn's games, it takes like 30 seconds to check.
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