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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

#51

Post by 542458 »

Jeslijar wrote: post #36
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…

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…

> ideological reviews are what is mainstream. It's not about how the game is, it's how inclusive they are to minorities

This seems like a pretty heavy exaggeration to me. I just spotchecked several reviews on IGN, PCGamer, and GamesRadar (top 3 sites I get when googling "games reviews"), and found nothing of the sort. I'm sure if you go digging you could find that content somewhere on the site, but to claim it's the crux of their review model is just false.

For example, the new MW3 is a game where there's lots you could comment on in terms of the ideology of their portrayals of the war on terror and "ends justify the means"... but not one of the mainstream reviews I can see spends time on it, other than to mention the villain's vague motives. Or on the flip side, take Fae Farm, a game that explicitly advertises itself as inclusive - only one paragraph of GamesRadar's the nine page review is on the topic of inclusivity, and it doesn't go any ideologically deeper than "there's a lot of customization here, including androgynous options and things like dreadlocks and turbans". The entire rest of the review is about gameplay and graphics.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#52

Post by falcor84 »

throw3823423 wrote: post #43

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 ca…

Oh wow, I didn't know about Yatzhee. I really need my Zero Punctuation dose, and turns out he doesn't own it

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-escapist-staff-resign-foll...

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#53

Post by fells »

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!

There's lots of places on the internet for those people too. They are also free to find them and share them! Maybe they'll even been upvoted on HackerNews!

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#54

Post by HideousKojima »

menacingly wrote: post #27
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…

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.

Personally I only read reviews of running shoes from lazy obese people, paraplegics, and amputees.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#56

Post by netbioserror »

mplewis wrote: post #49
netbioserror wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

No one is making you read this specific gaming news site.

So don't be surprised when sites like this pull no revenue and end up shutting down because people really, really do not care about some nobody's political hot takes when they want to read about video games.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#57

Post by mempko »

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…

Did you read the Alan Wake II article?

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#58

Post by netbioserror »

fells wrote: post #53
netbioserror wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

There's lots of places on the internet for those people too. They are also free to find them and share them! Maybe they'll even been upvoted on HackerNews!

Be careful what you wish for. Sites like these aren't lasting long in an era when people are exhausted of being 24/7 assaulted by the political hot takes of random nobodies.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#59

Post by r113500 »

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.

Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath

#60

Post by zztop44 »

KoftaBob wrote: post #50

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…

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.
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