Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frontpage littered with activism and first-world whining. Looks like it was the worst parts of Kotaku that left.
Turns out lots of people play video games!
It also turns out lots of the people making them like unions.
Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
81–90 of 178 posts
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#82Not 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…
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.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#83Not 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…
You might enjoy rock, paper, shotgun?
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What do you think people reading wartime coverage want to read about?
Going by Henry Ford's "faster horse" quote, I prefer my media to be aspirational, to assume potentially too much of me and be disappointed, not the other way around.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#85What 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…
You fundamentally misunderstand why people pay for those things.
They’re not paying to get news/articles about _a_ topic, they’re paying to get news/articles _from specific people_.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Aftermath itself might suck, The initial articles are well written.
I do not agree. It's readable, but not well written. ex. "Fortnite saw 3.9 concurrent players on OG’s launch day, besting recent records, and huge subsequent numbers. It was the number one category on Twitch, bolstered by a 24-hour stream by Ninja, who made his name on the game."
As a potential game player, why do I care about that? Is the game any good? What is it about?
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#87I 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…
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.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#88It'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.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#89I 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…
Worse even that gamergate was about Kotaku who also got blacklisted by Bethesda for their reporting.
Re: Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
#90It'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...
That's crazy, I didn't know either.