This job isn’t perfect–what job is–but everything bad I have to say about it (and that is a lot) is based mostly on me standing in 2026 and looking back at everything I’ve lost, at everything the field of games media has had done to it and at everything that has gotten worse.
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This is a companion piece to ‘It’s Extremely Frustrating To See What’s Become Of Video Games Media’
What I’d love to do hereis plant my feet in the present and look around me, and more importantly, at what I can see up ahead. And as naïve and foolhardy as it might sound, I see some stuff to like.
Having worked at Kotaku for 17 years, by the time I left I’d developed a very good idea of what I wanted a video game website to look like, one that didn’t have to worry about inept ownership or advertising concerns or industry access. And now I…finally have the chance to help shape that vision? What used to be some kind of idle dream is now a (stressful) reality?
It rules! We’re really going after companies. We’re running lots of varied and interesting freelance that we might not have commissioned at a website where every click counted. We’re trying to take our time with coverage and really think stuff through, something that, again, we weren’t always afforded the opportunity to do at outlets where speed mattered more. And we have plans, bigplans, like hiring more staff; there have been more than enough games media layoffs in the last few years, our big dream is to start making more hires instead. This stuff is all not just more enjoyable for us, but we hope it’s a type of coverage that’s more enjoyable for youas well.
And boy, it’s amazing how fast a business can move when you arethe business. Nearly every job I’ve had over the last 30 years has had a boss somewhere along the line, or many of them, meaning every time I had an idea or a suggestion or needed something done it would need to be logged, reported and evaluated. Sometimes action would take weeks or even months, sometimes nothing would ever get done at all. At Aftermath, I can have an idea (like, say, for a t-shirt) and just…make it happen? Is this how the mayor feels going into work every day? It’s great.
One of the great crimes of the blog era (one I am guilty of!) was taking a business that used to cost money and devaluing it, for so hard and so long that an entire generation of gamers has grown up not knowing that quality writing about this medium is something you should be directly paying for. Because the people writing that stuff need the time and support to…write it, and the two-decade deal with the devil where that money came from internet advertising has proven to be a very bad deal.
The hell we’re currently living through is at least partly down to the fact we’re going through another market shift. Just as it was clear in 2006 that paying for magazines was a dying business proposition, even as some clung on to newsstands, so too does it look in 2026 that relying on Google search and online ads to sustain journalism is just as terminal. So while things are currently stuck in this painful limbo, where a handful of old websites are dying while new websites struggle to be born, I think the more success you see from subscription-based publications (like our friends and former colleagues at outlets like Defector, 404, Hell Gate, Rascal and Mothership), the more the idea that quality writing has to be paid for will take root among a wider audience, and a rising tide will start lifting more boats.
And when it does, and more people realise that websites supported by readers are all the better for it–because they don’t have to worry about offending idiot owners, annoying advertisers or upsetting publishers– hings might look better than ever.
It’s Hater Week here on Aftermath. This week we’re letting the hate flow through us by examining what it means to be a hater (and… a lover?), venting about some of our biggest pet peeves in games and life, and giving others a space to do the same.
