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Welcome to Aftermath, a worker-owned, reader-supported news site covering video games, the internet, and the cultures that surround them.
You might remember most of us from Kotaku, where we broke news, covered events, and brought you hard-hitting investigations. You might also have seen us at Motherboard by Vice, The Verge and The Washington Post’s games vertical Launcher. We got back together to start this site not just so we could all blog together again, but to try something new for ourselves and for games journalism.
These days it’s tough for journalism, especially about games. The past few years have seen mass layoffs and site closures, with remaining writers being asked to do more and more with less and less. The ad-supported model is crumbling, social media is a mess, and the businessmen and private equity firms buying up news outlets don't care about workers, readers, and quality writing, they only care about profits. The five of us saw our sites closed, ourselves and our colleagues laid off, and our workplaces turned hostile in management’s pursuit of growth at all costs.
This couldn’t be happening at a worse time for the games beat. There’s a lot going on: widespread labor organizing, industry-changing mergers and acquisitions, sweeping layoffs, and somehow through it all a ton of amazing new games from big studios and indies alike. 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.
We’re going to do all that--and more--here at Aftermath. We know a little group of bloggers with a website can’t save games journalism. But we think there’s a better way than the exhausting rounds of layoffs and barely-functioning sites we’ve got now.
As workers and owners, we’re beholden to no one but ourselves, and to you, our readers. When you subscribe, you’ll get access to writing that pursues the truth and casts a critical eye on gaming and the internet, that doesn’t need to placate capital or kowtow to PR. You’ll be supporting the kind of journalism our past experience has shown us you like best: honest and irreverent, written for people rather than SEO. You’ll get a site that prioritizes the reader experience, with no invasive popups or ads that burn up your device.
Through our different subscription tiers, you’ll have access to articles, comments, podcasts, a newsletter, a Discord server, and more. We wanted to give you flexibility not just in how much you want to spend to support us, but in how much you want to interact with the community we hope to grow around the site. We hope you’ll want to talk to us, and to each other, but you can also just read the articles, where 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.
If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach us here:
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Aftermath rejects balance and performative impartiality as journalistic virtues. We strive to recognize the full humanity of those we cover, and strive for all reasonable fairness in our coverage. Honest reporting can be painful to subjects, and we recognize the effects such reporting may have on them. We take seriously our responsibility as journalists and strive to mitigate all unnecessary harm our reporting may cause.
Aftermath rejects the “view from nowhere” in favor of honest, individualized editorial voices. We employ any and all rhetorical devices in our writing, including opinion, humor, and sarcasm. At the same time, we recognize that our words and tone have consequences, whether or not we intend them to. We strive at all times to be humane, whatever form our editorial content takes.
Aftermath is an independent media organization, beholden only to our readers and ourselves. We do not let PR, advertisers, or companies dictate or influence our coverage. We take good faith reader feedback seriously and strive to incorporate it whenever feasible.
Aftermath values diversity in editorial content and personnel. We strive to uplift under-served individuals and voices in our editorial content. We strive to use anti-oppressive language and promptly correct such instances where we might fall short.
Aftermath values human-created journalism. We reject AI-generated editorial content and do not publish it except when it is required for a story. In such instances, AI-generated content will be clearly identified as such. We reject and do not use AI-generated art except in such instances as a story requires it, and we clearly identify it as such.