We’ve seen enough: In the race between a sexual harasser who parks bad (and is in bed with the landlord lobby), a guy who smiles maybe a little too much but wants to make NYC cheaper, and some other people, we – a video game website mysteriously and perhaps ominously followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Bluesky – are officially endorsing Zohran Mamdani for mayor.
You might find this to be unusual; after all, has any other video game publication ever endorsed a political candidate? But I assure you, it makes a certain kind of sense considering that a) four of Aftermath’s five founders are based in New York City, and b) the office of current disgraced clown mayor Eric Adams has actually made an effort where video games are concerned, alongside a push from New York state that includes $25 million in tax credits for projects made in New York.
In 2022, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment established a Game Development Industry Council that included figures from Microsoft, Take-Two, Avalanche Studios, Games for Change, Game Developers of Color Expo, NYU Game Center, and Zynga. It also funded a $2 million bachelor’s game design degree program with the goal of, as Adams put it, helping NYC “level up and finally become a leader in the digital gaming space.” There have been multiple mayoral Minecraft tournaments for students with the goal of “addressing climate change while continuing to make our city the digital gaming capital of the world.”
This year, the Mayor’s Office also hosted an inaugural NYC Video Game Festival in May to kick off “NYC Summer of Games,” a series of gaming-related expos, tournaments, exhibits, workshops and programs across the city. A lot of them are events that happen every summer anyway, but now there’s an umbrella over them.
Of the NYC Video Game Festival, our own Riley MacLeod, who was in attendance, says: “I caught the high school finals for the Minecraft tournament, where teams from a school in each of the boroughs had to build an environmentally-friendly version of Ellis Island and then give a presentation on it. As someone who’s worked in education and on educational games, I thought it was actually really cool; it was fascinating to see what each team did and how they presented their design. Also, the emcee kept shushing the audience just like a teacher, which I found hilarious.”
Neither Mamdani nor Cuomo have spent much time outlining their plans in this regard (Aftermath reached out to the campaigns of both to learn more, but did not receive a reply as of this publishing), but Mamdani collaborated with leftist Twitch politics king Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker earlier this year – and hilariously kept doxxing the duo because he couldn’t stop enthusing about specific NYC locations – while Cuomo, back in 2016 when he was governor of New York, blocked a bill that would have created $50 million a year in tax credits for those who produce music or video games.
What really cinches it, though, is simple economics: If, per Mamdani’s plan, rent is frozen, buses and childcare are free, and city-owned grocery stores bring down the price of food, New Yorkers will have more money left over to buy video games. Potentially a lot more. That makes him The Gamer Mayor, as far as I’m concerned. Given whose pocket Cuomo is in, the city will likely become more expensive on his watch, not less. And with video game prices going up, that's the last thing New Yorkers need.
Oh, and on top of landlords, Cuomo is being bankrolled by billionaires, real estate and finance execs, and Donald Trump supporters – to the tune of over $8 million, which he's spending on smear ads. At this point, we're almost more in the territory of a Cuomo anti-endorsement than anything else, but if the New York Times can do it, so can we. Also, I don’t think Cuomo even knows what Twitch is.
This does not, however, mean that Mamdani has Aftermath’s unilateral support in perpetuity. Even with a winning grin and the miraculous ability to, for example, talk with their hands endlessly and somehow not annoy me, politicians are not our friends. The second they take office, it is our job to hold them accountable. If they step out of line – if they go against the will of the people who elected them – they should not know a moment’s peace. Inevitably, because our political system is little more than a series of corrupt backroom handshakes, Mamdani will fail us one day. Maybe it will be over something relatively small, or maybe he’ll reveal himself to be a different person than we all thought he was. Regardless, while it will be tempting to parasocially leap to the defense of the nice man from all the videos, that won’t help anybody. Politics is neither a game nor a popularity contest; it’s a fight. Know your allies and know your enemies.
Early voting runs through Sunday, June 22, with the primary election taking place on Tuesday, June 24.
