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The Nine Lives of Games Journalism (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-01 13:00:29
Imported:
2026-05

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  • 50 - NYU Talk - PATREON.mp3

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Content

Is video games journalism dying? Or is it more vibrant than ever?

You now have access to my recent talk at NYU Game Center, previously only heard by 200 or so people in downtown Brooklyn. The lecture, given last Thursday, is titled "The Nine Lives of Video Games Journalism," and in it, I suggest where the games media is heading by comparing the current trends to the past 50 years and the many publications that have come and gone.

You’ll hear me try and fail not to cry about halfway through, when it hits me mid-sentence that I’ve unintentionally written a eulogy for hundreds, if not thousands, of careers in this space – including potentially my own.

And yet, people who attended the talk – including people in games media – described it as moving, validating, and cathartic. 

[The talk moves fast. I crammed about 90 minutes of lecture into an hour. So I’m making the Google Slides deck available for folks who’d like to follow along. You can find them below. I’ve also edited the audio to smooth the flow here and there. ]

*An unedited video version will be available on the NYU Game Center’s YouTube page in the coming weeks.

Patreon Bonus: A 30-Minute Post-Talk Q&A

Patrons get an extra ac: 30-minute post-lecture Q&A hosted by NYU Game Center’s assistant arts professor Charles Pratt, featuring additional questions from the audience!

The Nine Lives of Games Journalism Slides

Available here!

An Incomplete Catalogue of Games Media in 2026

Available here!

5 Must-Listen Episodes: The Post Games Starter Pack

Available here!

This Week in Video Game Links

A Virtual Escape for Rikers Inmates (NYTimes)

Meet the players who lost big money on Peter Molyneux’s failed Legacy (ArsTechnica)

Can a game be 'so bad it's good'? (Jank)

Titanium Court Makes You Reckon With Your Own Magic (Exalclaw)

'Any objections, Lady?': On linearity, subservience and feminine agency in Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Other M (Mothership)

Love And Deepspace Gives The People What They Want (Aftermath)

Free Game of the Week: KuloNiku: Bowl Up! demo

From the Steam summary: "Prep your stations for a management-sim cooking game with attitude! Utilize long-honed recipes as you prepare unique meals for quirky small-town locals, upgrade and customize your shop, compete in thrilling cooking battles to become top chef, and protect your family’s long-running restaurant!" (Steam)

What Else I’m Enjoying

Where Have All the Book Reviews Gone? (NYTimes)

My Adventures With ‘The AI That Actually Does Things’ (Intelligencer)

The Gods of Logic: Before and after artificial intelligence (Harper’s)

Files

Comments

Directional Joy

Bless your heart, Chris Plante, you put it ALL out there (with even unexpected tears). Some things hard to swallow but being completely honest to your audience is most important. Good for you, for building up the courage to be on stage, void of a personal ‘soap box’ and preaching the reality of things. I still get the literal shakes from public speaking (yikes, the spotlight), so respect! 🫡

Jon Coughlin

Wow, man. This is a hell of a talk. Thank you for sharing it. I don't know how any of you journalists pay your bills. I don't know how any of these businesses ever survived to begin with.

Marcus

Congratulations on 50 great episodes and even more with bonuses! Post Games has become a highlight of my Fridays and the show just keeps getting better. Looking forward to Season 2 and more ways to support (I’ll get that hat, yet!) as you continue to grow!

icecold

An excellent talk Plante and sorry to be a pedant but just listening to the Q&A section and I do feel the overwhelming need to call out the fake news that social media is banned in Australia. The way that US-based media views the under 16s social media ban VS the amount of air time it gets in Australia (virtually none after it was initially introduced). It's such a nothing burger, and yet it has been pounced upon as like draconian, freedom-hating, how dumb are they as a country etc. Meanwhile, the back half of this talk highlights how the platforms themselves are in a race to the bottom for attention and how absolutely posionous they are. I know this is not the avenue for this rant but the flattening of this issue by people who aren't affected by the legislation is increasingly pea-brained.

Patrick Polk

This was such a sad talk but pretty spot on and not all bad news. Your answer in the Q&A about targeting 40 year olds who listened to 4 hour podcasts and still love games but have kids and barely time to play games felt very targeted and I'm only a little offended. I guess you did a good job finding the audience you were looking for.

Tikwid

Chris, this is gonna come off really weird, and wild, and parasocial as fuck. So, sorry about that. But this is possibly the most critically important take I've heard on entertainment media in... ever. I'm definitely one of those white whales that subscribes to every games media's patreon, or their individual sites etc. and the entirety of the "entertainment" that I consume outside of actual video games is games critique and games media. It's an obsession. I need you to hear - even at the very least from this bat-shit lunatic on the internet - how wildly cool this talk is and how blessed we are that we get to hear it. This rips, you rip, I'm so glad this exists. Thank you!

Goositrous

My dad was a huge NPR guy when I was growing up, it was always playing in the kitchen radio or in the car when he was driving. Fucking Lo and Behold here I am consuming hours and hours of listener sponsored Radio 2. It’s such a weird little niche of viability- somehow the most stable funding scheme was convincing me to give you $5, but I have to imagine that only works if you’re a one man operation with no overhead, and I imagine you have to have at least some level of name recognition to get off the ground and especially for this format to have people willing to come be interviewed. It would PROBABLY help a lot to live somewhere cheap since everything can be remote now.

Alex

Incredible episode. Loved it, also makes me want to burn a lot of stuff down, if the fire could just be confined to the upper echelons of business.

Landon Robinson

I just wanna say I just finished this episode and I’m listening to the Q&A now and have never felt more seen. You were talking about the target demographic of people being like you that are in their 30s and 40s, used to play a lot of video games, have kids now, and still enjoy reading about video games and games media but having little time for that or playing. Heck, I used to be in games media, so I lived and breathed it, but even still I feel it’s hard to stay in the loop in 2026. I have always admired your work for the longest time, and I’m so grateful that this podcast exists. It’s a treat that I enjoy the slower pace of, as I’ve given up trying to listen to weekly game podcasts like I used to. This was a cathartic talk and I love your passion for it. You rock Chris