In a current episode of Submit Video games, host Chris Plante explores how video video games can assist gamers perceive demise. He’s interviewing Kaitlin Tremblay, who’s engaged on Ambrosia Sky, a recreation about demise.
“What’s it about video games that’s so helpful for exploring the subject?” Plante asks.
“I feel there’s one thing actually pretty about the best way wherein video games invite gamers in,” Tremblay says. There may be “one thing fairly pretty about asking an individual to cooperate and to be part of the story, and to maneuver via the house.”
It’s a tone, and a substance of dialog, in contrast to any I’ve heard on a gaming podcast earlier than. And it underscores what’s so distinctive about Submit Video games — and the way it may stand out from different gaming media, by appearing much more like a slower and extra cerebral NPR present.
Inside weeks of leaving Polygon, the place he was the editor-in-chief, Plante began Submit Video games, which he describes as “a weekly podcast about how and why we love video video games.” He’s focusing on an older demographic and fashions Submit Video games after an NPR-like format with tightly-edited segments and weekly episodes that final for about an hour. And he’s asking followers for help by way of Patreon to assist hold it going.
“Virtually all the things in video games media targets younger individuals”
Many different online game podcasts are “nearly solely for individuals beneath the age of 30 who can afford to hearken to a number of exhibits which can be 4 hours lengthy this week,” Plante tells The Verge. “Virtually all the things in video games media targets younger individuals — each as a result of it’s being produced by younger individuals and since it’s the demographic gross sales groups imagine they’ve one of the best shot at promoting.” However gamers over 35, he says, have “very totally different pursuits and expectations.” There are lots of people that fall in that class, with the Leisure Software program Affiliation reporting that greater than half of the 205.1 million People taking part in video video games are older than 35.
“It’s actually primary provide and demand shit,” he says. “And but only a few locations need to meet this demand. The publications older audiences flip to for info — newspapers, magazines, and audio — have given gaming tradition scraps at greatest, and worst, ignored it solely.”
Earlier than I am going any additional, I ought to make a couple of disclosures. Plante, till Could, was the editor-in-chief of Polygon, previously The Verge’s sister website devoted to gaming and leisure. He was a co-founder of Polygon when it launched in 2012, and he later labored at The Verge from September 2014 to July 2017. I by no means labored with him straight, however I met Plante for the primary time in particular person earlier this 12 months over dinner on the Recreation Builders Convention.
That is all to say that when Vox Media introduced on May 1st that it bought Polygon to Recreation Rant proprietor Valnet, and Plante stated that he wouldn’t be a part of the positioning shifting ahead, I used to be bummed for him. However by the tip of the month, he had printed the primary episode of Submit Video games, and he’s posted a brand new episode each week since. It’s an important podcast.
Every episode is about an hour lengthy and cut up into three acts. A lot of the present revolves round interviews on a sure matter, and a 3rd act options Plante discussing the information of the week. However the broader subjects of the episodes don’t at all times align with the present massive factor in gaming.
The primary episode was concerning the historical past of the Impartial Video games Competition’s Seamus McNally Grand Prize, for instance. The second was about attractive video games. When the episodes do sort out subjects of the second, Plante tries to place his personal spin on issues; when Death Stranding 2: On the Beach got here out, Plante scored a uncommon interview with YouTuber videogamedunkey, who initially hated the primary Loss of life Stranding however revisited it two years later.
The present is offered free of charge with advertisements, however individuals who pay a $5 monthly subscription on Patreon get early entry to ad-free episodes with a bonus phase and entry to an unique video each month. Whereas planning out what Submit Video games could be “my logic was, if I wasn’t prepared to spend $5 on it, then why would anyone else?” Plante says. The present simply hit 1,000 paid subscribers, and even when issues flatten from there, “that may be sufficient to cowl my household’s medical health insurance.” If the present will get 2,000 by the tip of the 12 months, “I’ll really feel assured about this being my future.”
Recreation journalists who depart or have been laid off from conventional gaming publications are more and more doing their very own factor, such because the worker-owned Aftermath from former Kotaku writers and Patrick Klepek’s parent-focused Crossplay Substack publication. And whereas publications in all places are dealing with stress from issues like AI search engines like google and Google Zero, Plante argues there are quite a lot of audiences which can be underserved by extra conventional enterprise fashions due to their reliance on scale.
“As someone within the media, you hear loads about how nice unbiased media is due to its advantages for the individuals who make the media, however I feel there’s a bigger dialog that must be had about the advantages that it has for the viewers, for the readers,” Plante says. “I feel in case you give attention to the readers and the viewers, you can see extra enterprise alternatives for extra unbiased creators or extra simply smaller funded creators.” He additionally says that if mainstream publications don’t need to serve the “humongous and rising viewers” of older avid gamers, “I’m glad to.”
Plante sees Submit Video games as his factor for the following lengthy whereas. “My solely dream for the way forward for the present is that I’m doing this in 10 years,” he says.