We Need More Great Journalism. So I'm Building Something New.

Excuse me this brief aside for a side mission announcement

Long-time readers of no breakthroughs know that I can dabble in a little videogame journalism from time to time.

Wait — Don’t leave!

I know many subscribers are here because you’re scientists, or academics, or you read about research integrity and misconduct and retractions and those wonderful things that I love to write about.

But today is a short digression.

Today, alongside my mentor and good friend Mark Serrels, I am launching a printed videogames magazine. The project is called CONTINUE and the Kickstarter is live right now.

Our magazine cover, featuring Team Cherry’s Hornet and a Goose, inspired by Untitled Goose Game, is below, and we love it so much.

That work was created by the inimitable Jack Kirby Crosby and we are so grateful for such an incredible piece, one that celebrates the now of Australian video games and (when you see that full back cover) some of what’s to come.

This announcement naturally leads to questions:

1. Are you idiots?

2. Don’t you think that’s a very bad idea given everything?

3. Isn’t print media dead?

4. Why not just start a newsletter or podcast like every other white middle-aged millennial dude?

5. [screaming] Why do this to yourself??? God whyyyy?

The answers are pretty simple:

1. Maybe!

2. Nope

3. No!!!!

4. Strongly considered but passed, and

5. There’s a lot of very good reasons!

For one, if you read no breakthroughs, you know that I strongly believe in the power of journalism — particularly hard-nosed, investigative journalism. I believe that it has the ability to inform audiences; that, wielded responsibly, it can help people make evidence-based decisions and that, ultimately, it’s one of the checks on the levers of power.

But videogame journalism, like many other forms of media, has taken a huge hit over the past decade. A decade ago, there were still videogame magazines on the shelves of your local newsagent. You could find a number of websites that were constantly delivering breaking news and thorough, deeply reported work — the kind of stuff that improves things like labour conditions, that calls out toxic business practices and culture, that bites back against moral panics and addiction crusades.

Videogames are such an indelible part of the cultural fabric — the biggest entertainment medium on the planet they say! — and yet there is nowhere to write about them. There’s not many outlets that will pay for this type of work.

Just last week, after eight months of investigating, I provided a deep, detailed look at the enterprise behind gambling and AI slop that was infiltrating videogame websites across the world. In brief, human writers were fired and replaced by AI. That AI wrote videogame reviews that were awful. People found out. But under the surface, gambling links that seemed to prey on the vulnerable were also hollowing out the site, all in service of Google’s mighty algorithm.

Look at this beautiful thing!

This work, supported in this case by the excellent, journalist-owned outlet Aftermath, was something I toiled away at for so long, I almost forgot where I started. But it’s rare there’s time, space and remuneration for this kind of work.

It’s work that I can see make a tangible difference. Just this week, the websites we reported on have been deindexed by Google. I can’t claim that was any of my reporting, per se, but it’s a mighty coincidence!

Plus, the response to the piece was immense. Clearly, people want longer, deeper pieces about videogames and videogame culture. They want to understand how videogames fit into society. When they see great journalism, they support it, they fight for it, they champion it.

But, as Aftermath headlines, Great Journalism Doesn’t Happen Overnight. And it doesn’t happen without support from the community, either. Making this stuff and paying rent and paying contributors fairly is hard. And its value can be underappreciated.

So, here we are, with CONTINUE.

Mark and I, alongside a host of amazing writers and artists, have decided we want to build something. Something tangible. Something lasting. Something that makes an impact. Something that supports the next generation of writers.

The community is at the heart of this whole thing. We think about CONTINUE as a magazine, something you can hold, but we also think about it as a platform to encourage more of this type of reporting, more detailed investigations and criticism and to pass on some of the knowledge we’ve fortunately earned over our careers. Our first issue is just the beginning, the seed of a thriving ecosystem where audiences can find this kind of content — honest, earnest, deep, thoughtful and always beautifully illustrated.

And I guess… we are also doing it because… man, we miss videogame magazines. We miss being able to walk into a newsagent and leaf through the pages. We miss the feature work that many outlets become renowned for. We miss the reporting and the essay. Damn, we even miss the silly adverts in between. We want to bring that feeling to readers, deliver it straight to their door.

Media has been smashed. AI is steamrolling everything. It feels bleak. Grim. Sometimes it feels very, very hopeless.

We are asking ourselves and each other, both with the title of our publication, and right here, right now: Do you want to Continue?

The title is inspired by home screens like this, from FFVII, and game over screens where players are asked: Are you going to go on?

We believe the answer is a resounding yes. I hope we’re right.

If you are at all interested in supporting independent media and believe in the power that stories have to transform the way we see the world, then I encourage you to pledge to the Kickstarter. Issue 01 is going to be an absolute feast.

I’ll be back with my regularly scheduled programming next week: More science misconduct, more reporting, more of the stuff you subscribed for.

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Some scribbles

— I was on the Aftermath podcast, talking about the big investigation this week. You can listen to me rant about journalism on Spotify.

— I was also on REMAP Radio’s “Worth Reading” podcast, again, ranting about journalism. Was a great chat with Patrick and I love this podcast idea. You’ll have to locate that one when it goes live.

— There’s still plenty more of that story to tell, and I hope to be able to reveal where and how it will be told in the near future.