If you've read a video game article on the Internet in the last two decades, chances are it was written by Luke Plunkett. His tenure at Kotaku spanned 17 years, and all the highs and lows of the digital media rollercoaster.

When the bottom eventually fell out, he and other games media refugees co-founded Aftermath, a worker-owned video game news and commentary site, whose business model eschews advertising, SEO, and clickbait in favor of — get this — reader subscriptions!

Luke joins us to discuss the evolution of games media, getting paid $10 to post pictures of cake on Kotaku in 2006, living on the opposite side of the world from his co-workers, and why we are entering a new and (hopefully) more sustainable era for online journalism.

Connect with Luke:

https://www.lukeplunkett.com/

https://aftermath.site/

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Nintendo shared 25 minutes of 3rd party games in its first Direct since the launch of the Switch 2, and it was a fascinating mix of ports, sequels, demos, and new IP.

We run down everything that was announced and share our reactions to one of the worst video game titles in history.

Plus: A psychological horror game where you can't leave your house (aka real life) and building a town on the back of a dinosaur.

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Hundreds of NSFW games were removed from Steam last week after Valve quietly changed some policies around adult content. But journalists realized it was actually the payment processors — Visa and Mastercard — who refused to complete transactions around certain kinds of porn.

Digging deeper, it was revealed that a small Australian conservative activism group was taking a victory lap around Steam's porn purge, all in the name of "protecting children" from "harmful content." And they are targeting Itch.io next, which has already de-indexed many adult games.

So how did a tiny group of pearl-clutchers convince two multi-national banking conglomerates to censor the world's largest video game marketplace?

Games journalist Ana Valens attempted to answer this with two reported articles on Vice's gaming site Waypoint. But those articles were taken down by Vice's corporate owners, prompting Ana (and many of her colleagues) to immediately quit.

This week, Ana joins Matt to discuss this legally and ethically complex issue, why banks can now decide what art we're allowed to see on the Internet, the pressing threat for the LGBTQ+ community, and what we can (actually) do about it.

If this conversation inspired you to take action, please discuss it in our Discord, check out the links below, and follow Ana's work:

Both archived articles: https://archive.ph/USxe6 + https://archive.ph/x5cGQ

https://yellat.money/

Follow Ana on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net

Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/5xz84B9RRJ

Subscribe to the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ColetteAndMatt

Email us with what you're playing and we'll read it on the show! HaveEnteredTheChat@gmail.com

Follow and subscribe to Colette:

• https://bsky.app/profile/itscocobee.bsky.social
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• https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social
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• https://www.youtube.com/c/freedadvideos

Our theme music is by Azure Flux: https://azureflux.bandcamp.com/

Our logo is illustrated by @JustCallMeKatarina: https://www.instagram.com/justcallmekatarina/