Luke Plunkett

Luke Plunkett is a veteran video game journalist and author who covers games, the business of games media, and the cultures that grow around them for Aftermath. His work is distinguished by a focus on how games journalism itself functions as a job and an industry, alongside sharp scrutiny of how games and mainstream outlets talk about power, labor, and representation. He writes in plain language, with a mix of reported detail and first-hand newsroom experience, and often uses specific incidents in games and media to illustrate larger structural problems.

Games Journalism As Work And Business

Plunkett writes frequently about games journalism as a workplace and as a small business, treating his beat as both subject and lived reality. In a piece on the frustration of modern video game journalism, he lays out how his job now includes not only writing about games but also designing calls to action, maintaining the site, handling customer service, managing account platforms, and planning marketing campaigns for a reader-supported outlet. Another article on the shrinking number of full-time games journalists focuses on the contraction of staff roles and the strain it places on those remaining in the field.

He balances these grim accounts with forward-looking pieces that describe cautious optimism about the future of games journalism, arguing that new models like worker-owned publications can still sustain meaningful reporting.

Across these stories, he treats games journalism as labor rather than hobby, describing the practical burdens and emotional toll of running an independent, subscription-based site. His reporting here is grounded in direct experience at Aftermath, a worker-owned, reader-supported news outlet that covers video games, the internet, and the cultures surrounding them. That vantage point lets him move beyond abstract media commentary and into concrete descriptions of tasks, structures, and trade-offs, making his coverage useful for anyone trying to understand how games coverage is produced and financed.

Industry Accountability And Cultural Politics

Plunkett also distinguishes himself with pieces that hold both game companies and mainstream media to account for how they frame games and the people who make them. In his coverage of the historical strategy game 1666: Amsterdam, he highlights the gap between a studio’s claim to involve “over a dozen talented and experienced artists” and its decision to rely on AI-generated images throughout a public reveal, using the episode to probe honesty and labor value in game marketing. He uses that kind of specific case to question how studios talk about creative work while automating parts of it, and to examine what AI art implies for artists’ roles in game production.

In another notable piece, he criticizes a New York Times obituary for an Ubisoft co-founder that he argues launders complaints about diversity, equity, and inclusion through coverage of an Assassin’s Creed game. That story shows his interest in the politics of representation around big-budget titles and how legacy outlets frame debates over “DEI” within games. Rather than treating games as isolated entertainment, he situates them in broader cultural fights over who gets to tell stories and how those stories are judged.

These articles combine media criticism with games reporting, pushing beyond basic industry news to interrogate language, framing, and power.

Explaining Games Journalism To Readers

Plunkett’s work includes explainer pieces that demystify games journalism for readers and for people working around the industry. In a dedicated FAQ on games journalism, he answers common questions about what games reporters do, how coverage decisions are made, and how the business shapes the work.

That explainer sits alongside more reflective essays on the state of the field, creating a body of work that treats transparency about process as part of the beat.

This strand of his coverage emphasises clarity and directness. He writes in straightforward prose, often using his own experience to ground explanations of editorial practice and outlet economics. The emphasis on explaining rather than grandstanding makes these pieces useful for readers trying to understand why games coverage looks the way it does, and for industry figures who need a realistic sense of how games media operates.

Audio Coverage Of Video Game News

Beyond written articles, Plunkett is a regular voice on Aftermath’s flagship podcast, where he appears alongside other games journalism veterans. The show breaks down weekly video game news, revisits older titles, and digs into a wide range of niche interests within gaming.

His participation there extends his beat into audio, giving him space to react quickly to news, talk through stories at greater length, and share perspective shaped by years of reporting.

Across the podcast and the site, his focus stays on video games, the industry around them, and the media ecosystems that grow up to cover both. Long experience in games journalism feeds into his current work at Aftermath, where he writes, edits, and helps run a worker-owned outlet built to keep doing that coverage on its own terms. The result is a body of work that blends frontline games reporting, media criticism, and practical analysis of how games journalism survives.