is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
In a recent episode of Post Games, host Chris Plante explores how video games can help players understand death. He’s interviewing Kaitlin Tremblay, who is working on Ambrosia Sky, a game about death.
“What is it about games that is so useful for exploring the topic?” Plante asks.
“I think there’s something really lovely about the way in which games invite players in,” Tremblay says. There is “something quite lovely about asking a person to cooperate and to be a part of the story, and to move through the space.”
It’s a tone, and a substance of conversation, unlike any I’ve heard on a gaming podcast before. And it underscores what’s so unique about Post Games — and how it might stand out from other gaming media, by acting a lot more like a slower and more cerebral NPR show.
Within weeks of leaving Polygon, where he was the editor-in-chief, Plante started Post Games, which he describes as “a weekly podcast about how and why we love video games.” He’s targeting an older demographic and models Post Games after an NPR-like format with tightly-edited segments and weekly episodes that last for about an hour. And he’s asking fans for support via Patreon to help keep it going.
“Practically everything in games media targets young people”
Many other video game podcasts are “almost entirely for people under the age of 30 who can afford to listen to multiple shows that are four hours long this week,” Plante tells The Verge. “Practically everything in games media targets young people — both because it’s being produced by young people and because it’s the demographic sales teams believe they have the best shot at selling.” But players over 35, he says, have “very different interests and expectations.” There are a lot of people that fall in that category, with the Entertainment Software Association reporting that more than half of the 205.1 million Americans playing video games are older than 35.
“It’s really basic supply and demand shit,” he says. “And yet very few places want to meet this demand. The publications older audiences turn to for information — newspapers, magazines, and audio — have given gaming culture scraps at best, and worst, ignored it entirely.”
Before I go any further, I should make a few disclosures. Plante, until May, was the editor-in-chief of Polygon, formerly The Verge’s sister site dedicated to gaming and entertainment. He was a co-founder of Polygon when it launched in 2012, and he later worked at The Verge from September 2014 to July 2017. I never worked with him directly, but I met Plante for the first time in person earlier this year over dinner at the Game Developers Conference.
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