Ian Walker on Aftermath, that Forza Horizon post, and the BDS movement

This has been burning a whole in my bookmark collection to write about. Last month, Ian Walker wrote about Aftermath and their decision to seemingly sidestep their commitment to the BDS movement targetting Microsoft and Xbox by publishing an article about Forza Horizon 6. Following that, co-founder Luke Plunkett wrote about that post on Bluesky. From there, Ian gave his personal perspectives on why regardless of the intent, the article served to remind potential customers of the game’s existence and thus benefits microsoft: whether or not aftermath received a code from the publishers — and it’s my understanding they did not — doesn’t matter. xbox absolutely considers negative reviews part of its marketing campaign because, these days, keywords are more important than content. it’s something every journalist in what is objectively a less serious and more enthusiast-focused media ecosystem has to examine and extrapolate for themselves. same goes for the idea aftermath isn’t part of “a…