Aftermath Hours

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Gita take stock of Microsoft’s no-good, very-bad week, in which the increasingly embattled giant shut down four studios, two of them – Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks – beloved by fans. More small games or big franchise hits? Microsoft doesn’t seem to know what it wants. Then we check in on Sony, which is having the opposite problem. After landing the biggest breakout hit of the year in Helldivers 2, it nearly fumbled the bag with a bunch of needless PSN sign-in nonsense all for what: to assert more control over the player base? To lure people into its ecosystem under false pretenses? Lastly, we discuss some things we’re actually enjoying in Hades 2 (it’s so good) and Crow Country. Oh, and we discuss ideal game length, which is of course 12-15 hours, 20 hours, or 35 hours, depending on who you ask.   Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, and Gita Jackson  - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Gita ponder orbs. There used to be so many of them in video games. What happened? Where did they all go? And whose idea was it to replace the smooth, satisfying act of vacuuming up orbs with slow, tedious loot grinds? After that, we discuss Another Crab’s Treasure, a Spongebob-inspired Soulslike that’s surprisingly great (and surprisingly existent, considering that I just typed the phrase “Spongebob-inspired Soulslike”). Then we move on to a subject I’m sure you’ve already heard plenty about on other video game podcasts: Taylor Swift. Gita is working on a piece about her parasocial appeal and the rabid fanbase she’s cultivated, so we use that as a springboard to talk about modern fame, fandom, and eventually, the recent Drake vs Kendrick Lamar rap beef. Finally, we close out by reflecting on campus protests taking place across the nation and especially in our backyard of NYC. Solidarity forever.    Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, and Gita Jackson  - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by IGN’s Matt Kim to talk about Stellar Blade, a culture war battleground that, as it turns out, is a perfectly alright video game and nothing more. Seems to happen a lot! Maybe we could all learn something from this. But we probably won’t. Oh well. Then we discuss the impending TikTok ban, which is a load of dumb bullshit that doesn’t seem like it will pan out the way the United States government is hoping, but it’s happening anyway, for some reason. Lastly, we round out this lighthearted episode by touching on NYU Game Center’s support of campus protesters and the conditionality of free speech in a country that purports to be rooted in it. Fun! But if that all sounds boring to you, we also talk about browser tabs.   Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, and special guest Matt Kim  - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Riley and Chris are joined by games journalist Ian Boudreau. We start by talking about Riley’s stressful quest to get internet in a new apartment, before pivoting to the stressful quests of the Fallout TV show and what it does and doesn’t borrow from the games. Then, we discuss the drama around Marques Brownlee’s review of the Humane AI pin and how we can all avoid being conscripted into AI hype, which leads into a brief reminiscence about the ill-fated Juicero. We talk about the layoffs at Take-Two, a company that just said it wasn’t going to do layoffs, and do a bit of processing about our own layoffs. Last, we answer some reader questions about what we’ve been playing, where we think the internet is going, and what old tech we’d most want to find in a dumpster.    Credits - Hosts: Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and special guest Ian Boudreau  - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Gita are joined by New Blood Interactive founder and Fallout expert Dave Oshry to talk about Amazon’s new Fallout TV series, which just premiered. The general consensus: It’s good! But it’s also very Bethesda-era Fallout, heavily reliant on iconography and references (Stimpacks! Nuka Cola! The Junk Jet from Fallout 4!) in a way that can be distracting, bordering on nonsensical. Dave makes the great point, however, that Fallout embarked on this path even before Bethesda took the reins with Fallout 3, so perhaps things were always destined to end up here. We also discuss the evolution of Bethesda and the lessons the company will learn from Starfield (probably the wrong ones), and then later we – minus Dave – talk about how we all wound up in New York, The Big Apple, The Greatest City In The World, Baybee. Oh, and we recommend some movies.    Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Gita Jackson, & special guest Dave Oshry - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Luke find themselves wandering a news desert, so they decide to discuss games they’ve been playing recently, almost entirely for the purpose of getting Luke to pronounce the title “Doronko Wanko.” It’s a great moment, worth the price of admission on its own. Then Nathan and Chris discuss Content Warning, a new Twitch and YouTube sensation that’s like Lethal Company but you play as incompetent content creators, before spending a long time digging deep into the nitty gritty of Dragon’s Dogma 2, a game that just absolutely rules. After that, the group Remembers Some Games. Do you remember Windjammers 2? I don’t, but Chris sure does. None of us remember Wii Play. Perhaps it’s for the best. After that, we close out by answering reader questions, which leads us to find out that some people do indeed invert controls horizontally (in addition to vertically). Wild. The world is full of wonder for those with eyes to see it.   Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, & Luke Plunkett - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by writer, podcaster, PR guy, and former games journalist Ed Zitron to talk about, well, a lot of stuff. We begin by talking about “media being destroyed by idiots,” as Ed puts it, before discussing Nvidia’s pivot to AI and how it could crash and burn, taking countless jobs with it. Then we discuss AI NPCs in video games, which Nathan got to try out several different flavors of at GDC. The verdict: They can be fun to mess with, but the novelty wears off quickly, and then what’s the point of them? How does being able to talk to NPCs – something players often try to avoid – forever improve video games? After that we move on to BioShock creator Ken Levine’s long-awaited new game, Judas, which got a big reveal this week. After all that time, it looks… like another BioShock. Somehow, we still find time to then talk about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, as well. Oh, and Nathan finally gets to discuss karaoke on the podcast. Something for everyone!   Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, & Special Guest Ed Zitron - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Luke, Chris, and Riley talk about Kotaku's editor-in-chief resigning over guides mandates, our favorite indestructible tech and gadgets, why AI writing in games sucks, and how to get the most out of your local bikeshare program."   Credits - Hosts: Luke Plunkett, Chris Person, and Riley MacLeod - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Luke are joined by their former Kotaku colleague, author and Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, for a special Inside Baseball Week episode of the show. True to the theme, they spend most of the episode discussing the state of games journalism: Are layoffs and site closures a sign that traditional games journalism is dying? Or is it just evolving into a more sustainable form and, in the meantime, shedding some unneeded flab? How can new websites hope to grow when younger audiences largely follow creators rather than websites? And to what extent does that ecosystem even facilitate journalism as a form? Then Jason gives us a preview of his upcoming book about the history of Blizzard, tantalizing us with phrases like “Chris Metzen fistfight.” Finally, we wind down by answering questions about writers who inspired us, the ramifications of platforming awful people, and Inside Baseball Week itself.    Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Luke Plunkett, and special guest Jason Schreier - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Riley discuss the wild (and wholly inaccurate) conspiracy theory surrounding a small video game narrative studio called Sweet Baby Inc, which has recently taken the internet by storm. It begins with “wokeness” in video games and ends with multi-trillion-dollar investment company Blackrock, so buckle up – and if you feel your brain begin to melt, don’t worry, that’s normal. After that we dig into Chris’ long-awaited piece on Sanrio, the Japanese company that tried to create a film empire to rival Disney but mostly just ended up making a bunch of weird shit. Chris spent months researching the piece, so there’s tons to talk about. Then we spend some time ruminating on WB’s no good, very bad week, during which it doubled down on live-service games – even after Suicide Squad, a live-service game, flopped hard – and shut down Rooster Teeth, the media company behind foundational online series Red vs Blue and numerous other shows and events besides. And while we go on to lament the slate of bland productions companies are churning out when they’re not just completely setting fire to completed movies, we do learn of some bright spots, like a YouTube channel dedicated to pig racing. So at least there’s that.   Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, and Riley MacLeod - Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that’s too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris’ frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don’t know what else to tell you; it’s a great time. Simply by reading this description, you’re already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.