Aftermath Hours

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Riley are joined by game developer, consultant, and general industry luminary Rami Ismail to discuss his new Levelling The Playing Field series of courses aimed at making “the critical less-spoken parts of indie gamedev accessible away from expensive visa-locked hotel bars.” These come at a time when the industry is in a massive state of flux, to put it lightly, with layoffs and ...

On this week’s very special Hater Week episode, Nathan, Chris, and Riley are joined by the crown prince of hating himself, Ed Zitron. We talk to Ed about what it means to be an effective hater in his wheelhouse—going after the companies that are taking everyone for a ride (to hell) on the AI Express—and beyond. But whether the topic is games, tech, or whatever else, one truth pervades: To be a good hater, you must...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by Tyler Colp of PC Gamer to discuss an extremely pressing business matter: Chris wrote almost 9,000 words about his favorite FromSoftware farming spots, and somehow, he still has more to say about them. Tyler, a fellow FromSoft sicko, happily indulges him. We discuss all sorts of obscure nooks and crannies in games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, as well as larger topics li...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Gita are joined by Kotaku’s Reb Valentine to discuss that which has long been prophesied (derogatory): The Xbox layoffs finally happened, and they’ve somehow proven even worse than expected. Thousands of jobs lost, seemingly with little regard for institutional knowledge or what the people in question actually, you know, did. Now remaining teams—cut to the bone—are le...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Riley are joined by Wes Fenlon of PC Gamer to discuss his new project: Warp Point, a web 1.0-style webring of video game blogs for the modern era. We discuss how the current internet is dying while a new one struggles to be born and whether or not newer generations will take to a format with which most millennials are intimately acquainted. Does that even matter, though, or is a fixation on ...

On this week’s episode, Chris, Gita and Luke discuss the recent price announcement for Valve's console-competitor, the Steam Machine - it's $1,049 USD, but unfortunately that's kind of just what computers cost now. All that said, Chris does make it sound like a pretty cool little PC. Then we'll turn our attention to the grand monolith casting a dark shadow across the gaming release calendar: Grand Theft Auto VI. Has there eve...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by a second Chris, this one of the Plante variety, to discuss the latter’s Earliest Game Of The Year awards. Why now? Because games that release near the beginning of the year often get ignored or forgotten by the time GOTY season rolls around. Also, as of now, nearly 11,000 games have already come out this year. We ask Chris why, despite a glut of same-y industry awar...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Luke are joined by Ethan Gach of noted Aftermath origin story Kotaku dot com to discuss… well, originally we were gonna talk about Summer Game Fest, but then—moments before we began recording—news broke that Xbox is on the verge of yet another devastating round of layoffs. We find ourselves once again lamenting the irreparable damage Microsoft has done to the video game in...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by musician, writer, and game developer Liz Ryerson hot on the heels of counterprogramming Summer Game Fest with the second annual Unearthed Treasure Room showcase. The basic idea? SGF is made up of nearly 20 showcases of games yet to come—too many, frankly!—but there are countless already-released games that deserve another shot. We discuss why it’s import...

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Gita bid farewell to the Aftermath Twitch channel—at least, in terms of using it to record the podcast—and turn their sights toward a pre-recorded, more-thoroughly-edited future (coming soon!). We also discuss Valve’s decision to massively increase the Steam Deck’s price thanks to “global logistical challenges” (read: AI and an incredibly stupid wa...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Luke are joined by Jordan Hoffstetter of the incredibly-named Tran Girlismo podcast, a show about car culture and living during the decline of empire. We use Forza Horizon 6, the latest in Microsoft’s long-running open-world racing series, as a jumping off point to discuss Forza, Gran Turismo, Japan, irritating story elements in racing games, and the F1 series’ surprisingly great...

On this week's pod, Luke, Gita and Chris got together to talk about the game that people inexplicably cannot stop talking about: Mixtape. We talk about the way that it's portrayal of teen nostalgia hits, and more frequently, doesn't hit, as well as the bizarre series of conversations that are occurring about this game on social media. Then, Chris and Gita chat about the orb-tastic Saros, a game for total sickos that these two sicko...

On this week’s episode, Nathan is outnumbered by Australians when Alanah Pearce—games writer, voice actor, YouTuber, and filmmaker extraordinaire—joins the show (and also Luke is there). We discuss Alanah’s new production company, Charred Pictures, and its goal of involving indie developers in the process of adapting games into movies and TV shows. We also talk about the overall state of video game adaptatio...

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Luke have a merry old time discussing cheery news from a normal week. For example: A video game CEO casually said the quiet part out loud by opining during a routine interview that “We've been a little bit too romantic about the idea that we should have employees and give people long-term job security,” suggesting that it’s time to instead rely heavily on a merry-go...

On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Riley are joined by games reporter extraordinaire Rebekah Valentine, formerly of IGN and now (very) newly of Kotaku—which of course none of us have ever heard of. We ask her about the whys and hows of her big move to a site that—fingers crossed—seems to be in the midst of a renaissance, as well as little things like The State Of Games Journalism. We also discuss the...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Gita are joined by Chandana Ekanayake, director of Dosa Divas, a new turn-based RPG about cooking, culture, and reconciling with loved ones. Also, mechs. We discuss the game’s inspirations, as well as the way food and other elements of culture are often stripped of their original context and commodified—which allows for the dehumanization of the very people who made the food in t...

On a this week’s episode, Nathan and Gita are joined by journalist-turned-politician Kat Abughazaleh, who recently managed to nearly win the Democratic congressional primary in Illinois despite odds being stacked against her. We discuss what she learned from her narrow defeat, both in terms of politics and an unexpected tool in her fundraising arsenal: livestreaming on Twitch. We also talk about her plans for the future now t...

On a this week’s (very special) episode, Nathan and Gita are joined by podcasting royalty, Michael Hobbes of If Books Could Kill and Maintenance Phase, to discuss Aftermath’s latest, greatest, possibly dumbest event, Woke Week, as well as Michael’s true passion: video game speedruns. What was Woke 1? What were its true ills versus those centrist pundits have wrongly tried to diagnose? And why are Woke 1 and Woke 2...

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Luke are joined by Samantha Kalman, a game developer who’s worked on everything from experimental indies to Apex Legends, to discuss her very cool-looking new game, Verses: Hyper-Kinetic Aerial Joust, and the fraught industry climate surrounding it. What does it mean that even somebody with such a proven track record has been unable to secure funding via traditional channels? And can a...