On this week’s episode, Gita and Luke are joined by Matt Leone, formerly of Polygon and now of Design Room, a site dedicated to sharing the oral histories behind some of the biggest and most important video games of all time. We chat about Matt’s work detailing the stories behind the creation of games like Street Fighter II and Shadow Of The Colossus, how he managed to find the time and space to get that work done while at a commercial site like Polygon, and how his works, created as acts of journalism, are also becoming works of history as well. We then move onto chatting about Town To City, a relaxing city-builder that Gita and Luke simply cannot stop playing, before pondering what our favourite 5/10 video games are.Credits- Hosts: Gita Jackson, Luke Plunkett, & special guest Matt Leone- Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude- Subscribe to Aftermath!About The ShowAftermath 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.
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1:26:26
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1:26:26
Just Creed Things
On this week’s episode, Nathan and Luke are joined by Cameron Kunzelman of the Ranged Touch podcast network who has a book about Assassin’s Creed, Everything Is Permitted, coming out next month. We discuss how the series has evolved over the years, with each sequel and spinoff essentially functioning as an argument in favor of the series’ continued existence. Highlights include: why Brotherhood was weird and kinda bad, how Ubisoft portrayed itself in its own book about Assassin’s Creed’s legacy, and the origin of the series’ entire Assassins vs Templars conflict (the first chunk of just one book). Then we move on to modern Assassin’s Creed-related matters: This week, news broke that Ubisoft canceled a Reconstruction-era AC game that would’ve starred a freed slave, citing the current political climate and backlash to Yasuke, a Black samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This after Ubisoft reportedly accepted funding from Saudi Arabia to develop a new DLC for Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Says a lot about where the company’s priorities lie! Finally, we adapt the Bible’s Old Testament into a WarioWare-like minigame collection. Credits- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Luke Plunkett, & special guest Cameron Kunzelman- Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude- Subscribe to Aftermath!About The ShowAftermath 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.
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1:16:40
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1:16:40
SaudEA Arabia
On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Gita talk about the two latest signs that the video game industry is being chopped up and sold for parts: EA’s $55 billion sale to a consortium that includes Saudi Arabia and Microsoft’s decision to up Game Pass’ price by 50 percent – the latter of which follows multiple rounds of layoffs and studio closures almost certainly intended to help pay for the company’s own $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. Who benefits from any of this, aside from executives and, now, a government that seeks to sportswash human rights abuses via not just sports themselves, but also some of the biggest video games about those sports? And what, really, is left of these once-unshakable juggernauts even before they really go through the most vicious iteration yet of the profit-ravenous meat grinder? Then we discuss Baby Steps, a literal walking simulator about masculinity that Chris absolutely adores. Finally, we invent new candy bars, including, unfortunately, Dubai Twix.Credits- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, & Gita Jackson- Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude- Subscribe to Aftermath!About The ShowAftermath 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.
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1:47:04
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1:47:04
Remasters of the Universe
On this week’s episode, Chris and Riley are joined by Aftermath contributor Isaiah. First, Chris can’t resist talking more Silksong, and then he tells us a bit about Silent Hill f. Then we move on to Sony’s State of Play presentation this week: Does Insomniac’s Wolverine need all that blood? Do we need a Deus Ex remaster when it basically makes a game from 2000 look like a game from 2004? Also, Chris is really into those speakers.After that, we talk about the continued fallout from Charlie Kirk’s assassination, with some game devs losing their jobs over their comments about it, though not as many as in other fields. We also talk about what’s known about the shooter at a Dallas ICE facility this week, and how it feels like meme culture has taken on the role that video games once played in being blamed for violence. We also discuss Microsoft no longer letting the Israeli military use its tech for surveillance of Palestinians, on the back of protest movements and reporting by The Guardian; it’s not enough, but it’s a start.Chris then praises his new AirPods before we get to this week’s mailbag, where we give horror anime recommendations and discuss our favorite bridges.Credits- Hosts: Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, & Isaiah Colbert- Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude- Subscribe to Aftermath!About The ShowAftermath 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.
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1:41:29
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1:41:29
Of Shootings And Shitposts (With Morgan Sung)
On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by Morgan Sung of KQED’s Close All Tabs podcast to discuss shootings as shitposts and media censorship following the death of Charlie Kirk. While we still don’t know the killer’s precise motive, bullet engravings that reference video game memes and largely nonpolitical Discord activity seem to suggest that he was just a guy, possessed with the incoherent politics and general nihilism characteristic of extremely online young people in these times. What does it say that someone like him could still be pushed to this level of violence? How, if at all, can mainstream media – which has shed most of its best internet-focused reporters over the years – accurately convey an online world that’s increasingly bleeding over into real life to aging normie audiences? And with the government moving quickly to crack down on free speech using Charlie Kirk as a cudgel, can independent media take up the torch where mainstream corporate media will inevitably falter? Then we talk about Silksong! Credits- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Riley MacLeod, & special guest Morgan Sung- Podcast Production & Ads: Multitude- Subscribe to Aftermath!About The ShowAftermath 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.
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.
New Zealand