Aftermath Hours

On this week’s episode, Nathan and Chris are joined by Nathan’s former Washington Post colleague, Mikhail Klimentov, to discuss the latter’s years-in-the-making report on former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick’s pattern of legal threats against publications who’ve reported on him in ways that he perceives to be inaccurate. We dig into why the story took so long to find a home, what Kotick—no longer running Activision and obviously quite wealthy—stands to gain from this, and how the knowledge that such a thing could happen shapes reporting coming out of sites without the time or resources to combat a defamation suit. Then we move on to this week’s big headline: more layoffs at Microsoft, this time reducing Halo Studios to a shell of its former self and putting Activision in charge of a series synonymous with Xbox going forward. We come to the conclusion that Microsoft has no overriding, long-term plan at this point; its decision making—like that of many other C-suites in the video game space—is largely reactive, and the end result is chaos. Finally, we talk about something everybody should try at least once: playing Half-Life Alyx in VR at Gita’s birthday party.

Watch the report here: https://youtu.be/kKwpp-Bn8jI?si=lfEF7aoa_HOa6t6K

Credits
- Hosts: Chris Person, Luke Plunkett and special guest Mikhail Klimentov
- 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.

This week, Chris and Luke talk to The Verge’s Sean Hollister about the Steam Frame, Valve’s latest foray into the VR space. Both Chris and Sean reviewed it, and we get into the current state of VR, if it can be salvaged, the Beta test nature of reviewing Valve’s hardware and more. We also talk about FEX (the emulator that lets the Frame play full PC games) and the Big Picture consequences that this device might have on smaller, cheaper handhelds.

Credits
- Hosts: Chris Person, Luke Plunkett and special guest Sean Hollister
- 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, Chris and Luke are joined by Stephen Totilo, formerly everybody’s boss at Kotaku and currently breaking stories at GameFile. The latest scoop is about Bit Reactor, developers of the latest inheritor of the “XCOM-like” crown, Star Wars Zero Company – and how most of the people who worked on it have been left in employment limbo, despite releasing the game to stellar reviews. But covering all of that left Stephen with little time to review the actual game, so it’s up to noted tactics-heads Chris & Luke to tell us how the game actually stacks up. And then while Stephen hops off to put his kids to bed, Chris and Luke will stick around for some Mailbag questions about what media they might enjoy better if they weren’t quite so media-pilled.

Credits
- Hosts: Chris Person, Luke Plunkett and special guest Stephen Totilo
- 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 recap the highs (read: mids) and lows of Geoff Keighley’s least consequential annual advertisement fest, Gamescom Opening Night Live. The new expansion for Witcher 3—yes, the one that originally came out in 2015—looks cool, as does an arguably even longer-awaited continuation of a beloved series: Pony Island 2. But otherwise, it was hard not to let our eyes glaze over as Geoff and co ladled out a slurry of same-y looking games that embraced AI, shamelessly cribbed notes from other series, or both (see: Hoyoverse, Krafton). Then, a whole day later—which will pass to you like seconds thanks to editing magic—Kotaku’s resident GTA beat reporter Zack Zwiezen joins us to talk about the latest developments in GTA VI’s lengthy leak saga and, of course, the weird Netflix extended preview that Rockstar inconsiderately chose to air on Thursday, 24 hours after we typically record.

Credits
- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod and special guest Zack Zwiezen
- 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 of Aftermath convene to discuss the pre-math of Grand Theft Auto VI’s impending, insanely anticipated release. With a Netflix preview of the game—itself pretty unprecedented—a week away, fired Rockstar workers are asking fans not to boycott the game while a hacker group has taken to leaking gameplay footage that hints at various systems (gas for cars?) while broadly… looking pretty much like you’d expect a Grand Theft Auto game to look. We talk about how GTA reached these dizzying highs of hype in the first place and how a rapidly changing industry all but guarantees that no single video game ever will again. We also ponder the funniest possible outcome: What if GTA VI, the latest installment in a series known for low-brow humor and surface-level satire, turns out to be nuanced and thoughtful?

Credits
- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person and 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.