On this week’s episode, Nathan, Chris, and Riley gather on the eve of Summer Game Fest – aka Keigh-3 – to discuss pre-show announcements and an investigation into the show itself. Turns out, it costs $250,000 to buy one minute of trailer time during Geoff Keighley’s summer advertisement extravaganza. And that’s just the beginning, with pricing tiers that go all the way up to $550,000 for 2.5 minutes. Is it worth it? Especially when SGF has historically underdelivered compared to E3’s attention-grabbing golden age? Then we talk about SGF-adjacent announcements like Dragon Age’s puzzling name change and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s long-awaited gameplay reveal. After that, we move on to a discussion of Bloomberg’s report on Suicide Squad’s fraught development, which culminates in the birth of a new segment: These Guys Should Not Be In Charge. Speaking of, we then segue elegantly into a conversation about Variety’s pivot (back) into games coverage, which mirrors Rolling Stone’s recent games renaissance – albeit with less Saudi money involved. Finally, we talk about Valve’s continued mishandling of Team Fortress 2’s bot crisis, a story that resurfaces about once per year because, well, Valve still hasn’t solved the problem! And if that’s not enough for you, we close out by getting mad about trains.

Credits

- Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, & 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.