How Growth Is Killing Video Games
Better Offline
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 687 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2025
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Gita Jackson and Nathan Grayson of worker-owned games site Aftermath to talk about how the growth-at-all-costs mindset is destroying games, how fandom culture naturally feeds extremism, how Aftermath does games journalism differently, and how despite everything, great games are still being made.
Gita Jackson:
https://bsky.app/profile/xoxogossipgita.bsky.social
https://aftermath.site/author/gita-jackson
Nathan Grayson:
https://aftermath.site/author/nathan-grayson
https://bsky.app/profile/nathangrayson.bsky.social
Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen
https://www.amazon.com/Stream-Big-Triumphs-Turmoils-Twitch/dp/1982156767
Article on Skin Deep from Aftermath: https://aftermath.site/skin-deep-steam-next-fest-demo-impressions-pc
The New York Times: Video Games Can’t Afford to Look This Good
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/arts/video-games-graphics-budgets.html
Aftermath - Fuck WB
https://aftermath.site/warner-bros-discovery-games-wonder-woman-monolith-shut-down
Pyre - https://www.supergiantgames.com/games/pyre/
Supergiant Games - https://www.supergiantgames.com
Avowed - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457220/Avowed/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
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| 0:33.7 | CallZone media. |
| 0:36.9 | All right. I think it's time we blow this scene, get everybody in their stuff together. |
| 0:40.3 | Okay, 3, 2, 1 this podcast. |
| 0:42.1 | Welcome to Better Offline. |
| 0:43.0 | I'm your host, Ed Zittron. |
| 0:52.7 | Better Offline. |
| 1:06.4 | Today I'm joined by the esteemed Gita Jackson and Nathan Grayson of Independent Gaming Site Aftermath, and Nathan, of course, has a new book out called Stream Big, The Triumphs and Turmoils for Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen. |
| 1:07.9 | Both of you, thank you for being here. |
| 1:09.6 | Thank you for having us. |
| 1:10.9 | Yeah, no problem. It's super fun. |
| 1:11.5 | Hell yeah. |
| 1:15.2 | So today we're talking about the games industry, which I think we can all agree is going well. Yeah, it's going super good, bigger than Hollywood, as we all know. So to that point, Nathan, what is actually going on right now? because it feels like over the last few years, |
| 1:24.7 | I used to be a games journalist, |
| 1:25.8 | but I've kind of dropped out of the industry stuff. |
... |
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