This week’s africast marks the end of an era, as we are bringing an end to the current format of our weekly podcast and are set to introduce four new shows starting next week.

We’re looking forward to what the new format holds, as well as engaging more with our readers and listeners, but in the interim, we have cast our minds towards September and the games, movies, and TV series that have piqued our interest.

We also want to hear from you. For the first episode of Always Online we’ll be taking a look at the Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg battle royale that may or may not take place. As part of the conversation, we’ll also be exploring the concept of online tribalism and how this has fueled the online conversation. Get involved by following us on X and answering our poll.

Before we discuss some of the September picks, however, we need to look at some of the top news stories of the week.

We kick off with a report from Spotify South Africa that details what the revenue share for local artists were in 2022. This is, and continues to be, a contentious issue among artists, but we are at least pleased to see the South African arm of the music streaming platform share some insights. Long may it continue, and hopefully next year we get a more in-depth report.

Next is a cybersecurity story that is a decade in the making, as the Hawks’ investigation into a man who stole roughly R600 000 from the Eastern Cape Department of Education in 2010 via a key logger device, finally led to his sentencing. While he is only serving three years of prison time, one has to wonder how the hack happened in the first place.

The last bit of news centres around the creator platform OnlyFans, and how much it grew over the course of 2022. With creators bringing in a massive $5.6 billion during last year, it is clear that OnlyFans is proving lucrative for some, but with other platforms looking to welcome creators too, it will be interesting to see if OnlyFans will remain the destination for adult creators.

As for the meat and potatoes of this africast, we look at some games that have a lot of impressing to do this September, such as EA Sports FC 24, as well as a spin-off The Boys series that we’re keen on called Gen V. Other picks include several horror-inspired properties, like The Nun II and Saw X, along with some titles with pay-to-play early access, namely Starfield and Mortal Kombat 1.

MENTIONED IN THIS AFRICAST:

• Spotify unpacks local artist revenue for 2022
• How hacker stole R600K from Eastern Cape schools
• Fans spent $5.6 billion on OnlyFans in 2022
• There is something odd about the Mortal Kombat 1 characters
• Starfield looks like a space RPG delight
• The gameplay trailer for EA Sports FC 24 featured two seconds of actual gameplay
• Big change coming to Hypertext podcasts