Earlier this year, VGChartz quietly launched a podcast, the GamrFeed Weekly. A few weeks later, it quietly died. But, as show contributors Austin Adamson and Nick Simberg have informed me, it didn’t have to end that way.

Carlos Macias is no stranger to the world of podcasting. His bio on VGChartz mentions various gaming podcasts with names like Viral Play and Kenzins GameCast. It struck him as a good idea if VGChartz had a podcast of his very own.

Along with Nick Simberg, he approached VGChartz Editor-in-Chief Chris Arnone about launching a podcast. Nick and Carlos both live in California, only an hour’s drive away from each other. It made sense to have them sit in the same room and talk about gaming news.

Arnone suggested they throw a pilot together. He’d listen to that and determine whether or not it was a good idea. So that’s what they did – Nick jumped in his car, drove an hour to Rialto, California to record the ‘cast, and once it was in the can Carlos edited it, finalized it, and sent it to Chris. Three weeks later, after much prodding, Arnone finally gave the podcast the greenlight.

Carlos got in touch with VGChartz founder Brett Walton to ask how exactly the podcast should be hosted. With no answer forthcoming, Carlos suggested handling the hosting himself.

Austin Adamson, a regular co-host and contributor to the show, recalls that Carlos “had informed us that not only would he get reimbursed from Brett Walton for the hosting charges he was incurring, but that we would also be getting [per-download] payment depending on the success of the show.”

Carlos paid for the hosting out of his own pocket, confident that Brett would eventually reimburse him for the fees. As the show only lasted ten weeks, you can probably guess what happened next.

During the course of these ten weeks, Carlos sent several emails to Brett asking for reimbursement. Brett never responded. With Carlos planning to return to college, there was simply no way he could afford $170 a year hosting the podcast.

After completing the tenth episode Carlos somberly informed his colleagues that it would be their final show.

“Carlos dropped the bomb on us that he had never received any form of payment, not for the hosting charges he had accumulated and not from any of the traffic our content had generated,” Adamson informs me. “This was discouraging news, as I felt like I was producing some quality content with a great team.”

Nick Simberg notes that VGChartz made no effort to promote the podcast.

“It was never promoted,” said Simberg, “So it rarely got more than a thousand hits.”

The GamrFeed site has a sidebar that they use to promote various features. Two of those features, “Caption This” and “Top Ten”, haven’t been updated since June and July August respectively. The podcast could have been plugged there, but for reasons unknown this never happened.

Between Brett Walton and Chris Arnone, the podcast was never given a chance to grow. Then, when the producer of the show requested Brett make good on the agreement to reimburse for hosting, Brett kept quiet.

Edit, for clarity: Carlos Macias was not involved in getting this information to me. All of this information has come the personal accounts of Nick Simberg and Austin Adamson.