From 4chan to the White House, 01/05/2025
James Ball explains how failing to take games seriously has fed the populist right
Latest Gaming Articles
Why is Cristiano Ronaldo in a fighting game?, 24/04/2025
It's Saudi Arabia’s soft power strategy, of course
Trump’s trade war hits video games, 10/04/2025
The games industry rocks (back and forth) as Trump's tariffs strike
Mata Haggis-Burridge
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Apr 10
Regarding the final point: after 40+ years of playing games, they have failed to make me violent, but in recent years they induced me to powerwash patios 😁
#30: Yes, Video Games are Obviously Art
On the Roguelike Modernism of Balatro, & More.
I. Intro & tl;dr
Yep, we have magic and miracles for 70+ since the creating of video games. We can build a whole direct democratic simulated multiverse and solve AI safety. No kidding, we shared the full proposal with UIs and more
The reason videogames aren’t art is because they’re not produced by the Art World and don’t engage with Art History (i.e. the history of the Art World). But this is a good thing.
Your Guide to May's Family Friendly Video Games
The last month before we start putting Switch 2 video games in this list.
Who’s ready for Switch 2? Honestly, most of the video game industry is, given how dire things feel these days. I’m not sure a single (even if popular) piece of video game hardware can change the trajectory of how things feel these days, but here’s hoping.
What do the US tariffs mean for video games?
Here’s our handy guide to the tariff situation as it stands, as it might be, and what this could mean for the video game business
2025 has been dominated by one word: tariffs.
Ask Lewis: Video Games, PTSD, And Academic Performance
Game Theory psychology
• Despite the negative effects directed towards video games, certain studies indicate that they may have value in terms of academic performance.
Game Journal: April 2025
A list of games I played on my steam deck or switch in April with 2-3 line comments.
What a busy month it has been. I went to a couple of video game themed events and managed to squeeze in quite a bit of gaming time too. I hope you had a pleasant April as well.
Out of all these games, I have only played Stray and I absolutely adore that game. I thought the story was great and the implementation of the cat mechanics to solve puzzles was fun.
I've mostly been playing Assassin's Creed: Shadows, but I will probably try out Blue Prince soon.
I haven't played anything super new this month, but I did start Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster. I have the PSOne version of FFII (FF Origins), but I was scared off by the unorthodox character progression system and how badly FF veterans bounced off it.
Thankfully, the Pixel Remaster version has quality-of-life improvements that make things much more manageable.
I also started Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake when it was released, but I fell off it. One day, I’ll stop procrastinating and get back to it. I really want to finish it before the DQ I & II HD-2D remakes come out.
The video game industry is not ready to lose boxed games
Meanwhile, we discuss Québec tax break changes with The Logic's Brendan Sinclair
Listen now on Apple, Spotify or YouTube
Dune video games (and where you can play them right now)
Take your pick: amazing action-adventure, genre-defining RTS, or survival MMO.
To set expectations: I won’t be covering any lore this week.
My perfect travel games - April 2025
Games I like to play on the steam deck while travelling
I’ve been open about losing my dad a year ago and as my family lives in a different country to me, I’ve been travelling back and forth a lot over the last 18 months. This actually inspired the steam deck purchase because I was playing a lot of PS5 and wanted to play some more games on the go that wouldn’t work on the switch.
Hades and Dead cells are such great in flight games though I terrible suck and never beaten em haha
Hades is a fantastic travel game! I went around Europe playing it on my Switch!
I also really like simulator games. So the Two Point series, or Civ? Stuff you can easily pause?
I really enjoy Civ for the long plane flights I have to endure, living in Australia, at least 8 hours away from anything!
This is a brilliant well researched piece. Thanks so much for sharing. So important to be aware of this stuff especially today. How will we ever know what’s true and what isn’t in the near future. A frightening thought.
Excellent summary of relatively recent cognitive warfare. Thanks! This issue goes back at least to the turn of the last century when Capitalists realised they needed to create a consumerist culture for their products and their profits. Propaganda, public relations, perception management, psychological operations, behavioural management, cognitive warfare... whatever you call it, it's the water we swim in, the air we breathe.
Trying to sift through the many layers of national (civilian and military) corporate and think tank produced bull crap is a full time job that most people can't sustain. The rule of thumb for me is...do I need this? Who benefits? Does this make me hate the 'other'? Are basic questions that usually help me figure things out.
Word Games
Diane Mehta on learning the frantic art of scrambling for words from her speedy and strategic 21-year-old son.
After playing anagrams for several hours via Game Pigeon on my phone with my son, who is in college, he wrote between classes and said, “Mom, stop.” He is a physicist and has ADHD, and we are part Indian, so we all know that we both have certain talents. Mine is fast computation, his is quantum things, and he’s race…
I'm 77 and my two sons, one 55 and the other 43, and I have a daily battle with Wordle, the New York Times mini puzzle, and Connections. They are both exceptionally bright boys, and the 43-year-old is a Scrabble wizard! They both usually beat me in the timed mini puzzle, but I chalk that up to my fumble fingers more than my ability to answer the clues. It's a great way to keep in touch everyday. The youngest lives far away and I don't get to see him much. The eldest lives closer, but daily life and it's hassles, keep us apart more than I would like. I'm amazing at Wordle, meh at the mini for reasons stated above, and pretty good at connections. Both my boys have ADD, and they tell me I probably do too. I don't care; my main goal is to stay in touch and to keep my brain working. I love your piece. Good luck with the anagrams!
This is some gorgeous writing. I do not have children, but I was a university professor, and so I have tenderness for those delicate and lightning-fast boy-men. I am looking for your new book right now. Congratulations.
4 Ways Gaming Changes Your Child’s Brain
And how to use this knowledge to finally get control over video games
Has your child ever thrown a controller when playing a video game, maybe even right at the TV screen? Has he ever hit or screamed at a sibling during or directly following a gaming session? Have you given up on setting limits because you fear his reaction when you tell him it’s time to turn off the game?
Pakistan's Dangerous Games
After the resolution of the current India-Pakistan crisis, it will be past time to impose severe costs on the Pakistani Army and its leaders for their continued use of terrorist organizations as an arm of Islamabad’s foreign policy. It is probably not a coincidence that a week before the horrific terrorist
Gen McMaster. A post on the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon https://open.substack.com/pub/markmcinerney/p/april-30-a-memory-that-still-breathes?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1b56qu
In my opinion Pakistan is the least hostile Islamic Country however they had close links with SArabia and Taliban in the past
Very interesting and insiteful post on this dramatic era in video game history. I fondly remember my time with the sega dreamcast and how ahead of it ls time it was.
I also still remember unboxing the OG Xbox and thinking 'what an indestructible beast!!' Fun times - thank you for the reminder!!
This era was so much fun. Each console still had their own unique identity. The games were great. The prices for consoles and games were still (relatively) affordable. And we were all much, much younger, with more energy and more free time on our hands.
Thanks for the post!
The player of games
Below is a review and summary of Iain M. Banks’s classic, The Player of Games, and how it relates to our times.
Win with mind-games!
When things get bad, set yourself up for a win!
I am a definitely “Glass half full” kind of guy. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that the only challenge is figuring out what opportunity has just been opened up for me. I personally find that I feel better taking control of a bad situation than sitting back and being a victim.
Fight breaks out over EU’s new in-game currency rules, 17/04/2025
Why new EU rules about selling virtual gems could end up in court
The Player of Games
I don’t write much these days (other than book lists and interviews!). But this blog is where I park things that matter to me, so I carved out a little time to write about one of my favorite novels.
What a lovely blog Ramanan! I want to read these books now!
Hey RR - thanks for this. I was not aware of this series. Looking forward to diving into it. A few thoughts / Questions:
1) Do I need to start at the beginning? Start at #1 with 'Consider Phlebas' or dive right into Player?
2) Have you red 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson? Just in it now. Some similar themes.
3) Did you see this? The whole concept of #Tedpilled is crazy to me but there is overlap in some of the thinking.... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/podcasts/the-daily/unabomber-kaczynski-manifesto-tedpilled.html
The venture deadpool in games
The most recent GameCraft episode with Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins should be required listening for anyone in games. It dissects why so many venture-backed studios are failing despite raising hundreds of millions.
The Games Industry is Deprofessionalizing
The fragmentation of a creative form and its institutions
There’s this word I’ve started using to describe what’s happening to the games industry: deprofessionalizing.
This seems somewhat similar to the Hollywood model. Directors, actors, and technical professionals drift freely between studios, with projects arranged by producers. It's also heavily unionized.
It will be interesting to see how much point 3 ultimately allows for a sustainable "indie industry" rather than a couple of occasional outlier breakouts, with everybody else perhaps not being able to even break even. Making games eventually (perhaps with genAI getting better at replacing existing asset-generating disciplines) goes from a career, to something more akin to one's chances of becoming the next Taylor Swift, with most not being able to even cover their gas bill by playing gigs at local dive bars. Only (maybe "only" is the wrong word here, maybe that's actually already more than anybody ever expected) four solo devs generated 100M+ USD in sales this last decade, out of how many games released during that time?
Games Recaps, Penguins Fire Sullivan, Takeaways from Games & More
Plus, some of the latest from the Blackhawks and around the league...
All the latest NHL News and Rumors from our great team of writers.
AI Video Supertest
12 models pushed to breaking point
It’s seven months since my last AI video generator round-up and the landscape has changed dramatically.
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