building my 2026 reading list! send me recs pls

Today is my last day at WIRED! I adore this team, but I’m looking forward to writing about more than just games and working on some other cool projects. I’m taking the holidays off but will be freelancing on the side, so editors get in touch 😎

saw some angry responses to this piece, which is fine, but it is abundantly clear that the pro-AI faction in this country is about to start hammering hard on the line that water fears are overblown, using Masley as a source

btw the point of preventing young ppl from accessing gender affirming care is forcing them to go through unwanted puberties so that it becomes harder to pass without a shitload of expensive surgeries when they’re adults. that’s it

if anyone even remotely suggests to me they won’t go after adults next, i’m going to just start shrieking in their ear like an exotic bird

“Was I a DEI hire?” It’s a question that WIRED senior writer Jason Parham sometimes asks. In an industry perpetually on the verge of extinction, Parham jokes that the only reason he’s survived so long is because he’s Black. www.wired.com/story/dei-di...

EXCLUSIVE New research shows for first time the impact influencers have on politics. Key findings: • Creators are more impactful than traditional media • Apolitical influencers have more impact than political ones • Regular social media use pushes users to the right www.wired.com/story/the-mo...

the White Guys Having A Hard Time story is darkly funny because it's full of quotes like these and zero self-awareness. I can't help but think about the editor I had who, as a fellow PoC, told me he was intentionally harder on me than others because as PoC, we had to be 2x as good as everyone else

there is a goddamn mouse living in my oven. i can't trap it. all i've managed to do is scream every time it pops out

"To me it shines a light on the god-complex that AI C-suite members seem to have, and their willingness to ignore people's consent and opinions as they bulldoze their way of pushing AI." www.404media.co/anthropic-ex...

I like games that give you tough choices

Before the Game Awards in LA last week, a US video game workers union turned up to protest. "Anyone who works in the games industry can identify that our art form is being sold for parts to make a few people a lot of money." @alyssamerc.bsky.social reports www.theguardian.com/games/2025/d...

new from me: are data centers going to wipe out water supplies? how much water does ChatGPT really use? and what's going on with that big correction in Empire of AI? i went long on the conversation around AI and water, and how it's actually about what we want resources to be used for:

I give you 5,000 words on Slutcon, a one-of-a-kind sex education event where inexperienced men paid thousands of dollars for the chance to flirt — in a controlled, judgement-free environment — with a fleet of sex workers and intimacy experts. It was fascinating to see it up close.

kojima found crying in the bathroom

weird to have all these hollywood people and not...feature...more actors in games

there are....a lot of celebrities at this game awards huh

it never feels any less bizarre to watch geoff blow through awards at his award show

if you for any reason feel like reading about remedy rn, here you go www.theverge.com/games/691964...

They Put Orville Peck In A Street Fighter Movie. No Really I'm Confused Too But I Support Him

video game trailer set to tool...recession indicator

“Don’t gather some of the most brilliant activists in the industry, treat us like crap, and then expect us to do nothing about it.” After the Game Awards cancelled its Future Class programme, @alyssamerc.bsky.social talked to its former honorees www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...

NEW: Doxing-for-hire services are using forging emergency data requests from law enforcement to trick major tech companies like Apple and Amazon into handing over people's private information. @davidgilbert.bsky.social w/ the scoop: www.wired.com/story/doxers...

As of August 2025, Vietnam accounted for 75% of all video game consoles shipped to the US. In 2024, 86% of consoles shipped to the US were from China.

See also: BAFTA's "Game Beyond Entertainment", which ends up as a catch-all for games with PoC in them + social impact games. While it's an honour to be nominated for a BAFTA I was utterly baffled that *Thirsty Suitors* a game about fighting your hot toxic exes and wuxia cooking was in this category

san francisco: well, well, well, not so easy to find a location that doesn't suck shit, huh?

Again, apologizing to all videogame environment artists who knocked up satirical posters for their games, I should not have rolled my eyes, yes, even you Cyberpunk billboard team, I am sorry

in a cab and a lawyer ad offering representation for victims of Roblox grooming is playing on the radio. wild stuff

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

New from me: The internet promised the democratization of information, power, and expression. Now there are vanishingly few ways to be online that don't involve being a billboard. I wrote about the weird — and sometimes devastating — experience of being *influenced* www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

ICYMI: I wrote about Horses and how, despite its right to exist in the face of censorship, the game still has a lot of problems www.wired.com/story/horses...

The conversation about the ban was/is important and necessary, but I'm glad we're moving into the "What about the actual game" part of the discourse.

wrote about Horses, which should be defended against censorship, and also is a game I think is bad :) www.wired.com/story/horses...

Ok so boom www.theverge.com/games/839464...

Yeah if you read any Horses reviews its this one

it's bandcamp friday and i have a new album out gaze through all four panes of: blurred windows spacerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/blurre...

One more thing I'll add about this: I would love to see games get to a place where the mere inclusion isn't taboo, and onto discussions of "what is this really saying and is there no other way to say it"

wrote about Horses, which should be defended against censorship, and also is a game I think is bad :) www.wired.com/story/horses...

save him

video game discourse about needing new video game discourse

Tbf, we did our best stuff at WB Games when Warner itself barely knew the Games team existed.

reading reviews of horses is making me feel insane

if you've ever started a message with "hey trouble" you should go to jail

fantastic story from @davidgilbert.bsky.social of a grooming victim who became a Roblox predator hunter trying to prevent the same thing from happening to other kids. Roblox then banned for his vigilantism www.wired.com/story/he-hun...

Another good reason to avoid being on X is that Isaac Chotiner could start asking you questions there at any time

NEW: When Propecy Fails is one of the most famous social psychology books of all time, a look at a small group of UFO believers when the “spacemen” failed to land. I wrote about a new study from an independent researcher who says the book is not what it seems. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

thrilled to reveal I will once again be making a gooey butter cake for friendsgiving. it will instantly kill anyone with dairy intolerance and it goes great with coffee the next morning

I wrote about our interview with Roblox's CEO and how platforms got too big to feel shame www.platformer.news/roblox-ceo-i...