Also Culloden (1964), an extraordinary historical recreation done on a shoestring budget with a tiny cast which demonstrated the possibilities of the documentary form and had enough confidence in its audience not to dumb down the material. www.reddit.com/r/Documentar...

so the news is that i have done the unthinkable and... started a podcast. "American Medieval" - because if we've never been fully modern, maybe it's because we've always been a little bit medieval. the trailer has now dropped! please have a listen --> patreon.com/americanmedieval

👀….yikes y’all

Podcasts and "deep dive" media will try to convince you that you *now* know things, thanks to them. A PhD, especially one with archival, observational, or observational components, will definitely convince you that you know next to nothing, thanks to the available resources & one's predecessors.

I’m over here trying to enjoy PSLF and this comes across my screen. Sigh. IGN claims his classes are “a world first.” FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, EVERYONE!!!! NEVER BEEN DONE BY ANYONE EVER!!!! Meanwhile, I and many others have been doing this for a decade or more.

I know things are tough all around, but this is a glorious morning for one Bob Whitaker. 120 out of 120! Public Service Loan Forgiveness secured. So relieved.

Historians (rightly) get annoyed when other academics weigh in on their subject & claim to have “solved” or “completed” history, ignoring existing research & nuance. Yet historians keep weighing in on games as if no one has ever paid attention to them before (& it’s not great)

Happy Silksong Day to all who celebrate

I wrote a piece for the Guardian games newsletter this week on my PhD research into preserving play experiences, and why I think that the most archaeological games are those that that actually make you *think* like one 🏺 www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

Without question the best history radio show/podcast of all time. Nothing else comes close.

In Our Time is one of the greatest creations in broadcast history. I mean that without any trace of hyperbole.

We need a film depicting the process where the historian uses Google Scholar, clicks on the desired article, finds that it is paywalled, goes to uni library website, logs in, goes back to article page again, downloads PDF into a folder with 500 other unread PDFs, and repeats the process for 120 min.

"mystery"

Rio. Wow. What a moment

We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer. As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free. Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...

My next episode of Echoes of History is up! I spoke to Raphael Lacoste, the concept artist & art director on the very first Assassin’s Creed game & many more since. We had a fascinating chat about inspirations, evoking feeling, & so much more. Give it a listen👇 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/d...

Advertise your account with a GIF

If you missed our Gender panel event on Tuesday, you can now watch the recording of this fantastic discussion here via our Youtube Channel! Featuring @verysrsgames.com @katexe.bsky.social @tesswatty.bsky.social & @ide4fix.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtP3...

Reminder that from the end of summer I’m available for work! Writing, narrative design, historical and narrative consultancy, research etc. I’ve got a PhD, 5 academic publications (another on the way), 3 shipped games (3 more on the way), lots of experience collaborating with cultural institutions

Very thankful to Graham for his work at RPS, but also for helping to launch History Respawned with a Sunday Papers mention over a decade ago. I doubt many people would have seen that first video without that spotlight on RPS. Happy trails, Graham!

Best book on WSC and the SWW

I spend a lot of time talking about all the things historical games do wrong when representing (or, mostly, not representing) women in the past - for a change, here I wrote about some games which I think do something better and more interesting in their depictions of historical women & girls!

If Fallout can work on TV, the New Order series certainly can too. And, of course, this game series has great politics.

I spent A LOT of time this week responding to emails about my negative review of Red Dead's History. I thought I would be done by now...but then the American Historical Association sent out this newsletter this morning on teaching recommendations for the upcoming semester. And guess who's there?

I recently went to the V&A Dundee to see the Future Gardens exhibition. They had this inspiring documentary about how in 2005, artist Zheng Guogu began constructing Liao Garden, a 20,000 square metre garden studio in Yangjiang, based on the classic RTS Age of Empires. The garden is astoundingly cool

To honor Ozzy's larger-than-life rock and roll legacy, we're making Brütal Legend *FREE* on itch.io: doublefine.itch.io/brutal-legend But this incredible deal will only last for 666 minutes, as the prophecy foretold. So get yourself clicking, before it disappears like a demon in the night... 🤘 🖤

Ozzy is one of like 3 people in Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 that comes off as a decent human being and I always love the scene where Penelope Spheeris interviews him making breakfast while he explains the ups and downs of the business.

Thank you for your feedback on this post. Honestly, I hoped a dozen people in my small history and games corner of the internet would read this. I never expected this sort of response.

Not all topics deal with history game studies, but I can’t recommend the ‘Game Studies Study Buddies’ podcast enough for any historian looking to expand their work into the game studies field rangedtouch.com/game-studies...

Apropos of academic things, have you read @saraventure.bsky.social 's Manifest Destiny 2.0 yet? www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...

Teaching Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus again this fall, and trying to keep most of it on the syllabus to the 1920-1930s part of it all... but need some modern linking articles, because games have to have meaning to be worth playing (for class). What are your favorite American fascism OA articles?

Last month I traveled to the LBJ Library for the educator institute on historical memory and war. I presented on History and Games for an amazing body of K-12 educators. The pics are up and they are amazing. You can't even tell it's 1000 degrees and I'm sweating through my clothes (back row, left).

I wrote something new for History Respawned today. It's a review of a new book about Red Dead, but it's really about academic writing and historical game studies as a field. Please read, but also know, I really really really really REALLY didn't want to write this review.

The way I YELPED at this

My current contracts are going to be keeping me busy until the end of summer. BUT after that my books are open for more contracts or FT/PT work

Another entry into Aftermath's "regret" series

New issue of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is live, & this is a special one. First: its mostly non-US focused content & contributors. There's a French and English interview w/ a Swiss game dev. A long read about Brazilian game history. Our first ever translation of doujinshi!

It's hard to avoid recalling this passage from the English historian Tony Judt:

Back home for the week

I'm too old and decrepit to be a Paste intern, but some of my favorite people were Paste Interns, and it's my favorite outlet to write for, so if your life needs some "structure" that is "fun" and "pays" well... 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Research finished for the day. Bonus activity: the Age of Empires exhibit in the museum (with sound effects)!

Friends, my book is available for pre-order! It's really real! The official publication date is October 14, but if you order from the UNC Press website (uncpress.org/.../978146.....) you can get 30% off with the code 01SOCIAL30 and get your book 2-4 weeks early!

Day 1 of Summer Research. I’m using grant funds from my college to continue my research on historical games. Today it’s Age of Empires, Civilization, and Oregon Trail! Second trip to the Strong but my first since the remodel. Can’t wait!

Happy summer

This rules for a lot of reasons, but especially because it dispels the myths that A.) old games were never political and B.) games like this are just stories, they aren't "about" anything. Should serve as a reminder to anyone writing about games why we should be close reading 'em.

First time watching the original Star Wars trilogy w/ the kids. My interest in Star Wars died w/ the prequels, but I try hard not to burden the kids w/ my fan baggage. The kids always pepper me with questions when we watch something like this, so my wife made me an incredibly helpful sign to hold up

The Middle Ages in Modern Games is back in a couple of weeks! It's a really exciting line up this year - and it's still completely free to participate.

Some more gems from student evaluations. John Brown's Body on repeat, no skips.

Student evaluation day. I'm most interested in reading my evaluations for my history and games class. Six times? Really?!