Valve's new Steam Machine was 14 years (and one big failure) in the making. Here's the twisty story behind the Steam maker's decade-long quest to bring PCs to the living room: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Very happy to see everyone enjoying the new Eno/Miyamoto interview! If you'd like to support our work at shmuplations, and vote on our upcoming translations (many more Eno pieces await), please consider joining our patreon! www.patreon.com/shmuplations...

Today we have something special: a newly translated interview from July 1996 between Shigeru Miyamoto and Kenji Eno! Conducted just weeks after the launch of Mario 64, Eno takes Miyamoto to task (in a friendly way) with several fascinating critiques of its design. shmuplations.com/miyamotoxeno/

Post Games is an NPR-style weekly podcast about video game culture. This episode is a tasting menu for newcomers. Hear about... The future of Nintendo! Growing old as a gaming YouTuber! How Silicon Valley metrics infected our games! A Dragon Quest monologue from Tim Rogers!

Inscryption is almost 5, so let's talk about its music.

📣 Happy to say that Pre-Orders for Issue 6 are NOW LIVE! 📣 Go reserve your copy now! 👇👇👇 shop.apwot.com

We've got a big one today. Almost 20 years after Maxis released Spore, we talked to eight people -- including Will Wright -- about the studio's big experiment.

Perfect weekend reading.

We also have a couple of Spore bonus stories today for paid subscribers, like this one on the game's Wind Waker connection.

Perhaps the most justified pun in publishing history.

I can finally reveal the cover for Nobuo Uematsu: On The Record, coming from @viz.com this September, which is not far away. Cover portrait of Uematsu by Yoshitaka Amano, foreword written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, testimonials from awesome guest stars, and tons of surprises! Preorder: amzn.to/4g6Y9ai

Trial of the Space Invaders: The Case that Changed Video Games The true story of Nintendo’s years-long legal battle to establish who invented video games, and the secret, never-before-revealed settlement that profoundly shaped today’s industry. I cannot wait to share it with you. Coming: Jan 2027

A reminder that our 'role-puzzling' game Arranger is 60% off on Steam/Switch, and also out/cheap on PS5, EGS, Itch, iOS, Android. It's everywhere, dammit! We're also not worlds away from an Overwhelmingly Positive rating, which would make me deeply happy. What if YOU left a review? arranger.quest

Namco's exercise bike-powered flying contraption is almost 30 years old, so we tracked down the game's director to look back.

Thing I learned working on this story: Prop Cycle's soundtrack came with instructions for a dice-based card game.

Exhibit #15 of how you can tell I run @designroom.site.

Friday

Now up on Patreon early, the labor of love that is a new long form and in depth video on the classic beat em up that is Final Fight! Mechanics, history, interviews...it's all here! www.patreon.com/posts/final-...

Why you should try Post Games: - An NPR-quality weekly podcast on video games - Hosted by a 19-year games media veteran - Rare interviews with the most interesting people in gaming, from philosophers to CEOs, sex game designers to Dunkey - And scripts, editing, and music that respect your time!

"It's like trying to make three games within the budget for one. Realistically, it's not possible."

it felt trivial at times to be writing about video games at rikers, which is so notoriously dangerous for incarcerated people. still, play and, specifically, video games are a meaningful piece of the lives of the ~12 young men i met and played with at rikers. read: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/a...

Remember all those Street Fighter history stories I did awhile back? Here's a new one.

Remember all those Street Fighter history stories I did awhile back? Here's a new one.

A reported feature I've long wanted to write: For @eurogamer.bsky.social, I draw a direct line from Black & White's creature AI to the world-transforming ambitions of Google DeepMind, with the inside scoop on Lionhead's starry-eyed, stoner culture of the time. www.eurogamer.net/black-and-wh... 🐵⛪

Monday

Ahead of LA Noire's 15th anniversary, I spoke with Tim Rogers @108.bsky.social! Tim opens the hood of the game and explains how everything works. Plus, we get into the behind-the-scenes history of its dev. And Tim shares how he adapted the game into a TV-length experimental video essay/playthrough

My latest book is about more than the making of Age of Empires. It's a story of brothers, camaraderie, innovation, and dreams—the cost of chasing them, the passion that drives them, and the joy when they come true. Available for preorder from @bossfightbooks.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/gab...

Just prod the button below and you'll get whisked away to a random article on my site! SNES puzzle games, modern indies, NGPC RPGs, arcade classics... with hundreds of articles spanning 40+ formats, I'm sure you'll find something you'll love: kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com?random

Sworcery turns 15 today, and we've got a big new feature looking back for the anniversary.

Scratch that Resident Evil itch! Itchy, Tasty by author Alex Aniel ( @cvxfreak.bsky.social ) and artist Jean deMers gets a delicious new version in collaboration with Lost In Cult 💀 Only 500 signed special edition hardcover books available! ⛱️⤵️

If you squint, you might remember that brief moment when it seemed like iOS games were going to change the industry for the better.

Portal writer Erik Wolpaw fought like hell to move Valve's headquarters to Duluth, Minnesota. He talks about living in Minnesota and its connection to writing Psychonauts and Portal on the new episode of The MinnMax Show. youtu.be/Zi0kGNknkPE

Wanna make a real quick thread of games crit because, though I haven't been posting much recently, I have been reading -- and everyone has been on fire 🔥🔥🔥 Starting with @leadergrev.bsky.social on Marathon as satire of debt and corpo culture. Exemplary piece -- www.readergrev.com/p/marathon-i...

Hi, we're a new video game oral history site. Some highlights so far: Mirror's Edge: bit.ly/mirrorsedgeoralhistory Sayonara Wild Hearts: bit.ly/sayonarawildhearts Shadow of the Colossus: bit.ly/shadowotcolossus Sound Fantasy: bit.ly/49xPfha Rez Infinite: bit.ly/4pKj0BB Find us at designroom.site.

When the tutorial is the title.

New exp. for subscribers! Nintendo published a Konami ping pong game that was a couple of years old on the Famicom Disk System. Just filler? Maybe. But it's genuinely great. On Smash Ping Pong. Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/smash-...

I want to introduce you all to something myself and @jacksonwryan.com have been working on. A PRINT MAGAZINE about video games and video game culture. We know things have been bad for games writing recently. We're asking, "do you want to Continue?" www.kickstarter.com/projects/con...

New story up on what happened to Ocean Software's Lobo fighting game, with a bunch of never-before-seen renders made for the game.

From myself and the whole team at @eurogamer.bsky.social, a very fond farewell and huge thank you to our friends and colleagues (thread).💙

The planned box art is everything that's great about '90s CG.

Never tell me I don't give the people what they want.

Fly through of part of a Keeper level directly in the Unreal Engine editor. Part way through I turn on all of the game objects the player doesn't see -- it takes a lot to make games work.

An old Capcom promo video popped up on YouTube with, as Ryan Cravens mentions in the comments, "the only real video" of Bill Cravens, the guy who sold Street Fighter 1 in the U.S.

Some news - today I’m launching One More Catch, an independent publication covering Pokémon Go and the next generation of Pokémon games: @onemorecatch.site

Big news. I wrote a biography on Nobuo Uematsu and it drops this Fall, published by @viz.com. It is jam-packed with amazing revelations about the Final Fantasy composer that the public has never heard about, as shared by himself and those closest to him. This is the definitive chronicle on Uematsu.

Everyone: You really shouldn't spend more than a couple days on a story no one's going to read. Me: Right, yes. That's smart. I would never. But...

If memory serves, I think this followed an article Chris wrote for the short-lived fanzine Game Head, which the internet doesn't seem to remember but I'm 99% sure was real.