Veteran! Anyway, this was a nice closer to 2025.

You know what's good for a curled-up-at-home-with-food-poisoning Hate Watch? Tron: Ares. And as for that Daft Punk t-shirt 'easter egg'? Don't get me started...

What I'm seeing overnight out of Birmingham is plenty of food for thought, but... 😶

GTA6 delayed cleanly OUT of the GCSE exam period. Thank you, Rockstar Games!

OH GOD IT'S HIDEOUS *immediately preorders*

Aged a million years and expired when my son decided to show me - *ME* someone with an import copy of Guitar Hero PS2 (2005) and the full Rock Band instrument set in the loft - the Fortnite Festival game mode as if I’d ever seen this type of game before.

GDC just unveiled a 'Game Changers' ticket that costs $2.5k 😶

oh piss right off

The games industry naming literally anything - books, podcasts, talent programmes - these last few years

25+ years ago Electronic Arts was rich enough to pay Norman Foster's agency to design its Euro HQ building in UK countryside. It was shaped like an 'E'! Today, it's taking on $20bn in debt in a sale to private equity. Back then, EA was in the game. Now, EA is in the small print.

Hope the clothing sizes are, er, Western-friendly. 😶 I bought a lovely XL Zelda button-down shirt in Tokyo, but caused a diplomatic incident when I returned it after realising the cm measurement. I don't think anyone had the gall to ask Nintendo Store for a refund until then...

🌟 SAVE THE DATE🌟 London Games Festival returns Monday 13 - Sunday 19 April 2026 Applications NOW OPEN 🕹️Official Selection submissions 💸Games Finance Market submissions 🎉Ensemble nominations 🏙️Side Events 👉 Apply here: festival.games.london #LGF26

👀 *he says as his team prepare to announce festival dates later today*

GDC finds itself in a ‘horse has bolted’ situation. Increasingly unpopular host city in a country on no one’s bucket list and an audience that doesn’t necessarily pay for an official ticket. But it’s a high-quality audience nonetheless. A repositioning was needed.

I often think this company will take any position contrary to reason - 'let's sue our fans', 'no we are a toy company', 'games aren't art!' - on the path to profit.

Coming up to ten years in the job end of this week. It’s only in the last few days I realise could have got a lot more done more quickly if I’d just looked a few more people in the eye and said “Are you fucking thick?”

Trains delayed. Standing room only. But I’m watching over the shoulder of a man, someone at least 10 years older than me, with his laptop open… getting ready to publish his very first game to Roblox.

Who is it that's responsible for this diabolical trend of roll-top backpacks? Wondering if we can use cancel culture for good for once and get them for crimes against fashion.

Forcing myself through the embarrassing fantasy dross that Strange New Worlds' finale has become, only to be deeply, deeply amused by the implication that this IKEA kids play kitchen will still be in production in 230 years time.

Cait Sith. Is there a more insufferable video game character? Bought a PS5 Slim recently to get FFVII Rebirth finished. He's got cliche, irritating dialogue + voice, and then you're forced to play as him with some of the clumsiest controls and design.

Who on earth is 'Beavis and Butthead in Fortnite' for?

wtf be with you

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the Nintendo Museum when visiting Japan in July - and today's addition of an 'art gallery' reminds me what a peculiar place it was. I am still unsure if I adored or despised the place.

GDC is on mission to maintain relevance amongst an audience who - according to its State of Industry survey - shows some antipathy to genAI. But it is posting tweets... written by AI. (If the em dash wasn't a big enough clue then 'Elysia' is a bit of a giveaway!)

No one sets out to make a bad movie, so they say. But I've just just watched The Thursday Murder Club and wonder if some people really DO set out to make a bad movie sometimes.

Watching Star Trek has become a form of self-torture at this point. Strange New Worlds has veered so off course, stunt episode after stunt episode trying to subvert a formula and characters it's spent no time building to start with.

Horrendous, but the rumour is it opens up and has a fun thing inside. But it better not have that Genesis logo on the non-US box! (The one on the controller is an optional sticker) 🤮

😬

What a clanker

I can shrug off New Star Trek's obnoxious obsession with show lore but I will never forgive this recent scene where Young Scotty orders two pints of Guinness, gets served THIS flat-headed hate crime, and then Capt Pike hires the bartender to work full time on the Enterprise?!

Star Trek: Strange New Wigs.

Imagine having enough money to sponsor *most* games events… and then rocking up with this genAI junk image as your asset to show a crowd of developers.

In my life I've seen Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, Superman Returns, Man of Steel and Superman (2025) all at the cinema at the time of release. With the latest one I can update that sentence to 'I have finally seen a good Superman movie at the cinema.'

First time in Japan next week. Heading to Tokyo and then BitSummit in Kyoto. Even had the business card + logo localised.

An important point not celebrated enough in this Salt Path controversy is the masterpiece of passive aggressive revenge wrought by the victim's daughter.

I hope whoever runs my local gym is ok. Rejoined a month back only to learn the morning music is miserable throwbacks like Travis (‘Why does it always rain on me?’), Manics (‘If you tolerate this your children will be next’) & Radiohead (‘Karma police’). Dire vibe

You should read this article but the tl;dr is that it was used in *fairly* minor ways, according to the developers. However I think people underestimate how wide this kind of usage is. My impression from people studying this is that it is a lot more prevalent than you'd guess, just unreported.

A significant moment for the entire UK games industry and it's in barely any of our industry publications? What a sorry state. Anyway, in case you missed it, from somewhere that *has* posted about it: pocketgamer.biz/uk-governmen...

London Games Festival confirmed to be part of the Games Growth Package in this new Creative Industries Plan. Big investment into our programme will help us scale up the event, grow industry & consumer audiences, add more showcasing for games + generate business. www.independent.co.uk/news/busines...

#mcvawards

If you hate celebrities then will you LOVE podcasts. You can, right now, hear the likes of Amy Poehler, Penn Badgley, David Duchovny & other I’m-post-TV-hit-and-not-sure-where-work-will-come-from-next stars reading the ad copy for their podcasts’ sponsors like they want to die

24 hours w/ Switch 2 ✅ Lovely kit but underlines risk averse industry & where we are in evolution vs innovation cycle 🔘 Weak game line up. Nintendo would’ve been crucified for this in prev years ❌ Removal of ‘cops & robbers’ (aka Renegade Roundup) from MK is itself criminal

There is so much about Mario Kart World that is perfect - but as a fan of this series since day one in the '90s, not once have I ever, ever wondered if it was possible to drive between courses, or if they were connected by, I don't know wtf these are, main roads?!

The 'Grow A Garden' hype train is absolutely wild - just passed 16m concurrent players. I mean, surely if you don't understand *this* you don't understand the modern world...

Reader, I…

Why doesn't any of the meagre info out there about the revival of Insomnia name any of the people involved? 🤔

Fell down the rabbit hole reading about that genAI game Eloywn from SGF. Wow. WOW. Green game? No. Red flags? Yes.

Discourse aside, my takeaway from the Splitgate apology video is that it outright says "we had a trailer at TGA and it did not make a difference". You buy a slot at the biggest games broadcast, and you're left thinking you still need to pull another stunt... The games market is so, so noisy.

Whoops. The bot that floods my local Facebook Marketplace listings with dodgy PS5s has messed up the prices.

A few of the games we selected for LGF were backed by Outersloth - I was surprised / impressed with the speed it has intervened in the market. There are some with deeper pockets in games who should be able to support the cultural ecosystem as swiftly…