MAGA have found this neat Gamergate cheatcode whereby you unleash your lunatic internet army to make death threats against staff of the corporation you're trying to bully, thereby allowing its leadership to neatly sidestep the moral implications of caving by claiming it's a staff safety decision.

Fix your brain and heart

Five years ago I wrote an article asking the question: why do some gamers invert their controls. The piece led to scientific research and now a paper has been published! I spoke to the researchers responsible… www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

Here’s the silly thing I wrote about getting random lines of video game dialogue stuck in your head. Finally, some action… www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

Viewed my 99th ‘BFI 250 Best Films’ movie - Le Mepris! It is very beautiful with an incredibly luscious score and gorgeous cinematography - and it has Fritz Lang in it. Would watch again

James Chapman “Reform featuring in a quarter of all BBC News at Ten bulletins - far more than the Lib Dems, who have 18 times as many MPs, and far too often policy is unscrutinised, according to an authoritative new study. Something’s gone badly wrong at the BBC” www.theguardian.com/media/2025/s...

It only took me 107 hours. Thank you @hideokojimaen.bsky.kojimaproductions.jp!

Hi I’m writing a silly article on strangely memorable lines of video game dialogue - I don’t mean the classic quotes, I mean things YOU’VE remembered, maybe from lesser known games/scenes, and you don’t really know why. Do you have examples?!

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...

Please please go and see Jaws while it’s on in the cinema. Alright, it’s my fave ever film so I am biased but it’s an amazing experience

Every CEO in the video game industry for the last 18 months: vm.tiktok.com/ZNdVW7Jqa/

The Play for Peace: Games for Palestine charity bundle is now live! Nearly 400 games from creators all around the world, with proceeds going directly to Gaza relief efforts. Bundle link: itch.io/b/2979/play-... We made a launch trailer to celebrate this moment👇 Please RT.

Hi I wrote about Little Problems by Posh Cat Studio because I am here for a detective game where the biggest mysteries include “who broke my favourite mug?” and “where is my essay?” www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

Look ma! I'm in THE FREAKING GUARDIAN! It's exciting to see people getting the weird Legally Blonde-inspired, anti-capitalist puzzle (but so much more) game we're making! Thanks so much for the thoughtful write up, @keefstuart.bsky.social!

Hi I spoke to @oneofmoo.bsky.social about Mythmatch, an intriguing puzzle game combining RPG and match-three elements with a slyly anti-techbro narrative www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

Hi I wrote about some games you should be playing this autumn while you’re not kicking leaves in the park or drinking pumpkin spice latte or wistfully considering the temporality of all things

For an unlikely yet incredible representation of this subject in the form of queer botanical horror fiction, read Eat The Ones You Love by @griffski.bsky.social it is *amazing*

Well, the greatest GamesCom 2025 moment has already happened - Limited Run games has announced He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction a 2D brawler based on the classic cartoon. It better have the original music and Adam ➡️ He-Man transformation sequence

Still trying to come to terms with this sentence from the opening para of the Economist’s recent piece on the value of games to the UK economy

My favourite moment in Death Stranding 2 [🚨SPOILER ALERT FOR NERDS🚨] is when you think you’ve completed building the road network and then you visit this dude who tells you that he’s upgraded the tech and you can now put cool transparent roofs over all your highways. Kojima, you sly old fox! 👍

This is a really nice article about the early days of one of the great sport sims. Definitely a formative gaming experience for me - I remember my mind being blown that this could even be a thing when I first found it. Nice one @keefstuart.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

To mark the beginning of the Premiership season I spoke to Kevin Toms about the making of his classic sim Football Manager and its revival 40 years later. It was lovely to meet and chat with this icon of the 8bit era www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

Come back to the naughties! www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad is out today in UK paperback. The book tells the true story of the botanists who worked at world’s first seed bank during the siege of Leningrad. It’s a finalist in the Orwell Prize and the 2025 Royal Society Prize. Pick up a copy wherever you get your books.

Here’s our preview of Silent Hill f, written by @grapedosmil.bsky.social - fear, fog and feminism in 60s Japan… www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

The absolute worst things in modern digital culture are “ending explained” videos and articles. I will fight you one at a time or all at once

I previewed Mandrake for The Guardian. Everything I heard about the game sounds delightful, a narrative-focused, folkloric take on the rural life sim with weirdness to burn. www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

Here is the Guardian preview of Mandrake the forthcoming folklore-drenched rural sim from @failbettergames.com - I am so looking forward to this www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

My novel Frequency of Us is recommended in this month’s Bath Life magazine! @littlebrown.bsky.social

nice piece by @keefstuart.bsky.social on seaside arcade machines & specifically electro-mechanical ones I was weirded out the other year when I returned to the UK for a few days, stayed at my folks & discovered they loved this mid afternoon ITV show that was essentially televised coin pushing

We're pensioners, so a bit older than @keefstuart.bsky.social and the day we stop gaming is the day we die. I can't imagine not gaming, any more than I can imagine not burying my nose in a book.

Come with me to a time of tank controls, distance fogging, weird voice acting and Freudian monsters

I was in an arcade in St Annes the other day and saw this incredible hybrid work - a massive (digital) arcade machine based on those Tomy handheld water toys that I am certain you grew up with too.

Yes Dominik went there… www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

Hi, I wrote about the classic seaside arcade machines of yore. Please fill a plastic cup with 2p coins and follow me to wonderland www.theguardian.com/games/2025/a...

I wrote about letting your kids play video games during the summer holidays - it’s fine, don’t stress www.theguardian.com/games/2025/j...

Here is Christian Donlan on the giant policeman game Militsioner, by way of Tamagotchi and the short stories of Nikolai Gogol www.theguardian.com/games/2025/j...

Does anyone have any video game questions for the Guardian’s Pushing Buttons newsletter which I am writing at this very moment?! It can be anything video game related!

it's time to COMPLAIN about the delisting of NSFW games on steam and itch! tell these payment processors that they need to STOP listening to these boring anti-porn thought-policing friendless tossers and START LISTENING to us instead. there is no art without queers, sluts, perverts and weirdoes 💦

I get an email alert telling me every time someone unsubscribes from our Bathysphere newsletter and who it was, and I can’t work out how to switch it off so I continue to get these little moments of totally uncalled for sadness 😭

Hi I wrote about the romance of playing video games with your partner, inspired by a listener comment read out during the women in games week on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour www.theguardian.com/games/2025/j...

🧟 Braaaainss... on.games @keefstuart.bsky.social looks at the horror games of the 32-bit era of the mid-to-late 1990s in all their weird, disturbing glory. Our terrifying Resident Evil cover showcases his horrific feature #gamesmagazine #residentevil

If you'd like a change of pace from all the horrible gaming industry stuff, check out buttondown.com/Bathysphere from some lovely folk including @keefstuart.bsky.social which is just here to recommend and talk about lovely stuff. Also I might have recommended some lovely stuff in a future edition.

There's a good film on ITV rn - it's called Jaws and it's about a group of American experts trying to deal with a disaster but they’re thwarted by a narcissistic authority figure in a bad suit who protects the interests of his rich pals while claiming to be a man of the people. Far-fetched but fun!

Do not send me anything via WeTransfer - I won’t read it or respond 👍

A question for the novel I’m currently writing: was anyone here aged 15-16 in 1995? I’d very much like to interrogate you!

I wrote about the use of video games in child therapy and spoke to experts in the field, including Ukrainian psychologist Oleksii Sukhorukov who has used Minecraft to help children displaced and traumatised by war www.theguardian.com/games/2025/j...

Oh god, do I get a prize? A golden organic lentil maybe? A night out with George Monbiot? Anyway thank you @theguardian.com for letting me write about video games for a newspaper for most of my adult life 👾♥️📰

Excellent car boot purchase today - I’d forgotten how magazines and books of this era referred to home computers as ‘micros’ - so cute

Going through my photos from Develop conference and there are a LOT of Power Point slides! This is quite an interesting business one from Omdia showing the number of games released each year versus consumer spend. I’m not going to interpret it as i don’t work on Saturdays