It was great to have Luna review the game and I loved talking about a review before release! Thanks Luna! I loved her insights into the gameplay and coziness in a survival game. Check out the review!

Linked to the wrong piece 😅 here is the right one: open.substack.com/pub/buttonmu...

Here is my third and final article (at least for now) covering my time @devgamm.bsky.social Lisbon 2025. I muse on what made this conference so cool, why it seemed much more optimistic than the industry as a whole, and highlight the coolest business cards I collected.

I have a bit of a devil’s advocate take on the Eurogamer review Arc Raiders. Using AI TTS to replacing voice actors is undeniably bad and distopic, but is that really what is happening here? Embark is a studio inserted squarely in the AA scope.

I went to meet the 'Rockstar 31', the developers who were suddenly fired from their work on GTA 6 for what the studio has described as gross misconduct. That's not what the workers call it though. They have another couple of words they prefer to use: union busting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9nO...

For non-subscribers, here's a gift: For the next 30 days, Aftermath subscriptions for new readers are on sale at $1 for your first month: aftermath.ghost.io/11-06-2025...

read the site but never subscribed? you can get a month for $1. try it out, read some blogs, support worker-owned media. been hesitant to give us your cc details? fair! we now accept link, google pay and apple pay as well. been a $7 subscriber but wanted to comment? now you can comment!

WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE This has consumed around 4 months of my life. We've rebuilt the business from the ground-up. New site, new backend, new customer experience, new platform, new everything. we spent two years flailing, having no idea how to run a business. now...we have more of an idea.

Here is my second piece covering my time at @devgamm.bsky.social Portugal 2025. I go over the 8 most interesting games I played at the event and my experience talking to some of the developers. I challenge you to finish this piece without at least a new game on your Steam Wishlist.

Here is my second piece covering my time at @devgamm.bsky.social Portugal 2025. I go over the 8 most interesting games I played at the event and my experience talking to some of the developers. I challenge you to finish this piece without at least a new game on your Steam Wishlist.

Great piece! I spent the last day of Next Fest playing Final Sentence and it was a genuinely stressful experience, loved it.

my first for gamespot, about the typing games that are doing a bunch of fun things with the genre: www.gamespot.com/articles/typ...

buttonmusher.substack.com/p/devgamm-li... Here is the first part of my @devgamm.bsky.social Lisbon 2025 coverage: Award Winners. I'll recommend games that I played in another piece, but this list is curated by people a lot more qualified than me. Prepare your Wishlists and hide your wallets.

A plea for help. 🙏 One of the lead playtesters of Blue Prince, Iggy, has polycystic kidney disease and has only a few months to find a living kidney donor. His story, contact and donor information can all be found on iggyland.org Please help us in sharing his story and getting the word out.💙

buttonmusher.substack.com/p/devgamm-li... Here is the first part of my @devgamm.bsky.social Lisbon 2025 coverage: Award Winners. I'll recommend games that I played in another piece, but this list is curated by people a lot more qualified than me. Prepare your Wishlists and hide your wallets.

update: 😭😭😭😭

Exploring A Planet From An ER Waiting Room. ✍️ How a tiny game had the power to transport me from a stressful situation into a small planet where I just had to make five deliveries. Thank you to @lukeplunkett.com at @aftermath.site for showing me this gem. Go play messenger.abeto.co now!

'Gaming is the new oil:' How the EA buyout 'diverges from the traditional playbook'

Exploring A Planet From An ER Waiting Room. ✍️ How a tiny game had the power to transport me from a stressful situation into a small planet where I just had to make five deliveries. Thank you to @lukeplunkett.com at @aftermath.site for showing me this gem. Go play messenger.abeto.co now!

Was great talking about @designroom.bsky.social with the Aftermath folks!

In 2021, the makers of the indie classic CrossCode got a grant from the German government to fund half of their next game. They thought it'd take ~$1.5 million and 3.5 years. Things didn't go quite as planned. Here's the story behind the follow-up to a masterpiece: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

more union news at blizzard this week!

With our new demo running during Steam Next Fest, I'm seeing more players discover Ambrosia Sky's immersive sim sensibilities. I thought it might be fun to share a pair of moment from the demo that illustrates this, through the lens of how I do my work as a level designer.

really did not expect bloomberg to become the place for detailed reporting on my most anticipated indie games (gift link)

Don't know what to play during @steampowered.com Next Fest? AIIG will be publishing email lists of worthy games every day. Subscribe for free and find the best game demos. Past coverage: indiegames.substack.com/s/steam-next... #steamnextfest #nextfest #gaming #games #videogames #newsletter

Wrote about the disconnect between critic scores and audience reviews when it comes to the technical aspect of videogames and speculated on why that might be. Give it a read and let me know what your thoughts are on this!

SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

i wrote about consume me for @theverge.com ✨

Edge 416 is out now, featuring IO Interactive’s 007: First Light. For our 14-page cover story, we visit the studio to discover how its Hitman legacy paved the way, what it’s taking from the rich history of the iconic movie series, and the challenge of creating a new James Bond.

If you work at EA and want to talk privately about your feelings about the sale to Saudi Arabia you can reach me anonymously at [email protected] or via Signal/WhatsApp at +12673263042.

Inside the Soulframe scene where you go inside a bear aftermath.site/soulframe-be...

Reminder: Niantic Spatial is the spinoff that emerged after Niantic Inc. sold its video game business—including Pokemon GO et al—to Saudi-owned publisher Scopely. It still operates titles like Ingress Prime and Peridot but is not an out-and-out video game company.

VGC met with @HidekiKamiya_X and Kento Koyama at CLOVERS' Osaka studio to discuss their progress on Okami 2, the growth of the studio, and potential future with Capcom. www.videogameschronicle.com/features/int...

What happens when a colossus like Silksong scuppers your launch plans? "Moving [our release date] did require a lot of, shall we say, very high tension, anxious exchanges with the platforms."

1,200 fonts + more monthly $19 once unlimited commercial use use for anything support two indie devs! ci.itch.io/all-fonts-pa... i'll buy silksong for one reposter within 24 hours at random! engagement bait! #fonts #art #ttrpg #digitalart #artist #oc #fanart #dnd #bluesky #comics #fantasy #drawing

My newest write-up on the game Bramble: The Mountain King went live yesterday on my Substack! Check it out now 👇 open.substack.com/pub/thesaved... Thanks all, I hope everyone has an awesome Sunday! #gaming #Substack #writing #TheSavedGame #Bramble #BrambleTheMountainKing

Inside the making of the new Final Fantasy Tactics remaster: - Why it took so long (it was first conceived in 2018!) - How Kazutoyo Maehiro went from grunt to director - Why they didn't nerf Orlandeau (and the funny original plan for his design) And much more: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

An extremely fun & imo directorially rich moment in that Bond demo - what appears to be Bond's first on-mission kill being framed like this so it looks like the gun barrel sequence, despite being an in-gameplay, player-in-control moment:

Here's the game's narrative lead talking about Patrick Gibson and the rest of the cast - including how these iterations of M, Moneypenny, and Q differ from what we've seen before, and why Patrick Gibson was always their man for the role: www.eurogamer.net/patrick-gibs... More over the coming days!

In Cronos: The New Dawn, martial law struggled to maintain its grip on a society falling apart. For many, this would be speculative fiction. For Jacek Zięba and Wojciech Piejko, this was a trip into not-so-distant history. store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/c...

Our first mid-season patch for #Wildgate is now live! HIGHLIGHTS: 🤖 Easy and Hard vs. AI modes 👛 Weekly missions to earn credits ⚖️ Lots of balance changes & bug fixes ➕ And more! Check out the full changelog for additional details. 📡 wildgate.gg/Sept2Patch

Why delay a game that’s nothing like Silksong to avoid its surprise release? Because for indies, there’s just too much riding on each individual launch to chance it. Demonschool creative director @brandon.insertcredit.com explains:

I had a great chat with @atari.com CEO Wade Rosen at Gamescom. Atari's turnaround in recent years has been huge so I was really keen to chuck a load of questions at him. Here's the full transcript: it's a hefty interview so grab a beverage.

Until this week, it's been impossible to play the games of the 1993 Pioneer LaserActive without one of the vanishingly rare, disintegrating consoles. Here's the story of the guy who's been trying to fix that for years -- and all the hardware and software he had to build to make it possible.

Can Konami bring back Metal Gear without Hideo Kojima? They certainly want to try. I spoke to the producers of the new Metal Gear Solid 3 remake about reviving the franchise, building an internal console game team, and more. This week's column: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Diablo devs unionize following layoffs and dissatisfaction with AI, pay aftermath.site/diablo-union...

New: Blizzard cofounder's Dreamhaven is struggling in today's challenged games market per an internal letter. Its 2 new games sold below expectations. Dreamhaven now seeks funding It's not alone. Some of the most promising new studios are hitting roadblocks. Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

In today's episode of The Game Business Show, we look at the winners of Gamescom 2025, and interview Bloober Team and discover their secret Nintendo dream www.thegamebusiness.com/p/lego-batma...

After more layoffs, unionized IGN workers are done picking up the slack aftermath.site/ign-layoffs-...