A good day to remind you all that you can spend £5.50 on a 28mm @countbinface.bsky.social model from Troublemaker Games, £3 of which goes to NHS supporting charities Now who is selling some frog faced fiends and a scale model pier for them to fight over? www.troublemakergames.co.uk/product-page...

Something fun for a Friday: pre-orders are open for reasonably-priced paperback copies of ENCOUNTERING OTHERNESS IN VIDEO GAME CULTURES, due out this November. (Get €5.00 discount on forthcoming books by using coupon code "PRE-ORDER" in your shopping cart!)

Hello everyone, I'm currently writing about fan experiences with collective protest actions against media companies such as boycotts, letter campaigns etc. If you are above 18 and would like to participate please get in touch! More details in the form: forms.gle/FbgMDV1SfqkC...

Viggo didn't break his toe when he kicked that orc helmet so you could me that AI is "inevitable"

I spent the last few months talking to over 30 game developers about generative AI. It began as a sort of interview survey but became a pretty comprehensive collection of arguments against the technology altogether. www.gamesradar.com/games/why-so...

It's publication day for Writing Game Histories!! 🥳🎉 Please do recommend it for your library, but it's also out in paperback so not as hideously expensive as academic books can be: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g... @doktornick.bsky.social @doni.bsky.social @historygamesnet.bsky.social

Exactly this. Every statement from almost every institution is kneecapped waaay before it begins by the unspoken but unilaterally understood requirement to first accept/protect the interests of the investor class. Without capitulation, you cannot be taken seriously. But the Pope can just go for it.

the group chat has been trying this, and we're all getting slightly different "cool, what else do you need?" responses

so far a 100% hit rate for students, having accepted meetings from me to "have a quick chat about research and writing process for the essay submission" (aka fess up on your AI use), reporting family emergencies that keep them from the Teams call

This is next week! Come and join us! #historicalgames #gamingthepast

Stop! It is necessary for you to see graphic designer extraordinaire Margaret Calvert’s 90th birthday cake. Perfection.

> settle in to finally tackle overdue writing > get the phone call that completion has happened and when do i want to pick up the keys for the flat i've just bought > aaaaah

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse Media and universities: AI is here to stay

the high of delivering a book MS brought back to reality by the publisher reasonably also asking for keywords, the blurb for the back cover, "single phrase to describe the book" 🥲

Happy @alcs.co.uk March Distribution Day to all who celebrate 🥳📚💰

[Friday afternoon victory screech]

The call is live! #videogames #academia #VGC2026 #conference #games

I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out: www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

If you ever want to read a paper for free and can't find it otherwise, email the lead author and politely ask for a copy. You will not be bothering the person. You will in fact make their whole entire day. I have had scientists get so excited I asked they sent me everything they ever published.

iambic tetrameter ass stick

I'm available for indexing academic volumes. Areas of specialization include fan studies, media studies, gender studies, visual culture, art history. DM if interested! Please share if you know someone who may need their monograph or edited collection indexed!

Genuinely, if you live in the UK you should so the consultation just to find out some of the unbelievable details of what's being proposed. Even with their spin and obfuscation it's shocking

it happened to me: just responded to a long and articulate student email with "Sounds great!" and nothing else 😅

When you leave the classification part of the process to something lacking a human brain. Am picturing some very confused waste management engineers 😂😬

"Our standing rule is: If one of us brings up using GenAI in any of our work, then it's safe to assume we've been assimilated by The Thing and should be burned alive by Kurt Russell," said a game design consultant in the US.

If Bilbo had Chat GPT

Nothing can prepare your soul for the first image ever transmitted onto a television

Douglas Sirk directed a submarine movie, he knew what was up

Back in the summer I changed a fandoms module assessment from a research paper to a presentation about any one fannish object plus a reflection on key concepts in fan studies Result? Currently marking "here's why fan studies is cool" reflections, and thoughtful videos on things student care about

the energy to bring into 2026

Happy Heated Rivalry season finale to all who celebrate! Also, re: #FandomStudies...

Apparently I'm out in paperback! And it looks to be on sale, so if you're looking for a £35 stocking stuffer, boy do I have a recommendation for you... #fanstudies

I have read the article in question (link in comments of the QT) and just want to point and laugh at this para, which implies with a straight face that men are being discriminated against, without acknowledging that men are statistically more likely to apply for jobs they are underqualified for.

If you want another look at the topics presented at VGC 2025, we've got good news: half of the contributions now include a full paper as part of our Online Proceedings 🥳A big thanks to all the authors! Here's the link: videogamecultures.org/2025-abstrac...

now why are you doing my boy dirty with this headline?

The initial image of light coalescing into a bird has big 70s children's tv show about paganism vibes. Just needs a library music backing track

my mac doing its best to telephone a seventeenth century ecclesiastical record 🗃️

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

A Kimono decorated with skeletons, from Japan, 1840-1860 CE, now housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Very excited to share that on November 10 @discoxford.bsky.social are hosting a hybrid roundtable on Videogame preservation practices with @carrythezero.bsky.social, Alex Habgood, digital archivist at Rebellion studios, and @emarlow.bsky.social: digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/video-...

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*. If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

yesterday a student said something about chatgpt in my hearing, and without working out if it was a positive or dismissive comment I said "oh don't sully the air of my classroom with that name" and continued with my slide. the way the group murmured in response sounded like they were on my side 🤞

There's something very "Ford Prefect" about a process that arrives at "Harper Collins" as a sensible name for a pornbot

thought i'd be kind as an editor and quickly drop the proper in-text references in place of this chapter's "ibid." and "op. cit", but halfway through it i am: i) regretting my choices, ii) firmly opposed to the use of "ibid." and "op. cit" by anyone ever, and iii) stopping for lunch

Having studied #digitalID in depth for my PhD and written a book about this way before anyone had even flagged it as a problem - this a TERRIBLE idea. We have been warning the UK government about the dangers of digital ID for years. No one listened. #digitalidentity www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The CfP for the 1st themed issue of our journal Fandom | Cultures | Research is out & I'm especially excited for this one, since it combines two of the things I'm most interested in: #fanstudies & #memorystudies. Added bonus: a workshop in Marburg in Feb 26. journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr/announce...