They crunch us and bleed us dry and leave the broken bones for scraps, and they make money every step along the way

If you are (or become!) a paid subscriber to Levelling The Playing Field's newsletter, you can now access the new "Ask Rami" post on Dealing with Perfectionism and fear of taking decisions in general. Next free article, as always, 3rd Monday of the month! ltpf.ramiismail.com/ask-rami-i-a...

Honestly, with FIFA once again caving for Trump I'm done watching and talking World Cup 2026. The treatment of Iran, a country that was being bombed by Trump, was already too much - but allowing the US to field top scorer Balogun after a red card makes a mockery of the game, and of the Cup. Done.

Yeah nah that's a red.

"For nearly 250 years, America promoted freedom and equality abroad"

Why did nobody tell me Project Hail Mary is a very very good movie

who could've possible seen this coming

There's many reasons why we used this imagery for Beatdown City Survivors. Besides Escape from New York being *dope* and highly inspirational, I thought showing the statue's head as a rotting husk is a great way to represent the death of liberty, which Beatdown City Survivors leans into, hard.

There's a perverse symbolism in the legacy of White racism sheltering under the bowers of all African Americans have done for this country while patiently waiting for the chance to go back to insisting we are a drain upon their society and that they never needed us at all.

Incredible thread full of incredible games.

It's good that our games industry podcast always kicks off by discussing the important news www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujit...

Beautiful, Cabo Verde. A genuinely beautiful match.

I think my favorite thing about Mike and Rami Are Still Here is being able to invite people like @victoriatran.bsky.social onto the show to talk career, life, and also just catch up about *grabs transcript* uuuh Waluigi. Subscribe to the podcast, or just listen to this one over at mikeandrami.com

OM EL DONYAAAA

A beautiful rugby goal by the first Australian penalty taker

I'm happy to say Egypt scored twice in the knockout World Cup match against Australia, but less happy to say it's 1-1.

Normally I'd say "with all due respect" but in this case, none is given. Absolutely the fuck not.

"People that don't worry about income make cool things they're excited about with no constraints" isn't news but the fact that anyone at all can say it in the year of our economy 2026 kinda is news I suppose.

100% what my game collection in Egypt looked like

Incredible moment where Fox News puts up a graphic with all the reasons it opposes the DSA and why people should be afraid of them

This is horrifying and so important. Israel's continued massacres, child murder, genocide, forced starvation, concentration camps, targeted and structured destruction of life, and ethnic cleansing continues. It's easy to not see the full scale of this unparalleled evil. archivegenocide.com

LINOVICTUS, my goofy lil arcade shmup, is out on Steam today!

Microsoft this week: We're laying off half the industry. Sony: We're ending physical games. Nintendo: have u seen this splatoon weapon we call it the bloblobber

Can't believe they turned CERN off for the Northern hemisphere while sneakily turning on NREC on the Southern hemisphere.

20. Iconoclasts Yes, I keep recommending this game just about every Steam sale, no I probably won't stop. It's an action platformer with loads of puzzles, a fantastic soundtrack, some of the best pixelart ever, and a magnificent story with so many awesome characters, it's an all-timer indie gem.

The Overton window keeps sliding.

Sony to unveil Don Mattrick in 2028 blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/p...

As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate. We have attempted to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.

Hey indie peeps. I'm going to be doing Kotaku's Indie Penance Day on Friday July 3 this year. If you have an upcoming or recently released game that deserves eyes, please email me at [email protected] with the subject "INDIE PENANCE 2026", and include a store link and YouTube video. Rules follow.

Sony to unveil Don Mattrick in 2028 blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/p...

LOL, I could swear that thing on the right was a gigantic candle. "Look at all these wizardry, young ones!" 😅

I think given the scale @godotengine.org is now at, this is an incredibly incisive approach to combat generative AI's awful impact on people, code, and communication. Also focusing the ban policy on access & pull requests is a smart way of eliminating huge parts of the problem in a practical way.

It's been just staggering how much the games industry is at the whims of people who don't care, will not care, and simply do not have to care about games.

I think that, much later, we will understand that a foundational law comprised of *symbols* is in fact quite a terrible and fundamentally flawed design that allows the symbolized to be whatever suits the moment for whoever is acting.

OK this was a lovely experiment but maybe let's not go with automated thumbnails

Today Xbox is beginning on their brave new marketing campaign to let their fanbase know that the all-new XBOX is embracing a brand new and focused strategy, in which the famous video games company cancels their beloved product, the video games.

Oh come on www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I am more of a Luigi kinda person!

Basically "we thought we could just ingest data and design happens". If you ever wanted to know why AI will fundamentally fail at doing the things CEOs want it to do, it's because CEOs that haven't come up through the field somewhat recently are generally fucking clueless about work.

I'm happy to announce to game developers worldwide that almost every single one of us can now officially claim that at least one of our games did better numbers than the "Great American State Fair", and also that we did better at not shipping greybox assets for our setpieces.

I'm happy to announce to game developers worldwide that almost every single one of us can now officially claim that at least one of our games did better numbers than the "Great American State Fair", and also that we did better at not shipping greybox assets for our setpieces.

A fun fact, for anyone watching Netherlands-Morocco right now from outside of the Netherlands, if the match goes to penalties nobody in the Netherlands will know the actual outcome of the match until a day or two from now because every Dutch person will turn off the TV for Dutch World Cup penalties.

If they ship it with Destiny 3 I can be convinced

Listen, if they still need to cast a Sojiro, I look like him enough that people sent me "this u?" for a year after it came out and if you give me acting classes perhaps I can act like him too

I was on a podcast and wow we sure are still here!!! There were so many topics and none of them made sense, just the way Iike it. Thanks for having me on @mikerose.bsky.social and @ramiismail.com, it was fun catching up. 🙏🔥 Give it a listen!

The massive Xbox layoffs won't happen until after the fiscal year ends, but the company is already ending contracts and cutting vendors. So Assembly, Xbox's main PR agency, is laying people off today.

Chris is 100% right. This is bullshit. You don't "oopsie" into CEO of Xbox.

Good game.