New Scandalous Games! We celebrate five years of looking at video game related controversies with an annotated dramatic reading of the closing statement Jack Thompson wanted to make at his 2008 disbarment hearing. Highlights include wild conspiracies and Jack comparing his plight to Jesus

Brand new Scandalous Games with special guest @jaybrandstetter.bsky.social from the podcast I'm From the Internet. We wrap up our look at Jack Thompson's personal war against Rockstar/Take-Two, his eventual permanent disbarment, and his surprisingly complicated legacy.

I now have @jaybrandstetter.bsky.social to thank for making me aware of this insane commercial for the ill-fated OUYA game system

Brand new Scandalous Games! This time we're joined by @jaybrandstetter.bsky.social from I'm From the Internet to talk about show favorite Jack Thompson's colorful legal feud with Rockstar

One of the things I need to improve on is showing confidence. I worked hard on something and, damnit, people care. And I know I've put my all into my upcoming book, A Communal History of Metroidvania Video Games. I'm truly proud of it and think you'd love it. www.lostincult.co.uk/metroidvania

The Universal v. Nintendo court documents are on Archive: archive.org/details/univ... and having used some of them for my King Kong video last year, they are a treasure trove of information about Donkey Kong and the game market at the time broadly.

In the spirit of trans visibility, lemme just plug my ongoing project to document as many pre-2010 games as possible that had a trans person on the dev team. You might be surprised by what's on there. There's games going right back to the sixties! dotmaetrix.neocities.org/classictranslist

I've been thinking about how this has already played out in games - there was a massive push to convince the industry and world that there was this huge audience of angry reactionary gamers who weren't getting what they demanded. And it turned out there weren't that many and they don't buy games

One of my students got me excited this week when they mentioned that former anti violent video game lawyer Jack Thompson was in the Epstein files. However, it's just a passing mention from a news article shared with JE that briefly mentions his 2008 disbarment. www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

This is one of my favorite primary sources in our library: a contemporary review of E.T. for Atari 2600 in the rare newsletter The Logical Gamer. Their review is basically "It's meh, but jeez Atari sure sank a lot into P&A for this game. This seems bad?" archive.gamehistory.org/item/f2f37ee...

Time to kick off a (year-long) commemoration of one of THE OLDEST video games known to history! 🎊 It’s “Bouncing Ball” — a candidate for the first-ever video game — celebrating its (75th) Diamond Anniversary this year! 🧵👇

My latest co-authored article with Megan Condis was just published in Games: Research and Practice. And it's open access! Check out "Rad Dudes, Rude ‘Tude, and the Family, Too: How Nintendo and Sega Advertisements Shaped the Image of Gaming in the 1990s."

Brand new episode of Scandalous Games! I examined the Real Game Awards, the paid anti-woke game awards show, so you don't have to watch it. This time, we tackle the moral panic over a small video game script doctoring company and a journalist who dared report on it.

Kevin Patullo be like: stop me before I run up the middle again.

A belated happy 2026 from me and my friends at Scandalous Games! In today's episode, I watched and researched the Real Game Awards, the anti-woke video game award show made by gamers for gamers (willing to give its founder money)

A new episode of Scandalous Games appears! Today we wrap up 2025 with the finale of our remastered episodes of our look at "Hot Coffee," the infamous 2005 mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Revisiting these recordings was a lot of fun, and I hope you all enjoy it!

The cable-TV powered Sega Channel for Genesis/Mega Drive has been preserved and over 140 ROMs recovered. Here's the remarkable story: www.digitalfoundry.net/news/2025/12...

I’ve been researching the history of Super Columbine Massacre RPG recently and, comparing it to the controversy over Horses, it’s interesting to see how some of the conversation over what is “allowed” to be depicted in a video game is not that different between 2006 and 2025.

'We survive or fail on our own terms:' The rise and risk of independent game media

Happy December from Scandalous Games! For the holidays, I remastered a fun episode we did a few years ago on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee mod. I hope it gives you cheer (and helps soften the blow of the recent announced delay for GTA VI).

RIP Rebecca Heineman. If you haven't seen it, I totally recommend her amazing account of developing the 3DO DOOM port.

Brand new Scandalous Games! This time, we talk about the logistics of werewolf death curses and wrap up our look at Pat Pulling and Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons with Matt Shoemaker, recent author of a detailed history of GenCon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWx...

29 long years have passed since I founded the emulation archive, Zophar's Domain, on 11.9.96. To this very day, the site still stands as a testament to an era that never actually disappeared but continues to live in the hearts of retrogamers all over the word. Emulation Forever!

New episode of Scandalous Games is live! We continue our look at anti-TTRPG moral crusader Pat Pulling and Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons with the help of Matt Shoemaker, recently-published author of an extensive history of GenCon.

It’s exciting when someone publishes long-form on a subject you’ve been researching for years. Here’s a thread commenting on this article in more detail. If you do the retro computer, read the article & then come back here. Apologies and respect in advance to @ernie.tedium.co 🧵👇

New episode of Scandalous Games. We hang out with Matt Shoemaker, author of Gathering of Gamers, a new history of GenCon, and we talk about the origins of Patricia Pulling's crusade against Dungeons & Dragons.

New episode of Scandalous Games is live! This time, we talk about the panic over tabletop RPGs with Matt Shoemaker, recent author of a history of GenCon.

Three decades after Mortal Kombat kicked down the movie theater doors in August 1995, Polygon checked in with director Paul W.S. Anderson.

Read our advice for staying safe in demonstrations in the U.S. and elsewhere. ssd.eff.org/en/module/a...

We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer. As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free. Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

Brütal Legend is free on itchio for the next 666 minutes in honor of Ozzy Osbourne buff.ly/Rj8d5tl

Worms is part of a genre of “artillery” computer games that we thought went back to the 70s, until we discovered it actually went back to the 60s. In this thread, Kevin Bunch reveals he’s unearthed long forgotten footage of the lost game that started it all.

New Scandalous Games episode! We wrap up our look at John DeCamp, the conspiracy-pilled lawyer and disgraced Nebraska politician who filed a $5 billion lawsuit against the video game industry over the 1999 Columbine shooting.

In response to the Polygon and Giant Bomb news, I created an indie and worker-owned games media starter pack. I’ll keep adding to it, so suggestions and recommendations are greatly appreciated. Please share!

If 2025 could let up a little bit, that'd be great

So great to see @paulwerkema.bsky.social craft this helpful "Beginner's Guide to Books About Video Games" 📚🎮 After cataloguing over 10,000 books at TheVideoGameLibrary.org, I know just how deep - and overwhelming - this rabbit hole can be. Thanks, Paul - this is a perfect starter resource! 👇

John DeCamp was a former Nebraska politician who veered wildly into QAnon style Satanic panic conspiracy theories. He was also sued the games industry after the 1999 Columbine shooting. In the latest episode of Scandalous Games, we started a deep dive into the life and times of this colorful figure

And nothing of value was lost

I occasionally pop back up on this feed to let the void know that I have a podcast on video game related controversies. However, in the spirit of the day, this time around I'm trying something different: a dramatic reading of Jack Thompson's infamous 2005 "A Modest Video Game Proposal."

You can always trust Kim to put in the work in telling the most thorough version of a story / debunking historical revisionism. Plus, I was flattered to hear her say such nice things about our own goofy old article on the subject matter at hand. Please to give this one a watch!

Wind was rough in Jersey over the last day or so. Make sure your trampolines are secure.

On the road to victory!

Another great collection in our digital library: We collected zines and ephemera from Game Workers Unite, one of the first big labor advocacy groups for the game industry! (w/ contributions from @alienmelon.bsky.social) archive.gamehistory.org/folder/3f019...

Peter Kolchin was a diligent scholar and a dedicated teacher. While I was at Delaware, he served on my PhD candidacy committee, and I'll never forget his advice to think of every step in the journey as another hoop to jump through. My condolences go out to his family and every student he reached.

The Video Game History Foundation's online library, a modern wonder of the world, is now open: aftermath.site/video-game-his...

Self care is important in troubled times. I finally booted up Psychonauts 2 and so far it’s everything I loved about the original (for better or worse).

A whole bunch of of my blood pressure issues can be traced to the Philadelphia Eagles…

After a long hiatus, The Video Game History Hour is BACK with thoughtful biweekly shows about video game history, with guests who either know their stuff or lived through it. I'm really excited for where it's going, sign up for the Patreon to stay on top of new eps! www.patreon.com/posts/vghh-e...

New(ish) episode of Scandalous Games is live! This month, I remastered our Postal 2 episode, so if you're looking for a historical deep dive into the anti-PC game where you can use a cat's butt as a silencer, this is the series for you.