"They don't make games like they used to", says man who refuses to play indie games made exactly like they used to be

My Christmas haul - my partner and I go a bit overboard, we're very aware it is a bit excessive and unnecessary, and that we're very fortunate. 🙏 Lots of Switch/PS5 games, gaming figurines, vinyls, and anime! ❤️

I would highly recommend simply not looking at Bluesky or Twitter on Christmas Day Please eat a lot and play games instead. Stop scrolling immediately. You'll thank me later.

Merry Christmas, peeps! ❤️ What's the plan for the day? Any good video games gifts (or just games you're playing?)

What is the current consensus re: game demos on Steam? Are they helpful for wishlist conversion/sales conversion? Should they be left up when a game is on sale? Curious to see what indies and publisher folk think is the best practice currently.

Official Kirby branded Speedo underwear and swimwear is now a thing. (Read more at Nintendo Wire)

One day of work left for me until New Year's Day, so I'll be reflecting a bit on my fave game, albums, films of the year. 🙏 Share any great stuff I should check out before the year wraps up!

Level-5's CEO claims that 80-90% of game coding is written by AI now. The studio has disclosed that they extensively use AI, from everything from game code, assets, and character idea, dialogue, and narrative, which is then refined by humans. (Read more at Automaton)

Music has been, like last year, fucking phenomenal this year. I implore you to expand your horizons with music tastes, because it truly feels like a golden age of absolute artistic peaks for new and experienced artists alike. If AI is coming, it's a mighty swansong.

Vince Zampella - co-creator of Call of Duty, co-founder of both Infinity Ward and Respawn Entertainment, and current head of Battlefield at DICE - has been killed in a car crash. Absolutely tragic news. ❤️ (Read more at NBC Los Angeles)

French courts have decided not to ban the Kick streaming platform, following the livestreamed death of Jean Pormanove, but Kick execs could still face up to 7 years in prison. (Read more at Dexerto)

Mobile games raked in almost $76.7bn in 2025, with the 10 highest-grossing games including Honor of Kings ($2.4b), Roblox, Monopoly GO, and Pokémon TCG Pocket. (Read more at PocketGamer Biz)

I seriously think most problems today are due to an increased inability to experience empathy. An epidemic of people psychologically incapable of putting themselves in someone's shoes and understanding how people feel unless it literally like-for-like is happening to them.

The Sega Saturn-exclusive RPG Airs Adventure has received a full English fan translation. Wonderful work making obscure older games more widely accessible. (Read more at Time Extension)

The PS5 has now surpassed the lifetime sales of the Xbox 360. (Read more at VGChartz)

The Octopath Traveler series has now surpassed over 6 million copies sold - via Square Enix.

Uniqlo has revealed some original Pokémon artwork clothing for the series' 30th anniversary. (Read more at TheGamer)

I will be 33 in an hour. That is all.

I'm excited to say I am now running @LostInCult.co.uk Games label full-time! ❤️ I joined in 2023 to set up our label while Marketing Director - leaving marketing after 10 years will be hard! Excited to get our world-best physical games in hands + start OG publishing in the near future. 🥳

Search for the Google Chrome extension "WebP / Avif Image converter". Writers can send their cheques to me now for all the time saved. I've been using this for a few years and got in the habit of right-clicking/auto-converting any image so I never see webp images for my news posts.

I'm excited to say I am now running @LostInCult.co.uk Games label full-time! ❤️ I joined in 2023 to set up our label while Marketing Director - leaving marketing after 10 years will be hard! Excited to get our world-best physical games in hands + start OG publishing in the near future. 🥳

An absolute dream making this happen - a stamp of approval on game cases that you can trust to tell you a physical game has the latest update on cart/disc, without the need for internet. Animal Well on Switch/PS5 is shipping! Our first four other titles ships in Q1!

If "a Game Boy made with attack drone metal" doesn't make you think "maybe this isn't good": ModRetro is founded by Palmer Luckey, the founder of weapons manufacturer Anduril, a Trump fundraiser, and general shithead who went off the rails after Oculus made him a billionaire.

I have some personal news to share shortly

Sony and Honda's new car will feature PlayStation Remote Play integration. (Read more at Eurogamer)

Marathon's art lead has voluntarily left Bungie, following an apparent plagiarism scandal settlement with artist Antireal, and before the game's launch in March. (Read more at Eurogamer)

I see Drakengard, I pay attention Give us Drakengard, Square Enix, I beg you. NieR took off with Automata almost a decade ago now.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series has surpassed 6 million copies sold, Square Enix has announced.

I won't diminish the impact Braid, World of Goo, and Castle Crashers had on indie commercialisation in 2008, but come on, calling Blow "the father of indie gaming"? Cave Story, Aquaria, and Crayon Physics proved digital distribution viability years earlier, and DOOM owned the world a decade prior.

Why We're Boycotting Xbox: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybj1...

Nintendo has won a €7 million in damages against Big Ben Interactive (now Nacon), in a legal case ongoing for over 15 years, over its third-party Wii controllers. (Read more at Games Fray)

Tencent has reached a settlement with Sony over its Horizon clone Light of Motiram, which has now been removed from storefronts. (Read more at The Game Post)

Ludocene - the handy game discovery and matching service with human curation (no AI!) - has been updated with monthly recommendations, game pages, hot-keys, and more. (Support Ludocene here)

He was also, annoyingly, absolutely right. I wasn't sure about Death Stranding, did not immediately fall in love with it, and then it became one of my favourite games when it clicked.

Got my incredibly rare, highly collectable, and valuable official @eatchillis.bsky.social trading cards in the post today. 🎅❤️

Hogwarts Legacy has surpassed 40 million copies sold, making it the 19th best-selling video game of all time. (Read more at GamesIndustry)

The Game Awards once again broke its record this year, with 171 million livestreams, up 11% from last year. Its booming success is almost certainly the reason the Oscars is moving to YouTube. (Read more at Variety)

The fascination with retro tech is more than just nostalgia, it's a yearning for using things offline; that were made more reliable; that weren't programmed for planned obsolescence; that allowed to you use, and own, physical media, not rent it per month; where the constraints pushed creativity.

Video game hardware US sales this November (peak period for Xmas) were the lowest since *1995*. This record low makes sense given the continued Xbox sales crash and PS5's 5th year, but lower Nintendo sales than last year despite SW2 launch is not great. (Read more at IGN)

It sucks that gen-AI is being used in concept art (for reference or otherwise) I also know the vast majority of AAA game studios now do this The backlash today will just make studios hide that info, but effectively expect any AAA studio you like touches AI in some way now. 🫠

Keita Takahashi (Katamari, Wattam, Noby Noby Boy) has moved back to Japan, and says he may be forced to quit the games industry due to To a T underperforming. He also says he'd love to work on Katamari again, and for someone to invest in his studio. (Read more at GamesRadar)

Keita Takahashi (Katamari, Wattam, Noby Noby Boy) has moved back to Japan, and says he may be forced to quit the games industry due to To a T underperforming. He also says he'd love to work on Katamari again, and for someone to invest in his studio. (Read more at GamesRadar)

Which video games were peeps playing this weekend? 🎮 (or which music were you listening to/films were you watching?)

We cannot let Trump and weirdo manipulative propaganda billionaire machines break Europe apart. The US once thought of Europe as an ally - now it's just a competitor for power. They only want this to have global dominance. The EU has the united power to stand up for its interests. They hate that.

Full thread breakdown on everything from #TheGameAwards yesterday, if you were sensible and slept instead.

#TheGameAwards show is about to start in a few minutes - starting with its pre-show (which always includes reveals). (YouTube livestream)

I don't post leaks, even if it's just a few hours out or spreads pretty widely, until it comes from the horse's mouth themselves - I wouldn't want peers to do it to me! - but a few decent ones flying about already ❤️ #TheGameAwards

I'm real tired and will be up for work a few hours after The Game Awards ends tonight - this might be the roughest one for me yet, y'all. Determined to hold strong - criticisms and cringe aside, I do love games, so I always find showcases like this hugely exciting. 🤷‍♀️

Disney will learn to regret this Disney, you have effectively handed away your IP Prepare for the most heinous shit to be generated of your properties, tons of it, everywhere, confusing your real actual brands to the masses, every day, and dliuting your brands to paste.

give me your dumbass #TheGameAwards guesses games you want to see that are pipedreams, games you know you won't see, totally unrealistic batshit dream level stuff