Here’s a friendly reminder about the conference we are running at the ITU in May: playingfutures.today Deadline for abstracts is February 16th, and the conference will take place May 20th to 22nd in Copenhagen. Look at our call for papers for more details: playingfutures.today/call-for-pap...

I frankly don’t understand why European governments aren’t simply buying US politicians the way Israel does. They’re very cheap.

The most Pittsburgh news ever

For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention. The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.

Excited to announce a trial run of [Untitled Games Event], a new Amsterdam-based space for experimental games and playable arts 👾 This will be a monthly 'book club' of sorts for games and conversations about play, inspired by @molleindustria.org + others' LikeLike. Help us spread the word!

lol why do they drop loot like its a video game

Announcing: Caxtilteca - a 4 player mini RTS set in colonial Mexico. Play as Tlaxcalan dukes defending their land from former friends and allies, coming 2027 youtu.be/jdjBDh2ZpCg?...

I just want to go back to a simpler time when I could grab my keyboard like a book and connect to a simpler internet and watch my stocks go up in my beautiful white room next to my beautiful white Billy thus commencing foreplay with my beautiful white wife.

"It's always more about who controls the tech and who benefits from it." We spoke with @molleindustria.org about FUTURE? NO THANKS!, decoupling sci-fi from utopian thinking and the one good thing Ezra Klein has done for us. MORE funland.itch.io/funland-zine... SUBSCRIBE www.patreon.com/funlandmag

Phillips O'Brien. Almost saying the unsayable: since WWII the Pentagon keeps winning battles and losing wars. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/phillips-o...

I finally played Peak! One of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in years, even if slightly traumatizing. Brilliant design and great "procedural" slapstick comedy. Games are finally figuring out that not everyone wants to shoot strangers online.

The good news is that the US is making enemies everywhere, flirting with civil war, jeopardizing the dollar’s dominance, undermining its capacity for research and innovation, and barreling toward a major financial crisis. The bad news is that I live in the US.

Kinda sucks how one day you’ll post stuff like “does the Grinch use the toilet?” and then the next it has to be “I reject those who worship death”

This is the video.

🧵 A sad case of reality catching up with satire: back in 2005 I built a website that let people "bet" on where the next terrorist attack would take place. It was basically a proto-Polymarket. Mainstream media HATED IT, even as they engaged in the same kind of terror-mongering predictions…

I finally played Viewfinder! Lovely reality-bending puzzle with outstanding tech and art. Highly recommended! ~4h | PC, PS4/5 thunderfulgames.com/games/viewfi...

LOL this right-winger who spent years begging the US to overthrow her country's government is being sidelined by Trump out of sheer pettiness. It's easier to hold the current regime at gunpoint and keep the oil flowing. Latin American friends, this fascist empire isn’t going to gift you dEmOcRaCy

Really, a remarkable statement from Colombia’s President.

Me in 2007: I’ll make a game that exposes the secret links between Big Oil and U.S. covert interventions in Venezuela. Gamers will finally see through smoke and mirrors! Trump in 2026: We kidnapped Maduro, we’ll run Venezuela, and steal its oil.

Latin American Coups promoted by the United States

Among the many reasons you don’t kidnap a foreign head of state at gunpoint even if you have the capability, is that it sparks consequences you can neither control nor anticipate.

Unbelievable: the Trump administration is locking ICC judges out of their bank accounts and online services. Let 2026 mark the end of the dollar’s dominance and the fall of U.S. tech monopolies. www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

Most of the billionaires who own superyachts are converging on the small island of St. Barts for NYE, and Maduro has the chance to put on the funniest fireworks display ever.

I have watched about a hundred movies this year and they were all very good / interesting / memorable. Definitely worth my time. I can't say the same for video games, and I'm trying to figure out why... letterboxd.com/molleindustr...

The Shape of Time by Zitao YE is a beautiful interactive meditation on how we perceive time. Ideal for this limbo between Christmas and the end of the year. Browser - 15min yezi.itch.io/time

Finally a card game with no metaphors and frou-frou symbolism! Just a good, simple game about a man who hates an animal!

I enjoyed The Cabin Inspector, a short “anomaly detection” game in which you determine whether mass-produced cabins are haunted or not. Funny, scary, with a story cleverly woven into its loop. Games can't rely on many traditional horror devices, it’s exciting to see new genres native to the medium.

Jmail is incredible! A great way to browse Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, photos, flights, files, and properties via a neat, Google-like interface. www.jmail.world

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

In U.S. healthcare, as in higher education, you get all the outrageous costs and inequalities of the private sector PLUS all the political subordination of a public system, because these organizations can’t function without government subsidies. www.axios.com/2025/12/18/t...

I loved this one so much. I’m usually turned off by "wrong" and romanticized retro aesthetics, but Ruin isn't quite a retro game. It feels closer to the blurred memory of playing games as a child. ~15 min - Browser

Interesting phenomenon of visual artists online being accused of using AI and having to post videos of their process in response. Having to perform as artists 24/7 isn’t new, but now art-making content becomes evidence. What do we call it? The Professorification of the Viewer? Audience as CAPTCHA?

Mario 65 - You have to respect how Nintendo keeps reinventing its franchises henold.itch.io/mario-65

I love video games

Between Bugonia, Eddington, and One Battle After Another, the most prominent film auteurs are having a blast inventing a magical realist USA in which the left does terrorism and fails miserably...

"Monsters in glass cages. This WAD is intended as a tool for WAD authors to give an easy way to examine animated sprites without getting killed by them." From Doomscroll, a big collection of Doom mods playable in your browser: doomscroll.cx

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I'm starting to think it wasn't a good idea to put all the world's communications in the hands of three American companies www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

The Render Ender

I enjoyed this four hour dive into the high tech Rube Goldberg machines Disney has developed over decades to solve the daunting problem of minimum-wage performers blurting inappropriate things while wearing a Mickey Mouse costume. youtu.be/NyIgV84fudM?...

I finally played Horses. It’s a tight cinematic horror game with a unique, uncompromising vision. It’s admittedly uncomfortable to play, but more due to the lack of agency than the graphic depictions of abuse (it’s actually milder and goofier than your typical A24 arthouse horror).

In the age of centralized platforms, you can get a reverse Streisand effect, with ban controversies prompting additional bans out of cowardice or middleman solidarity.

I played Dispatch, an influencercore thisispolicelike with dragonslairlike elements. It has excellent TV-grade writing and dazzling animation. And yet, had it been a TV show, I would have certainly skipped it. Why? Was it the romance? The moral dilemmas? The fact that I paid for it in advance?

Help create the future of the games industry! On Dec 3, workers will be coming together to draft a Game Workers' Bill of Rights. All game workers are welcome — union members or not. Sign up here:

Cold take: I do agree that it is (or will soon be) nearly impossible to avoid AI-powered tools. If the backlash continues, studios will simply not disclose uses that are undetectable to players (coding, text editing, hybrid pipelines) and favored by employees. www.gamesradar.com/games/opposi...

Gallery: Sorry, your art was not accepted for our exhibition, but thanks for applying. Me: What? I never applied. Gallery: Oops! [verbatim] "I was using an AI tool to organize a spreadsheet of exhibition submissions. It incorrectly invented a few names during the sorting process, and yours was one."

Thinking about the recent passing of Steve Kurtz, co-founder of Critical Art Ensemble. He was a key figure in the tactical media scene, which I looked up to when I started Molleindustria. A deep cut: in 1998 the CAE co-created one of the earliest art games and Game Boy hacks: Super Kid Fighter

[At the skin lounge] Me: [chanting] skin, skin- Other patients: skin, SKIN Secretary: [pounding her clipboard] SKIN, SKIN, SKIN!

Today I learned that the US poverty line is still calculated as 3x the minimum food diet in 1963, a metric completely disconnected from today’s cost of living. Here's a clear post explaining why middle and working class families are effectively getting poorer. www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...