Given the news yesterday, I've seen a lot of speculation about the logistics of running events, and I wanted to give some perspective on the challenges of it in the current moment. madmacsfuryroad.bearblog.dev/the-1000-pro...

my thoughts on @free-play.bsky.social and why it remains so, so important (especially in the bad times!!!!)

Freeplay rules! Fund art!!!!!

Delphinium's Kickstarter will go live on October 27th, 9:00AM ACDT 🩵💫

Announcing... DOGPILE!!! ✨🦴 Dogpile is a roguelike deckbuilder about merging DOGS. Play dogs, get money, customize your dogs with special traits, refine your deck, PLAY MORE DOGS! Free demo is live on Steam, WISHLIST NOW!!! store.steampowered.com/app/3839300/...

Great to collab with colleagues at Sydney. Global video game/loot box policy evaluation is an international collaborative effort. Would be great to work with German 🇩🇪, Spanish 🇪🇸, and Brazilian 🇧🇷 colleagues to check (forthcoming) national rules. Please do get in touch with us if interested! 👋🏻

New article in @theconversation.com today reflecting on Australia’s 2024 loot box regulations and how, 1 year later, there remains widespread non-compliance - and generally really confusing age ratings for mobile games on the App Stores! theconversation.com/loot-boxes-a...

Letters to Arralla is OUT NOW on Steam with a limited time 20% launch discount!! 🏝️💌 After 5 long years of development and lots of fruit & veggies eaten to power our developers, this cheeky game is finally ready to be delivered directly into your hands!! ☺️ Play now on Steam! youtu.be/7GbGTEpsoIM

Frosty is back to celebrate the coolest upcoming and recently released games made in Australia & Aotearoa, this December 🍦🥳 We’ll be featuring exclusive reveals, announcements, and updates. Developers can submit their games now until Sep 30! ⤵️ forms.gle/tt8y9N1dPweS...

Given this is making some waves - here is the piece and you can judge for yourself. (I'm fine, there are no issues - right wing ecosystem just doing what right wing ecosystem does). Take care of you - it's rough out there! Ax amyremeikis.substack.com/p/charlie-ki...

✨I’m recruiting for a research project on game monetisation!✨ I’m keen to chat to game devs about how monetisation shapes the dev process. Interviews will be 60mins via Zoom. To learn more, head to bit.ly/40mOB3f if you'd like to participate, shoot me a DM or email [email protected] 😊

✨I’m recruiting for a research project on game monetisation!✨ I’m keen to chat to game devs about how monetisation shapes the dev process. Interviews will be 60mins via Zoom. To learn more, head to bit.ly/40mOB3f if you'd like to participate, shoot me a DM or email [email protected] 😊

FREAKON IS BACK www.freakon.com.au/blogs/news/f...

We’ll be hosting GachaCon 2026, a hybrid academic conference on gacha games with Genshin Impact as the theme, on 12–13 February 2026 at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. 🇭🇰🇨🇳 Call for Papers: tinyurl.com/gachaconcfp

You can take a girl out of Dubbo but you can’t stop Dubbo from following the girl forever and ever and ever (team Freeplay @ Dubbo skate park tho)

The return of Waypoint Constellations✨ 🎫 events.humanitix.com/waypoint-con... A close collaboration with @serenade.games to celebrate Sydney's games and creators. 🗓️On Oct 14th just before SXSW's games festival begins Follow and sign up for more info as we tease out the secrets of this event.

Freeplay 💕💕💕

The Freeplay Angles 2025 schedule is now online, and tickets are on sale! Angles runs from 31st July - 2nd August at Science Gallery Melbourne. www.freeplay.net.au

If you liked or hated my takes on ‘deprofessionalisation’, I went into a lot more detail in this great chat with @pushtotalk.gg for his newsletter. Connected what’s going on now to what I observed in the Australian industry in the 2010s www.pushtotalk.gg/p/gamings-gr...

Super excited to present our research on how children perceive & experience harm resulting from game monetisation at #CHI2025 today! Co-authored with @marcuscarter.com @saharkin.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social & @benegliston.bsky.social - check it out here: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Really interesting and important report out today on deceptive design practices in games and how they impact players from @cprc-research.bsky.social @coolrobbie.bsky.social and @bradyjay.bsky.social - some really great recommendations on making games safer for everyone! cprc.org.au/report/playi...

Some thoughts from @benegliston.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social and myself in The Conversation today on the spenny Switch 2 release price and how it reflects the state of the industry (& mostly, sorry gamers)

New article in @theconversation.com today by myself and @marcuscarter.com on how kids talk about when spending money in Roblox is harmful to them. TLDR; virtual currencies and random reward features should be better regulated! theconversation.com/literally-ju...

New article in @theconversation.com today by myself and @marcuscarter.com on how kids talk about when spending money in Roblox is harmful to them. TLDR; virtual currencies and random reward features should be better regulated! theconversation.com/literally-ju...

Incredibly excited to announce this special issue of Media Industries Journal that I co-edited with Chris Young and @dayofthemutants.bsky.social on the topic of LOCAL DIGITAL GAME PRODUCTION. journals.publishing.umich.edu/mij/issue/31...

2024 The definitive list of Australian made video games Our 6th annual list of every game released in 2024 that was made in Australia. Check it out + share https://www.sifter.com.au/post/2024-the-definitive-list-of-australian-made-video-games-playstation-xbox-switch-pc-steam-vr #videogames #gamedev

Truly incredible stuff happening I think it’s called class consciousness

I don’t mean to brag but I really know my um dragon flags. @folly.studio’s new game is v cute and real silly go go go realbirdfakebird.com

NEW GAME ALERT REAL BIRD FAKE BIRD It’s a cute daily browser game where you separate the REALS from the FAKES! Play RIGHT NOW: realbirdfakebird.com

Insurrection in Georgia, coup attempt defeated by civil society and parliament in South Korea, and now Assad may be gone, Damascus liberated, and prisoners in Sednaya prison released by rebels. It had been a week.

The sad and inevitable truth is in another 10 years, when it is all said and done and it is irrefutable Israel committed a genocide in Palestine, there will be many a handwringing think piece from those who defend Israel's actions now, claiming 'we didn't know'. They know. Remember that they knew.

In session in the Federal Court for Monash Uni’s wage theft case. I’ll be live posting from this hearing today. The NTEU alleges Australia’s largest university has not lawfully paid hundreds, perhaps thousands, of its casual teachers going back to 2016. Justice Snaden is the judge.

My cat’s at the vet under anaesthetic for the second time in a month (he’s gotta get some teeth out) and I’m feeling so anxious for the baby 😭

After years away from game dev, I couldn’t stay silent about my people’s dehumanization. I made Dreams on a Pillow 🍉a game inspired by a famous Palestinian folktale about the 1948 Nakba. I’m crowdfunding it now—please back & share! 🔗 launchgood.com/1948

All you need to know about how much the government actually understands youth online safety: Apparently YouTube is "primarily for the purposes of education and health support" www.pm.gov.au/media/social...

Chloe's Tiktok about Honk! Untitled Goose Exhibition is a) unbelievably nice and b) literally poetry. A must watch!! 🔔

All morning a noisy miner has been sneaking into my apartment via different windows, but it’s been lucky because every time it’s tried, my cat has been distracted by staring at a wall

Today I gave a paper at #aanzca24 based on my PhD research, where I argue that digital events can be inclusive, accessible, & actually... good. Vitally, these events could be a model for normalising digital and hybrid events ‘post’ pandemic. You can check out my slides here:

“We want to get kids back on the soccer field” but national subsidy of children’s sport & investment in public & playful spaces when?????

It’s almost like this is something that impacts people deeply and should therefore have been thought about for longer than an angry phone call from Murdoch

Super excited for #aanzca24 this week! On Wednesday I’ll be presenting a paper on how games events had the perfect opportunity to normalise digital & hybrid events post-2020 and… largely didn’t.

1000xResist rewired my brain in the best way. Incredible game about diasporic experience, sisterhood and trauma, & it’s so so beautiful!!

It's been really heartening working with @dezuanni.bsky.social, @aleeshajoy.bsky.social and Amanda Levido to produce the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child's response to the Social Media Ban for Under16s Bill that was tabled yesterday. digitalchild.org.au/research/pub...

One million degrees

An intolerable risk to children's online safety. That's what we've said in our submission on the social media minimum age amendment, where we were given only 24 hours to make our submission! www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

I often think about how at the 'start' of Israel's current genocide in Palestine (itself part of a genocide that's been going on for decades), Australian politicians lost their shit over posters appearing that compared Netanyahu to Hitler, and how every day since has proven that analogy entirely apt

Some quick insight from me on the social media ban from me. In writing this I will also say hats off to @crikeynews.bsky.social, they are clearly one of the only news outlets that have done any real journalism around this awful policy and the road we've travelled. theconversation.com/the-governme...

Turns out the only change made to the existing broad definition of ‘social media’ under the Online Safety Act is that the minister will have the power to exempt specific services from being age restricted. Which clarifies um literally nothing about what is/isn’t included in the actual legislation