Saudi Arabia, EA and digital sport's soft power, 30/07/2026
Can't buy up sport for soft power purposes? Buy its digital recreation instead ⚽ 🏈🏎️
PIF’s acquisition of EA nears completion, raising questions about what comes next
Latest Gaming Articles
Ethics in Video Games
Rockstar’s Empty Encore
I have a confession: I am not a gamer. I have not bought a new video game in about ten years. I began with an N64, graduated to a PlayStation 2 and latterly owned a PlayStation 3, but my real enthusiasm was always for real-time strategy. Gaming is now something I occasionally dip back into during winter (visiting relatives back in blightly), usually whe…
Power Play releases in North America today!
Buy online OR in person from today 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇵🇷
SuperJoost
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Jul 22
Congrats! That's a big milestone. Will look for it.
As a blogger who has been using WordPress for over 12 years, I could have told you so ;) A personal website sounds great in theory, but it always comes with extra work and hassle. Nothing beats substack when it comes to ease of use for a newsletter project. I’m glad you’re back here!
Personally I’m glad you’re back here, I had missed your game reviews and commentary! (I did read one or two articles on your site but missed being able to comment and interact). Always good to try new things and see what works though!!
But they'll just play video games...
There are so many fears surrounding teens who come out of school
For my latest book, The Teenager’s Guide to Taking Control of Your Education, I went to ask the teens themselves what they spent their time doing. Here’s Phineas (16).Thanks for reading Think Again! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
My Days Doing Box Art for Video Games
Should box art develop the fantasy? At what point does "truth in advertising" matter?
When I was starting out as a freelance illustrator, I did a few cover designs for Activision and Atari.
James Gurney's Games Journey
For items like food products, I feel truth in advertising is an absolute must. However, for things like video games (especially the earlier ones), I feel that fantasy illustrations like yours help players to better imagine their electronic opponents.
Your Guide to August’s Family Friendly Video Games
A calm before the fall storm, as children head back to school. And once again, Apple Arcade has a great lineup.
A summer of pools, pools, and more pools is headed towards the end. I know that “summer” is often categorized as June, July, and August, but as my kids have gotten older, it becomes clearer and clearer that summer is really just “July." You spend June waiting for the weather to warm up, July doing as much as you can, and August begins the anxious walk t…
Xbox and PSN both go dark | EU clears the Saudi buyout of EA | Atari hands 10 games to Universal
Gies W30 | July 31, 2026
Xbox Went Down For 15 Hours; New CTO Calls Outage “Unacceptable” | The PSN outage made PS5 games unplayable, even in single-player
A Collaborative Article on Immersive Experiences in Video Games
Exploring the power of immersion in video games — featuring the incredible game writers on Substack!
The Impact of Immersion
Love these type of collaborative articles! Everyone joining comes with a unique way of looking at the topic or question at hand :)
To see talks about immersiveness found through locations, gameplay, the accumulated effect of good design effects, a story that came at the perfect time, and even pacing... quite awesome and eye opening.
As for the Fallout 3, I completely know the feeling. Now that I think of it... imagine how immersive this game felt to me, after playing the original Fallouts 1&2 and immersing myself in them for about 1.5 years xD. I was a complete fan. No stone was left unturned on those pixelated and isometric maps.
And when I opened Fallout 3 for the first time, seeing all that I have only imagined as a kid, how it would look like from a First Person perspective, how the Vaults would've looked when they were not missing a water-chip, when I entered the first market store (Super-Duper Mart)... I got shivers.
It is a real joy to see proper sequels made to real old classic games, that we many times, played more with our imagination that relying on good graphics to see the world.
Love seeing collaborative efforts in our writing community :) awesome work all around!
Gaming Whistleblower: They're Using Video Games To Control Your Mind
In Conversation With George Osborn,
What if your favourite video game was spying on you?
How Video Games Became the World's Most Contested Political Battlefield
By Nadege Bizimungu
This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
China approves 197 video games in July 2026
Niko Partners forecasts over 2,000 domestic and import games to be approved this year.
The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), mainland China’s regulator in charge of game approvals, issued ISBNs for 193 domestic games and 4 import games on July 23, 2026. This is the sixth batch of games approved in 2026 and takes total approvals to 1,110 domestic games and 37 import games. The domestic batch included 175 mobile games an…
Mirth and fun in New York, 23/07/2026
I go to Games for Change and end up thinking about Mamdani ❤️
Video Games, White Supremacy, and the Aftermath of the Jakarta Explosions
Kye J. Allen
E-International Relations is free to read. We rely on reader support to make this possible.
It’s been a great year for black-and-white video games
I’ve got three to recommend.
I guess I don’t need color in my video games, because I’ve been dazzled this year by a trio that’s in black and white.
The (Sort of) Scientific Process of Getting Our Kid into Video Games
You could just give them Roblox! Or you could, step-by-step, walk them into video gaming independence.
Conveyance is the ability of a game to express to players what the goals and mechanics are. There is an incorrect assumption that complexity or difficulty are limiting factors to conveyance when targeting children. While genres such Kazio Mario or Soulslike
Really enjoyed this piece. I love the thoughtful approach you're taking to introducing your kid to gaming. It's clear you've chosen to understand the medium first, and to use it as a tool for your little one's growth. I also think the choice of a closed-system handheld is a great idea. Well done!
As a fellow Gamer Dad, I started playing with my Junior since he was 5. We didn't have a console, but I carefully curated a small set of games on PC and, more importantly, played them alongside him. And these moments are a real blessing!... Solving problems together, laughing at our mistakes, talking about them afterwards, and guiding him to discover little life lessons, hidden in each played game.
In fact, those experiences are what inspired me to start my own Substack, where I've been writing about the games we've played together from a parenting perspective.
It's a topic I'm deeply passionate about, so seeing more parents approach gaming this way genuinely makes me smile. Keep up the awesome Gamer Dad work!
Circana: The U.S. Video Game Market in June 2026 - sponsored by PWN Games
The Nintendo Switch 2 celebrates a year at the market, which also means that market in June 2026 is down by 21% YoY.
Market Overview
The 5 Video Games Drew Pavlou Made You Watch Him Play After He Invited You To Come Over and Play Games
Great news! That weird foreign kid in your S&E class, Drew Pavlou, has invited you over to his house to play video games after school! He has an Xbox 360, two controllers, and says his cousin who works at JB gives him whatever second-hand game he wants!!! Sick as!!!
From the Archives - The Lost Video Games
Analyzing a future part of gaming history
From the Archives - Here’s an article I released on October 2025, but a subject that means a lot to me. It’s also relevant in the current discussion around video game ownership and all that. I’m covering for a co-worker and essentially doing two jobs right now, so sitting down and writing is tough to do. However, I expect to come back strong by next wee…
It's a huge concern. I don't think a lot of people think about game preservation though, similarly to how the early film industry did. And it's a lot more complex of a problem than film. With film, you digitize the film and the result is a single file or a group of segments that make up a single file. It can be played on most computers as long as the correct codex is installed. Easy peasy.
But with games, you have multiple files that make up the code, the assets, the audio, etc. In order to digitize these and make them supported on a machine requires additional development work that these companies aren't willing to invest in unfortunately. I hope things get better as we go forward, but right now things don't look great.
College Football Summer Survival Kit
1.10 - Magazines, Video Games, Podcasts, Classics
It’s still July.
Beating the content crush, 16/07/2026
PXN, PlayStack, PQube, and Hooded Horse share the secrets of pitching memorable games 😲
She Dropped Her PhD to Build Video Games That Save Coral Reefs and Nobody Told Her No
Lindsey Tropf, founder of Immersed Games, on quitting academia, her love of games, and the boba tea game that made a teacher cry!
I literally cried laughing during this recording!
CORE 530: Wash The Walker
Power washing gets a lot more fun when you put Star Wars stuff in it. Also, Scott played a lot of Black Flag Resynced, Farcry 4 (wait for it), Granblue Fantasy Relink, and a couple indies. Jon got all back into Marvel Midnight Suns, and Beau played DOOM The Dark Ages Revelations, and more Nightreign. He also really likes Chinese art books it seems. Micr…
Meet Erin and Alexander, the couple behind Tea and XP!
"Video games are texts like any other; they can be beautiful, complex, and breath-taking."
If you’ve not been listening to Tea and XP: A Couple’s Cosy Gaming Podcast, where have you been!? The book-club for cosy games, hosted by a couple of cosy gamers in their 40s, resonates with me every time I listen, and I know you’ll love it too.
What a lovely interview. You ask such great questions and I love the responses. I feel like a got a real insight to Erin and Alex as gamers and people and the vision of the pod pod is great. 🥰💚🌟
Thank you so much! We really liked your thoughtful questions, and deliberating over how to answer them!
Video Games: Help for Parents
My Experiences with Students
Thanks so much, Ms. Rosemary, for this wonderful article! I sincerely appreciate your dedication to education! Playing too much video games has been a big issue to the kids in this generation, and it has been a headache for us parents. Thank you for your suggestions on how to help our kids! ❤️
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