Popkulturist's Ledger pieces, newest first. Who owns the games, who is buying the studios, and what quietly changes hands when the money moves.
A closed playtest will replace the public preview, with applications closing on 22 October. Its rules prohibit gameplay videos and AI analysis, complicating the business of letting people discover the game.
Ritchie Torres wants to protect purchased games from server shutdowns. But the basketball game he cites already works offline, even as its career mode faces extinction.
With HBO and Paramount under the same owner, Skydance boasts more than 180 television shows in a market that now has one fewer independent company deciding what gets made next.
GiocoNews had spent years reporting on Italy’s gambling industry. After its sale, the print magazine disappeared, the newsroom shrank and the regulator said the site was directing readers towards operators without Italian licences.
Developers marched at six Xbox studios at once against the one Microsoft product that never slips its date. On the layoff as an annual release, the accounting that files hits as losses, and the $190 billion going to AI instead.
Twenty-two months into Nintendo's lawsuit, 'Palworld' hit 858,562 concurrent players on Steam and put the same game in the all-time top 15 for the second time. One analyst puts the realistic remaining payout at about $30,000.
Valve meant to sell its living-room cube for around 750 dollars. It costs 1,049, and the missing three hundred did not go into the machine. It went into a bidding war for memory and storage against the data centres, and you were never told you had entered it. I bought both Steam Decks on day one, and I will be sitting this one out.
A free Australian YouTube cartoon topped cinema charts across Europe, then posted its finale online for nothing. How a Sydney studio beat the studios at their own game.
The publisher of 'Balatro' is being sold to Integrated Media Company, the private-equity group that also owns Metacritic, the single most important number in games. A note on what happens when the people who keep the score start owning the games.
Some of my friends play 'EA Sports FC'. Electronic Arts is now owned by a consortium led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. A note on the most-played football game on earth, from someone who doesn't play it.
