All Popkulturist games coverage, newest first. Reviews from someone who plays them long enough to know whether they're any good — and, now and then, a piece about the industry that makes them, which doesn't require playing anything.
It is the most valuable entertainment product of the decade, and it does not exist yet. On anticipation as an asset class, the Polymarket bet, and the week you could finally pre-order a game nobody has played.
Dead by Daylight turned ten and is bigger than ever, the live-service game that lived while the blockbusters died. A note on how a cheap, weird horror game outlasted Bungie and Concord by renting everyone else's monsters.
Nintendo closed its June Direct by announcing an 'Ocarina of Time' remake and calling it "reborn", the word you reach for when you would rather not say what you have built. A note on remaking the one game the whole medium agreed was the best, from a Nintendo kid who has a stake in it.
The games industry replaced E3 with eighteen separate showcases in eight days, all of them running on Los Angeles time. A note on what the new arrangement fixed, and the one thing it quietly broke.
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'. None of them has noticed that Electronic Arts is about to be owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. A note on the most-played football game on earth, from someone who doesn't play it.
You learn a games show by its handouts. London Games Festival's Pocket Guide was folded into thirds: a venue map of Level 1, a numbered key to ninety-six games, and the Playlist Rewards card. It fit in a back pocket.
