The Sunday Papers

Sundays are, at least in part, for you reading this column. You cannot disprove this. Tremble before my omniscience. That, or just read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things!)

For Aftermath, Luke Plunkett gave a platform to several Kotaku Australia staff to write about their time with the site. The actual staff were locked out of the CMS before they even had a chance to write goodbye posts.

Anyway, you've read the headline already (and are living through 2024 and the media apocalypse) so you know why we're here writing these words in this tone: yesterday the owners of Kotaku AU--the embattled Pedestrian Group, part of the even more embattled Nine Network--shut down the sites and laid everyone off. Writers weren't even allowed to access their CMS to say goodbye, leaving the site's last posts (at time of publishing) to be a report on LA Noire weirdness and a Final Fantasy XIV tip.

Denied even that last dignified act--and disclosure time, because I've worked closely with many of these people and think they're all amazing--I've turned Aftermath over for one blog to former editors and writers of Kotaku Australia, so that they can share their thoughts and say their goodbyes.

For Wired, Megan Farokhmanesh spoke to Brandon Sheffield, Xalavier Nelson, and others about the struggles of keeping the lights on as an indie studio in the current climate.

‘Survive till ’25’ assumes that we are encountering a long winter rather than having burned our own crops for three years previous,” says Xalavier Nelson, studio head of El Paso, Elsewhere developer Strange Scaffold. “Unless we start planting differently, unless we start changing the way we work and think about making games, then we're going to continue to see the highest highs and the lowest lows that games has ever seen. And it might, in fact, just get worse.

For The Guardian, Keza McDonald and Keith Stuart gave their perspective on an Observer article on videogame addiction.

And even without parental anxiety hemming them in: where are teens to go? In the last decade, YMCA data shows that more than 4,500 youth work jobs have been cut and 750 youth centres shut down. According to the Music Venue Trust, two grassroots music venues are closing every week. The nightclub industry is in freefall. Teenagers can’t hang around in parks without arousing the suspicion of overprotective adults who have decided these rare recreational spaces belong to their toddlers alone; city squares and skate parks and pedestrian zones that were once public are now being insidiously privatised, monitored via CCTV and policed by private security guards.

No wonder then, that teens withdraw to online video game worlds, the last spaces they have left that remain unmediated by their parents or other authority figures – the last places where they are mostly beyond the reach of adult control. You can spend all day with your friends in Red Dead Redemption or Minecraft or Fortnite doing whatever you like, without being moved on or complained about, or having to spend £5 on a latte every 30 minutes. If you can’t access therapy, at least you can relax with comforting games such as Stardew Valley, Unpacking or Coffee Talk, or chat things through with your friends in-game. You can travel freely, and for free, in Elden Ring or Legend of Zelda; no elderly relatives can suddenly vote to restrict your access to the continent in Euro Truck Simulator.

For Gamers With Glasses, Nate Schmidt wrote about what he views as Shadow Of The Erdtree’s increased interest in tackling themes of morality as compared to Elden Ring's base game.

If it wasn’t obvious enough from the fact that they call him “the Impaler,” this conversation clearly marks Messmer as the aggressor. The Realm of Shadow is littered with giant poles on from which mangled bodies dangle in threes or fours, and some of them are on fire. Messmer was doing what his god told him to do, but he clearly did it with the inquisitorial zealotry of a true fundamentalist. It even seems that Queen Marika might have known that she had found the most violent and despicable person for the job. At this point in the quest, I just have to take Leda’s word for it that the tower folk were never saints; some of them do seem to be out to kill me, but so is everyone else, and one of them got really excited when I showed her my cool new hat. However, this conversation marks a significant moment, because Leda makes two uncharacteristically firm pronouncements: people are “creatures of conquest,” and it really would be better if things weren’t that way.

This Aunty Donna sketch ruined me. Check out Indiepocalypse zine if you haven’t already. Everything Rhystic Studies puts out is gold, even if you're not a Magic The Gathering player. Music this week is this guy playing saxophone for an enraptured squirrel in the park. Have a great weekend!