July 2024

Slice of the Pie: The Game Industry Gets Organized

Unlike my typical lengthy discourses on the joys of niche games, this week’s blog is a brief one. I couldn’t let a week go by without commenting on a couple of recent industry headlines. The first stunner was word that Microsoft recognized a union formed by the staff at several Bethesda studios. The second, following …

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Island Hopping: Three Wargames Take On the Same Conflict

Back in January, I wrote about traditional wargames and their somewhat problematic nature. Still, it’s a genre I enjoy when I’m in the right mood. Digging deep into a historical battle and then re-reading a military history book to see how my experience differed from reality scratches a unique gaming itch. One of the most …

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Rich Soils: The Relaxing Joy of Farming Simulator

Some months back, I wrote a love letter to SCS’s Euro Truck Simulator 2 – still one of my favorite relaxing gaming experiences.  ETS2, which has been in active development for years, is a robust title with a ton of depth in its simulation. The various name-brand trucks feel genuinely different. They take damage in …

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Nuts and Bolts: Great Tools for Indie Game Developers

Over my long career, I’ve developed a short list of game development principles. The list is pretty short because one of the principles is that there isn’t a single right way to make games. The story of every great game’s development is unique. Different teams have found success with radically different approaches. Everything from team …

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