The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for…god help me, I’m going to start catching up on all the Destiny 2 I missed since Witch Queen. Pray for mojo. Before I shoot infinite dudes and am rewarded with another infinite dudes to shoot, let’s read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things!)

For Press SPACE to Jump, Taylor Hicklen wrote about Clickolding. I cannot stress enough what a good and powerful piece of writing this is.

I realized that my internal calculus was different at an early age, but that didn’t spare me the pain of mapping out my equation of desire. I struggled through it like an Algebra II worksheet, desperately trying to get the two sides to balance as “man and woman,” just how I was taught.

Five states and fifteen years away, I can still feel those common denominators weigh on me. The masked man feels this pressure too, but he has no distance from it. He tells me what his wife and two kids would think. If he told them.

That “if” hangs in the air between us. The masked man realizes there’s no way our single encounter will balance out his decades of longing. The years show on his hands. I’m suddenly thankful he wears his mask. Neither of us could bear to see what’s behind his eyes.

Despite all that’s happened, the man will have to go back out into that same world afterwards. The one that knows him as a father, a husband, a falsehood. I struggle to keep my composure. If nothing else, I can give him this steady click-click-click.

AI Is Already Taking Jobs in the Video Game Industry, Brian Merchant reported for Wired.

“I do think AI is a problem,” Cross says, “but it’s emblematic of a much larger issue.” Art is undervalued in games, they say, and as with so many other jobs, it’s a race to the bottom to drive down wages by any means necessary—often by outsourcing work to other countries.

“We started outsourcing lots of 3D art assets, almost all of the art,” Noah, the Activision worker, claims, “because in-house art couldn't keep up” after the layoffs. Some of those third-party concept artists are using AI-generated art too, he says.

And those companies in other countries, primarily China, are getting squeezed by AI too. Last year, Leo Li, a Hangzhou-based gaming industry recruiter, told Rest of World the number of illustrator jobs in his country had fallen by 70 percent, due in part to the widespread availability of generative AI tools.

For Eurogamer, Robert Purchese unravelled the mysteries of PEGI, including that famous voice clip.

It's a never-ending quest for visibility - for awareness. The more the PEGI age-ratings remain present in people's minds, the more people are likely to make decisions for children based upon them. That's why Rice and Lapper are making an effort to get out there and meet people face-to-face, why they're sitting near an elevator with me now. "We've been told we've got a good system but potentially more people could know who does it!" says Rice. It's why the Games Rating Authority now has a TikTok account.

But the biggest champion for PEGI ratings will always be the game trailer - or any other kind of advert - where it has to be displayed. Richard Wells' deep and posh voice still does so much heavy lifting for them. It's a wonder he was only apparently paid €200 (£170) for his work.

This Wilhelm Scream recording shows the importance of good direction. Button Stealer is a Chrome extension that steals buttons from sites you visit. I only just discovered the Behind The Bastards podcast and I've already listened to six hours of the hosts and Seanbaby talk about Vince McMahon. Music this week is Shrimp Quartet by Justan Oval. Have a great weekend!