Videogame preservation has been on my mind quite a bit lately after Sony announced that it would stop producing physical PlayStation discs from the start of 2028. Lots have been written about across the gaming sphere online with those against this idea dominating the discourse. Their anger is understandable, even if what Sony is planning to do wasn't exactly a surprise. Videogame sales in the US…
A couple of weeks ago I watched the film Backrooms. I had heard about the meme, but was only tangentially aware of the YouTube series (The Backrooms) by Kane Parsons based upon the meme. This new film directed by Parsons is an extension of the series, yet also works as a stand-alone piece as well. I went into the film knowing very little about it. I had watched a one-minute tease. I also saw a a…
Since my previous post a "new" Star Fox game was announced suddenly. Not quite out of nowhere as with Fox McCloud's recent appearance in the Super Mario Galaxy film (something I wish they hadn't revealed before the film had even come out) it was pretty apparent Nintendo was hinting at some kind of upcoming release. What was revealed though was not a new game but another reimagining of Star Fox. On…
I recently delivered my annual lecture on nostalgia and hauntology to my Masters students. As planned part of the discussion moved on to discussing videogame remasters and remakes, along with a bit on how the "ship of Theseus" fits in. Part of this also extended into what we actually mean by a remaster as opposed to a remake, and then onto how not all remakes take the same approach. During…
Just over a week ago I watched We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher. Given how central Mark Fisher's work was (and continues to be) for my research, having the opportunity to watch a film about him at my University was obviously something I wasn't going to miss. This isn't a "review" of the film for multiple reasons. The first is that this isn't a commercial film, they refer to it as a "DIY…
AI is not the future. And before all the AI bros come after me, think about what AI is. For now, I’m not even going to get into the wider concerns of AI. First we need to think about what AI is. Although, when I say AI I do mean generative AI. So, the problem that AI has with the future is that fundamentally it is reliant on the past. The data that it is trained on is past content. Meaning that…
In the previous post I started talking about being nostalgic for a future, because the inability to imagine a different one is contributing to the feeling of loss that is required for nostalgia to be present. If it is still present, then it’s not really nostalgic, but it can be hauntological as the continued presence from the past is lingering to haunt the present. In regards to the relationship…
I’m finally properly starting the research and writing process for an upcoming chapter on Anemoia, specifically it’s relationship with the future. I will be doing as I’ve done before with larger research projects and use blogging as a means of supporting the process. That doesn’t mean that you will find the actual text here, even in large fragments. Instead, this is a publicly facing test bed for…
‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’. This “old saying”1 is delivered by John Koenig at the start of his video introducing the term he coined anemoia. As you will have seen in the past few entries on this blog anemoia is a term I’ve been trying to better understand. There is something to this term, Koenig might have coined it, but I feel that he was only scratching the…
Increasingly it is difficult for me to properly put together a “Game of the Year” list. Part of that is due to not finishing that many games because I’m constantly swapping between them. Not because of a particular dissatisfaction, but because I love playing different games. Yet, what has become really apparent over the past couple of years is the sheer amount of games from previous years I’m…
Back at the end of October Microsoft announced that Halo was coming back. Before getting players’ hopes up too high about a new game (which is coming one day), it was revealed that we would be going back to where it all began, with (another1) remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, called Campaign Evolved (because they are evolving the campaign and also there is no multiplayer mode). Plenty of discourse…
This week Valve finally announced its new hardware, no, not a Steam Deck 21, instead the Steam Machine (again, after first trying a decade ago). But that’s not all, a new Steam Controller was announced (keeping the same same as the original Steam Controller from a decade ago), and also the Steam Frame which is Valve’s latest VR headset. The Steam Deck has been a solid success for Valve, selling…
Anemoia, ‘nostalgia for a time you never experienced’. In the previous post I introduced this term and I have continued to think about it in readiness to follow it up with this part 2. Nostalgia has increasingly become something that is talked about in a generic sense, something that happens to many medical conditions as it moves beyond academia. “Idiot” was once a solely medical description, now…
Part of my PhD research was trying to understand how in the context of videogames there are players around the world who claimed to feel nostalgia for videogames they have never played (anecdotally I had also felt this). Part of this I put down to the cultural memory that existed alongside the medium contributing to a general awareness of the wider canon of significant titles. For example, you…
This week Microsoft announced that not only would it be rejigging the three different variants of its Game Pass subscription service, but it would also be raising the prices; with the full and most expensive version (Ultimate) rising to $30/£23. For a company worth almost $4 trillion(!) and one that was able to easily complete one of the most expensive ever acquisitions with the purchase of…
It’s been almost exactly a month since my previous post. One in which I was celebrating blogging continuously for 10 months. Long story short, I’ve been incredibly busy with work, which included me travelling to China teaching about videogame design and the wider industry. So, whilst I have been talking a lot about videogames, I haven’t had any free time to write about videogames. A couple of…
I’ve been blogging pretty consistently for the past 10 months or so now, most of which on this blog, but now also on my other “microblog” which is linked to my personal domain. The desire to get back into blogging was mostly inspired by how the act of writing helps keep my writing acumen in shape. Blogging was a particularly helpful means of getting my PhD written in the second half as it feels…
The public beta for Battlefield 6 is just wrapping up and so far things are looking promising. However, that’s not to say that we should assume that everything will be perfect upon launch. Partly because the Battlefield series does not have the best track record. Even well regarded games such as BF4 launched in a poor state. The other, is that this is an EA owned title, who have an even worse…
For years, like many, I used Chrome for all of my web browsing needs, both on my PC’s and on my phone. I even had a Chromebook at one point. Part of this stemmed from using Firefox for a good few years during the 2,000s and noticing it gradually get worse. Then here was Chrome a fast “lightweight” browser that just worked, no tinkering needed. For years it was just that, but gradually it too…
After speaking with a fellow researcher of nostalgia, I’ve had a statement that he mentioned rattling around in my head. That is about being “nostalgic for the future”. Part of why this stands out for me is due to my research around hauntology and the relationship that media has with it. In short, media (videogames, film, TV, and music) are struggling to imagine a different future. Not only in…
I have previously posted about my steps at moving away from Microsoft and this is still very much an ongoing process. Given my current occupation it will be very difficult for me to truly escape, but I will have a lot more control over what I do outside of work. I might be typing this on Windows, but I’m still holding onto Windows 10 on my perfectly functional almost 10 year old Dell XPS 15. Over…
The Switch 2 has been out for almost a month now and whilst there are many who are very happy with Nintendo’s follow up hybrid system, there are some who are vocal online bemoaning a perceived lack of differences from the previous Switch. In this post I’m probably going to come across as a Nintendo fanboy1 but this post isn’t specifically about defending Nintendo, instead it is about questioning…
It’s now been just over 6 months since I started writing on Pika blog, moved everything over, and set up my own domain. So, how has it been, and will I still be here in 6 months once my current plan is up for renewal? The easy answer (unless the good folks at Good Enough do something crazy bad suddenly, which is unlikely) is that I will be continuing. Technically, I could have stayed with the free…
I’ve now had a Switch 2 for exactly 1 week. I had my pre-order in from the first day it was available - although not with the Nintendo store as even I didn’t meet their initial criteria - but going with Argos meant I had to pay upfront. Which isn’t ideal, but that’s what credit cards are for, plus by the time it was due to actually pay it off it was only one week before launch anyway. In my…
This week Fujifilm finally revealed its long rumoured half-frame camera. Some thought it might be an actual film camera like the Pentax 17, others thought it might be some kind of X-Pro 4 type digital camera. What was revealed was neither, instead it is a digital camera that shoots with the half frame portrait style using a 1 inch digital sensor. On the surface, that doesn’t sound very exciting,…