Subterfuge was my favorite game of 2015, but I never want to play it again

Vainglory vs Clash Royale, and the future of “hardcore” games on mobile

The strange double-standards around F2P ethics discussions

Data obsession and the politics of facts

Can crunch ever be fixed in the games industry?

Improving on the promise of Master of Orion

Master of Orion was one of the most influential game I played in my teens. Fueled by my love for space exploration and adventure, I spent countless hours planning the expansion of my empire, working with and against other factions, coming up with plans and strategies to end up at the top when each game session reached its end.

Unleashing the power of small teams

For many years around the turn of the century, some of us (myself included) used to believe that the best games can only come from big teams. We were tricked into thinking this because it was the status quo. The gatekeepers, who back then largely controlled what gets released to market, only considered specific kinds of games that met certain criteria - a growing list of "back of the box" features that the publishers and their marketers decided the market wants. In addition to implementing those features, game development teams had to push constantly improving hardware to its limits, and they had to feature a large amount of content to justify the $50-$60 price tag. Naturally, those games need big teams to make them. For big AAA games, team size has kept increasing on each subsequent hardware generation.