Today's free newsletter is about four signs that the AI bubble is bursting: Anthropic's services and economics are decaying, AI demand is inflated, more than 50% of data centers under construction are for two companies, and NVIDIA is warehousing $150bn+ of GPUs.
www.wheresyoured.at/four-horseme...
Oh, I should have tagged @gamestudies.bsky.social !
I recently got to chat with Ruldof Inderst about The Impossible Reversal. We get into many of the big theoretical stakes of the project, and what it means to think historically about playfulness. The interview is up at New Books Network: newbooksnetwork.com/the-impossib...
Yes! I've been keeping an eye out for it since. You sold me!
That makes The Impossible Reversal like $20! Lots of great stuff at the press table this year
You can block this AI thing
bsky.app/profile/atti...
As local leaders in Las Cruces make that final decision on Project Jupiter, consider if you want summer temperatures to increase 9 degrees Celsius 🔥
I think the book exhibit opens tomorrow, but I'll take a look
Oops I think the right tag is #SCMS26 but here is another cool video of the chess set as recompense
If anyone's at #SCMS you can come to the Optical Play panel tomorrow at 11am to play with my version of Shigeko Kubota's video chess (and see many other cool optical toys from Amanda Shubert and Meredith Bak)
I'll try and swing by to say hi!
"This study provides crucial empirical evidence that, without proper safeguards, the harm caused by AI-generated falsehoods in this population and task is more potent and robust than the benefit derived from correct guidance."
At SCMS I'll be talking about some work on Shigeko Kubota's Video Chess, from work related to The Impossible Reversal. To help understand it in a deeper way I built a piece inspired by it (and will be carting it to Chicago). If you're there come and play!
15% cuts across faculty and staff at The New School 😢
Ooh, my book has been spotted at GDC (in excellent game studies company)
@designermonicat.bsky.social is a rad designer, can't wait to listen.
The best time to stop using Grammarly was years ago. The second best time is right now
People tell me that AI code is fine, because you can run automatic tests. But tests can only tell you if code is doing the thing you want it to do.
To know what it SHOULD do, we used to have requirements. But now requirements are themselves vibe-coded slopotypes.
The result: waste and risk.
The deadline for Play Make Learn 2026 is just around the corner! It brings together educators, museum and library folks, game designers, and researchers on playful learning together in Madison, WI. It's a lovely event and this year's theme is "Scrappiness"! So submit something: playmakelearn.org
Callers to Washington state’s driver’s license agency who select automated service in Spanish are instead hearing an AI voice speaking English with a strong Spanish accent.
Book cover for Hermes III: Translation by Michel Serres, translated by Randolph Burks. At top, thin perspective lines from top and bottom converge at two offset points. Author name over this. At bottom, title in dark orange background.
Book cover for The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play by Peter D. McDonald. A paper fortune teller with red leaves carrying the title in white against a green felt background.
Book cover for Border Mediascapes: Cinematic Itineraries at the Edge of Europe by Francesco Zucconi. Pixelated blue image of rippling water. Title in white, broken into several right angles arranged top to bottom.
Book cover for Out of the Blue: New Short Fiction from Iceland, compiles by Helen Mitsios with foreword by Sjón. Background in shades of blue. Title, subtitle, and credits appear in san-serif font, as if on surface that is curling into itself.
New releases:
-Michel Serres's Hermes III: Translation
-The Impossible Reversal by @pdmcdonald.bsky.social : a cultural history of play from Fluxus to SimCity
-Border Mediascapes by Francesco Zucconi: on cinema and border zones
-Out of the Blue: translated Icelandic fiction, now in PB
I can't wait! I just taught Redder today in my class, and would love to incorporate this pairing
Critical Distance is great. I find it super useful for drawing connections in my grad courses to current issues in game culture.
I wrote a short thing for the page 99 test for The Impossible Reversal. Page 99 is all about the phenomenology of hiding: page99test.blogspot.com/2026/02/pete...
What me worry
I haven't looked closely, but odds on it being secretly outsourced to a human?
A few thoughts:
1) This is the natural end point of treating universities as degree mills.
2) AI companies are pushing VERY hard to make students utterly dependent on them.
3) Do you want handwritten assignments, because this is how you get handwritten assignments.
It's book release day! The Impossible Reversal www.upress.umn.edu/978151791622... is out in the world. It's jam packed with 1960s art games, discussions of spies doing educational roleplay, electromechanical pinball cabinets, liberal theorists making baseball metaphors, and much more!
I don’t have the energy rn to express how horrific this is. Please submit a public comment.
def agree. though it did not learn the stylistic lesson of chill
