Epic have discussed their latest plans for growing the Epic Games Store's audience and stealing more eyeballs from industry overlords Steam. One side of it is launching a proper unified multiplatform store and shared libraries across PC and mobile, alongside better performance and features such as voice chat. The other side of it is channelling the brand clout of Fortnite to increase sales of third party releases, with a new official program of Fortnite cosmetics and Epic Store avatars for people who buy games from participating developers. They're going to do upwards of 100 hats (or equivalent) a year, apparently. 100 hats! Where did I leave that trusty Smithers gif. Ah, here you go.

Read more

Generative AI has played "zero part" in Rockstar Games' creation of GTA 6, Take-Two CEOman Strauss Zelnick has said at the company's latest financial numbers get-together, where he also indicated the game's still on to initially release this November. Well, on consoles at least. Though, back in the AI front, the Z bloke also revealed that Take-Two have "hundreds of pilots and implementations" on the go involving the tech.

Read more

Videogames have given us many fascinating healing mechanics and ideas about healing, from the motley support playstyles of Overwatch to the musical cooldown management of Wild Growth, but one thing developers rarely capture is that healing is an expression of power over somebody. However kind, it has the potential to be demeaning, intrusive, even abusive.

In my experience of doctors and hospitals, healing is a competition between interpretations of sickness and injury, where the doctor has at their disposal all the crushing cultural authority and ornate vocabularies of modern medicine. The patient’s own self-knowledge - amassed over years of living in and with their own flesh - risks being recast as 'amateurish'. And this is before we get into the weeds of different conceptions of bodies and how they relate, which a doctor - especially an overworked, desensitised one, fighting a wider crisis - might be inclined to dismiss as mysticism or superstition.

Read more