Former Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines has been chatting about the ups and downs of videogame subscription platforms, such as Microsoft's Game Pass service, GeForce Now and whatever the hell Ubisoft are calling theirs at the minute. Subisoftscription? UbiPassPlus? Answers on a postcard.

Hines is broadly of the opinion that subscription platforms are failing many of the developers who sign up to publish through them, though he cautions that his experience is out-of-date - he retired from Bethesda in October 2023.

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Alright, sweethearts. What are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day feeding the Maw. A day feeding the Maw is like a day on the farm - every update's a banquet, every DLC a fortune, every quarterly earnings call a parade. I LOVE the Maw!

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Sundays are for realising that the smell you can smell is that smell. That smell which smells. And how does it smell? It smells smelly. You open the door, and there they are. Anchovies. All waiting to play Hollow Knight: Silksong. No. Stay back. They won't. Into your cardboard box they file, clearly experts in filling tight spaces thanks to their past lives as tinned goods. From upstairs, you hear the unmistakeable sound of roaring laughter, echoing amid the damp paper. "I told you to let me out," bellows a triumphant Adrian Edmondson. "Now you'll pay the price." As the light fades from your eyes, you picture some writings from this week.

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This week went by just like that, didn’t it? Oh. I clicked my fingers as you read the word “that”, so you’d understand how fast this week went by, but you probably didn’t hear it. Alright then, let’s try something else: I’m writing this on Friday, and now it’s the weekend. See? See how fast that was? Better read what we’re playing today quick, or it’ll be December 8th, 2032 before you know it.

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For most of his game-making career, Australian developer dweedes has projected an image of cheeky, punkish rebellion. His website WET GAMIN has accumulated a trove of experimental games over the last decade: short works by various freeware developers that exemplify a scribbly, DIY spirit. Now, making and selling games on Steam under his studio Nonsense Machine, dweedes finds himself in the position of stepping up his commercial and craft ambitions while trying to stay true to his anti-corporate roots.

"I'll put out games for free because it kind of lightens the load off my head," he tells me as we chat over Discord. "I don’t have to market it, I don’t have to invest time in it. I just want to get the idea out, and then people can play it. There’s no quality target, so it’s fun for trying new ideas and throwing whatever you want out and not thinking too hard about it."

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