Alex Donaldson

i love having free will
#RE9 #ScoobyDoo

Well, 2 and 3 are the same point really. The ROG Ally is great when Windows gets out of your fucking way, and whenever you are reminded that it's windows under the hood it is like being thrown into a tunnel of pure shit

Two main challenges for Xbox w Helix:
1) If this is an expensive device at the intersection of console and PC, it had better offer /significantly/ better value than an equivalent PC
2) the 'PC as console' experience has about a million miles to go to be acceptable from where it is on ROG Ally etc

Coincidence corner: JCB and Reform UK

From the new Private Eye, out now.

Very grateful to Chris for the very kind words. Slightly sad this didn't end up on the website, as has been tradition when others leave. I mean, I know why, and am hooting laughing thinking about it. Ah well

It failed to meet (very high) expectations off the back of world -- not to say it didn't make a shit load of money mind. But it didn't have the legs they anticipated. Expansion performance will be a key metric now

Hello everyone. I come with the sad news that as you are no doubt already aware, we're saying goodbye to several of our friends and colleagues here at Eurogamer. Leaving us are Tom Orry, our editorial director; our video team of Ian Higton, Zoe Delahunty-Light, and Alix Attenborough; Alex Donaldson, our editor-at-large; and Will Judd, who worked across Digital Foundry, hardware and deals. I'll start with Tom, who over the past year-plus had made himself a hugely valuable source of advice, expertise, desert-dry humour and world class poker faces (I think we just about made him laugh once, for a moment, on his final day). Tom initially began the role when Tom Phillips was our editor-in-chief here, mostly working away diligently in the background in a two-Tom-tandem doing editorial director things, before taking on a more prominent role on the site itself over the past 11 or 12 months, gracing us with some signature console nostalgia and unjustifiably intense Project Gotham Racing enthusiasm. Tom, Dom, Alex and I, along with the rest of the team, worked together closely on what a 'new Eurogamer' might look like last year, and his experience in running multiple games media sites was consistently our rock to lean on. While he may have initially seemed an outsider of sorts compared to Eurogamer chiefs of old - at least to some on the surface, coming from his 20-plus years across our sister sites VG247 and USGamer, and before that the cult-favourite site he founded in our once-rival VideoGamer - I can't stress enough how much Tom 'got' Eurogamer. His goal was for us to be at the heart of the big stories that mattered most to our readers with original, diligent reporting and on-the-button commentary, and that will absolutely continue. In immaculately on-brand, limelight-dodging Orry style, Tom opted to sneak his farewell into this past weekend's What We've Been Playing column, but I'll be damned if he gets away with it that easily. Sorry Tom. Here's what he had to say…

From myself and the whole team at @eurogamer.bsky.social, a very fond farewell and huge thank you to our friends and colleagues (thread).💙

The AdSense isn't going to dry up, as there's other traffic and sources of income Google can't control as much where that is the only cash flow leverage they have. For tech sites, which are disproportionately affiliate heavy, the equation is probably shifting tho

Which is probably higher, tbh, than the 10-30% cut on programmatic adsense ads, even if only a fraction of customers actually follow through to buy.

They generate revenue in other ways. For instance, 'Best Headphones' clicks used to go Search>Tech Site for Reviews>Amazon etc for Purchase. In that equation, Google got the ad impression slice on the page.

Now? Search>AI Overview Recommendations>Store. Google takes the affiliate rev instead.

I forget what the ratio was exactly, but someone there told me that for every X games that enter production they try to greenlight one all-new thing, which is how you get stuff like Kunitsu, Exoprimal, even Ghost Trick. And sure, maybe they aren't huge hits, but one will doubtless eventually blow up

The question really is where this traffic has actually gone. If a lot of it has been redistributed to other sources then it isn't quite a destruction but a rebalancing. Tho AI summaries surely have a role. I also think there's a war on 'mega sites' in favour of smaller places w tighter expertise tho

Some of the stats in here are bonkers, like how TechRadar's loss of 11.5m monthly users is more than the traffic of Wired/Verge/ZDNet/HowToGeek/DigitalTrends COMBINED. Like, what response does that sort of loss propel at the parent company?

I think the answer is probably going to be yes btw

Tech Publications Lost 58% of Google Traffic Since 2024 | Growtika We tracked the organic search traffic of CNET, Wired, The Verge, TechRadar, and six others from early 2024 to today. Combined, they lost 65 million monthly visits.

An absolute apocalypse ongoing in the Tech space; 58% of Google Traffic to the world's biggest tech sites has disappeared since 2024. The question is, will this phenomenon come full force for gaming sites, rather than just the echoes we've already experienced?
growtika.com/blog/tech-me...

I mean, platform holders different really, I think an argument can also be had about Sony vs Capcom but third party, it's Capcom all day every day. Also in terms of footprint/employee count to quality ratio, Capcom curb stomps everyone

It's a shame DD2 didn't hit, and that Wilds was a bit of a stumble, but Capcom is still undoubtedly and undisputedly the best publisher in the business

UKIE should be truly embarrassed about what is laid bare in this

We had a LAN party last weekend. A mate who has a bunch of Punjabi colleagues had been excitedly telling them about a weekend of drinking & gaming at a "LAN Party", in receipt of strange looks. He later learned that "lan" is sometimes used interchangeably with "lun", punjabi slang for penis

Staff journalists sacked and misleadingly replaced with AI writers A network of gaming sites has fired multiple human staff in recent days and replaced them with AI writers, complete with fake pics and biogs.

Was quoted in a Press Gazette article last week about Videogamer using AI authors and general layoffs in the game media (registration required to read).

A handful of little gaps in my GDC schedule if anyone wants to meet to talk @rpgsite.net and games it should cover, or to hear about the mysterious things we're doing next.

THRILLED to be on @simonparkin.bsky.social's brilliant podcast, what an honour. If you want to hear me ramble through basically my entire life history via video games, cue it up

We had a LAN party last weekend. A mate who has a bunch of Punjabi colleagues had been excitedly telling them about a weekend of drinking & gaming at a "LAN Party", in receipt of strange looks. He later learned that "lan" is sometimes used interchangeably with "lun", punjabi slang for penis

This bit in the From Russia With Love game made me laugh out loud. You've got a fairly grounded, low key fight based on the one in the movie, then the most video game looking fucker of all time slides into frame.

I'd forgotten this and man what an absolute masterpiece. This is something you'd put in an Austin Powers game

Some feedback to PR folks that certainly wasn't asked for but hey: I find that I'm way more likely to redeem a Steam key and look at a game when it's sent to me directly via email than when I need to click through to some other site. Especially if you write "key enclosed" without enclosing a key.

it's god is a geek/calvin all over again lol

Ryu walking into the sunset in the ending of Street Fighter II. The caption reads: "Already seeking the next challenge, ceremony means nothing to him."

Personal news: I'm leaving my Editor-at-large role at Eurogamer & Gamer Network as part of new cuts. I last year approached my move to Eurogamer & VG247's skeletonization with reluctance, but I ultimately greatly enjoyed giving EG a go. But now after 10yrs & in difficult conditions, it's time to go.

saw this last night and the more I play the more true this shit becomes what the fuck