Jack Ryan 🙏🧪

Just sent off an insane email that makes me look insane and yet I feel unburdened, free. It had at least 14 exclamation marks.

The bottom line is we don't need these stories. At all. You can see how the internet reacts ... Being on the internet. You're wasting the reporter's time. I get it if you're a struggling enthusiast website fighting for Google placement. If you're using my tax dollars for this, please stop.

Some post-script that didn't make this piece:

A whole heap of expired websites with high authority can be used to rank well on Search. Buy em up, get their authority. That happened to the dormant Australianaid website.

In 2023, it campaigned for aid.
In 2025, it began listing Best Online Casinos.

Depends on the vibe and party size but always enjoy Cho Cho San and Chaco Bar.

In May '25, a beloved Australian games website was sold off. It went dark then, a month later, rose from the dead but stuffed full of gambling links and AI authors.

It wasn't the first time, or the last time, this exact thing had happened. And it's still happening.

My months-long investigation 👇

Thanks for reading my friend 🙏

Thank you to the many, many voices who spoke to me for this piece. It's absolutely impossible to do this work without courageous people taking risks.

And please support independent media! Aftermath is great. Taking on big, investigative work like this is a lot of work for everybody involved.

This is in the piece! It's sad -- and it's not the only Dutch site.

In May '25, a beloved Australian games website was sold off. It went dark then, a month later, rose from the dead but stuffed full of gambling links and AI authors.

It wasn't the first time, or the last time, this exact thing had happened. And it's still happening.

My months-long investigation 👇

A great pickup! This is a line of investigation I went down but ultimately was met with silence. You can see the email addresses associated with AI author imagery by hovering over em at the "Our Team" page on Videogamer. I contacted them all. I did not get a response.

www.videogamer.com/our-team/

LinkedIn screenshot from Halfbrick three hours ago. Text reads Today we’re sharing that Halfbrick is making changes to our team structure, including role redundancies in Australia and the conclusion of a number of engagements internationally. This was not a decision we made lightly. Like many studios, we are navigating a challenging period for the games industry, and we’ve had to make some hard choices about how we move forward. These changes are driven by organizational and strategic priorities, not individual performance. The most important thing to say is this: the people affected by this decision have made meaningful contributions to Halfbrick. They have helped shape our games, supported our players, and been an important part of this studio. We are sincerely grateful for everything they have brought to the company. To everyone impacted, thank you. Your work has mattered here, and we are better for having had the chance to work with you. We also want to say clearly that we would strongly recommend any of these individuals to any team that is hiring. Halfbrick has always cared deeply about the people we bring in, and there is exceptional talent among those now looking for their next opportunity. Our focus right now is on handling this transition with care, respect, and genuine appreciation for the people who have contributed so much to Halfbrick. We wish them nothing but the best in what comes next.

Halfbrick announcing role redundancies in Australia during breakfast on a Saturday morning feels like a choice to me. My best to those impacted. If that's you and you want to chat, you can reach me securely here on dctrjr [at] proton [dot] me

(Now with alt text)

Censorship and safety concerns cloud China’s plans to host science journalism conference Organizers of the 2029 World Conference of Science Journalists defend Beijing meeting as opportunity to connect with Chinese scientists

🧪Significant debate in science journalism right -- will the World Conference in Beijing be safe and independent? My quotes up top here are pointed, but this is a critical point in time for journalism and science. We must be clear-eyed about what this means.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Announcing the Retraction Watch Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship - The Open Notebook The Open Notebook and Retraction Watch are thrilled to announce a new fellowship program funded by The Center for Scientific Integrity. This six-month program will equip up to six reporters and editor...

We and @theopennotebook.bsky.social are thrilled to announce The Retraction Watch Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship!

-- $7,500 in funding to support reporting
-- One-to-one mentoring support
-- Four virtual trainings

Find out more here:

I...worked on this story for eight months...and...they just...they tweeted it out.

Hell yeah 👑👑👑👑

I suspect, if Big Ant is profitable, it gets sold elsewhere or it can be bought back? Hoping for the best!

Not to put too fine a point on this quote but Nacon, the owner of Big Ant Studios, just filed for insolvency.

bsky.app/profile/wari...

A Scrumptious Error at Scientific Reports What does a dog's breakfast taste like?

🧪 In more than 280,000 papers published in Sci Reports since launch, this is the first one that uses the word "scrumptiously" (If I was a betting man, I'd say it might be the first retracted paper to include that word, too, but I have to dig on that)

nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/a-scrumpti...

who of us hasn't wanted to write this

First scientist to legitimately write this gets the No Breakthroughs Breakthrough Award for Breaking Through Peer Review. I'll make a trophy and everything!

One of the truest compliments: A Jackson post with no real idea where it's headed

🧪 Here's a delicious Scientific Reports paper, with a phrase I've never seen before: "Scrumptiously high accuracy". The delectable find revealed some ... concerning signals in this paper, which now has an Editor's note and is under investigation.

nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/a-scrumpti...

Is it game over for the influential Freeplay festival? After two decades of raging against the machine, Freeplay – once the flagship for indie Australian games – has announced that this year will probably be its last.

Just imagine if we had a gaming journalism publication in which we could spend more than 1100 words on one of the world's most important video game festivals, the funding environment, the people involved, the challenges, the solutions... the story!

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/game...

The festival has never really earnt love/support from the Vic Gov, and it has to wrestle with its identity after that support came.

And despite the Game Over headline (I would never allow such a thing!) there are ways for Freeplay to continue. That's where the discussion should head (/is heading)

Is it game over for the influential Freeplay festival? After two decades of raging against the machine, Freeplay – once the flagship for indie Australian games – has announced that this year will probably be its last.

I spoke to more than a dozen people for this short piece on Freeplay in the Saturday Paper. It's a little retrospective/reflective and tries to distil a whole range of emotions and opinions that came through in those discussions.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/game...

There's an idea here....

My guy Tanaka has his finger on the pulse. I put him up for a Walkley.

A screenshot of GamesHub, with the story "The Legend of Zelda Turns 40: Celebrating Four Decades of Adventure" and an AI generated image with a cake and Elda on TV and a PS controller

An AI-generated image of Link, I think, but he has a claw and stick as an arm

A big fan of SlopHub, Australia's premier destination for video game news. My favourite part of their Zelda celebrations is the "Nintendo-supplied" artwork featuring games in the Zelda franchise like

Zelda: NNNNNNN
Zelda: YYSDDDDF
and the one on TV where Link's arm is a stick.

Thanks legend, long time no speak 🙏 appreciate you reading

Big Twirl King Size. Two Big Twirl, parallel to one another, in one package.