Jason Hawreliak

Check this out if you want to read a bunch of ex-journalists' thoughts on the current (gestures to the smoking crater) state of things, and also me being very very nostalgic about the games magazine era

This week: Authorial intent, trans survival, and the Forbidden Grav-Bong: critical-distance.com/2026/10/25/o...

Carney’s lack of an industrial strategy beyond build infrastructure, cut regulation & let the market figure it out, is a problem because we’re in truly transformative times. Bailouts like this show the government is reacting, not planning. It’ll end up costing in the long run, with little in return.

Its sad that this still has to be explained to some. Police do not prevent crime. They respond to crime. Reducing poverty and investing in public institutions reduces crime.

Less than 12 weeks ago, EA was effectively purchased by Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump's son-in-law for $55B in a deal that saddled the company with around $20B in debt. 12 weeks. That's how long it took for them to shutter a decades-old studio in BioWare and deem people surplus to requirements.

There is something so soul crushing about creating art that pushes the needle in the games industry, only to be thanked by using the capital gained from said art to push the ones who created it out of a job.

you can't judge when bioware was really killed because the mismanagement at the higher level under EA has been so constant and pervasive since the acquisition at every stage that every game shipped at all was a herculean miracle

Consolidation is killing our industry. The Gamergaters who make money off the rage game will have you think this is a victory. This is purely a loss. A loss of work and art and fun and expression in a space that desperately needs it. Massive fucking bummer.

It should be illegal for Israel’s top arms producer to purchase a Canadian company. Elbit Systems is complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. Cancel the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, enact sanctions and a two-way arms embargo now. www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/ar...

Canadian right-wing alternative media personalities and influencers are waking up this morning asking themselves what will be the next big crisis they can create to keep their audiences riled up

Sir, I’m happy if I can get all my students to do the reading and come to class on time consistently.

(description of the system working) the system is broken

I sat down to write a little thread about Penguin Colony. At post 4 I decided I should probably just write something a little longer. www.clockworkworlds.com/digging-at-t...

Keep thinking about a post I saw that said something like, "The best way to understand your political opponents is to sit down at a table with them and have a conversation." Yeah I did that and here's what I understand now: they swallow and regurgitate propaganda 24/7 and live in another dimension.

if anyone had actually given a shit about 'ethics in game journalism' the egregious examples were directly under their noses. but like all the fascist misdirection acts it inspired, gamergate was simply a premise to radicalize young men to the right by lathering outrage over a false premise

Your daily reminder that more people are playing and buying PC games than ever before. This is a growing industry. The only reason the industry is struggling is because the people are the top are vacuuming up all the money made to divert it to AI in an unhinged all-in multi-trillion-dollar gamble.

Two sides of the industry:

Curious to see if this will lead to other AAAs to be so open about it. Epic can absorb the backlash, not sure how many other companies can

My forthcoming co-edited book with @stephross.bsky.social, The Politics of Public Sector Unions, explores the struggles shaping Canada’s public services and labour politics. Now available for pre-order! fernwoodpublishing.ca/books/politi... #canlab #cdnpoli

the reason “AI will create so much abundance we will have a utopian society” rhetoric falls so flat is that the people building it will never, ever share their bounty unless it is taken from them and we all know it

Guess what? Here at Brock we have an MA program in Game Studies! That's right - you can do Game Studies at the graduate level with us! My excellent fellow game scholar @emmavphd.bsky.social also teaches in the program! Attend our info session tomorrow (or in December) to learn more! 🎮📖🎓

the tech industry is about to invent books

Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.

Jennifer Hale once told me Canadians need to champion ourselves more. I wholeheartedly agree. Over the past few months, I reached out to dozens of Canadian devs to learn their favourite Canadian games. Their varied responses offer a wonderful spotlight on some of the incredible talent we have here.🍁

we have control mechanisms for this. it's called The Law. these guys should be held personally liable for these harms. the suicides, the thefts, the intrusions into computer systems. they should be sued and prosecuted as appropriate. problem immediately solved

Ten years of relentlessly hateful, comically elitist anti-democratic politics across the white people world, helpfully summarised. The wrong people are talking, the wrong people are deciding and it’s harming the careers of important people who actually matter. Smithers! Release the hounds

“National interest” cannot become a catch-all excuse to override workers’ bargaining power whenever a lawful strike has economic consequences. That pressure is precisely what strikes are meant to create. theconversation.com/canadas-prop... #cdnpoli #canlab

Brady saying shit on live TV but that looked really bad

“privatization doesn’t mean prices will go up,” they told us last week. but of course they will, and they’re starting to have to admit it. the reason why investors are so desperate to get our airports is precisely because they know they’ll be able to make monopoly profits.

Imagining future digital archaeologists poring over boomer Facebook posts and attempting to use them to understand our culture and values the way we do tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal

holy shit, this is the whole ballgame in a single paragraph gAI systems require mass theft of copyrighted works, for the explicit purpose of replacing the market for the people they stole from, and the people in charge knew what they were doing ahead of time, and did it anyway

My book—Designing a Feel for the Game: A Guide to Making Play Meaningful—is just $14USD for the ebook right now 🎉: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Barber CEO: You Risk Falling Behind If You Don't Get A Haircut "Right Now" Industry Experts Foresee Future In Which Everyone Receives Multiple Haircuts Every Day Today Your Hair, Tomorrow The World: Barbers Say They Are On Track To Build A Pair Of Scissors So Big, It Could End Life As We Know It

All of a sudden we're not talking about the widely popular bipartisan opposition to massive data center buildouts. I wonder why 🤔

Hell yeah

pay living wages for all workers. tax the shit out of billionaires. happy labor day.

*NEW ISSUE* *SEPTEMBER 2026* Analog Game Studies Vol. XIII, No. 3 is out! escholarship.org/uc/analoggam... -- featuring: Evan Torner, Alex Roberts & Stephen Shapiro, Cameron Kunzelman, Lucy Roach, & Kathryn Volz, and Helen Roche @analoggamestudies.bsky.social Jrnl #analoggamestudies #ags

A racist arcade is the latest White House initiative that nobody asked for: aftermath.site/a-racist-arcad...

"I mean, everyone I know, their bosses are slowly getting psychosis, right? They're just like, 'Yeah, but did you use AI on your commits?'"

i want games made by people who get to keep their jobs

come to Bergen to do your PhD in game studies? www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Oh no the chuds have discovered semiotics

The renaming of this lake is so dumb and petty and should not be the focus of the news right now but … I cannot overstate enough just how sad and pathetic this update is for Google

Google Maps hasn't caved... yet