Keza MacDonald
@mackeza.bsky.social
Guardian video games editor, exhausted millennial. She/her 🏳️🌈
Pinned
Keza MacDonald
@mackeza.bsky.social
· Sep 3
My book, Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun, is out next February! It is a lively cultural history of the world's most beloved video game company, drawing from 20 years' worth of reporting and interviews. Pre-order here: linktr.ee/super_nintendo
This is powerfully embarrassing
November 16, 2025 at 9:22 AM
This is powerfully embarrassing
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
lately i've been thinking about how LLMs must feel really amazing to use if you're a dumbass, but incredibly frustrating if you're just basically competent in life.
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
November 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM
lately i've been thinking about how LLMs must feel really amazing to use if you're a dumbass, but incredibly frustrating if you're just basically competent in life.
Spent some of the most miserable gaming hours of my life trapped in Sinner's Road in Silksong. After about 16h in this game I honestly thought I might be nearly finished. Now at 30h 🙃
November 14, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Spent some of the most miserable gaming hours of my life trapped in Sinner's Road in Silksong. After about 16h in this game I honestly thought I might be nearly finished. Now at 30h 🙃
I read this entire thing so you don't have to. Charitably, it's about how scarily opaque places like Discord are to parents of teenaged boys. But also: it draws a line between Sea of Thieves and "left-wing violence", at which point it leaves any credibility at the door
nypost.com/2025/11/13/t...
nypost.com/2025/11/13/t...
Exclusive | Inside the world of Discord and the far-left-coded games radicalizing young boys
What is really happening on these gaming and chat platforms?
nypost.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:02 PM
I read this entire thing so you don't have to. Charitably, it's about how scarily opaque places like Discord are to parents of teenaged boys. But also: it draws a line between Sea of Thieves and "left-wing violence", at which point it leaves any credibility at the door
nypost.com/2025/11/13/t...
nypost.com/2025/11/13/t...
“Don’t gather some of the most brilliant activists in the industry, treat us like crap, and then expect us to do nothing about it.” After the Game Awards cancelled its Future Class programme, @alyssamerc.bsky.social talked to its former honorees
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
“We were effectively props”: young stars of game development feel let down by the ‘gaming Oscars’
Announced in 2020 by the Game Awards as an inclusive programme for the industry’s next generation, the Future Class initiative has now been discontinued. Inductees describe clashes with organisers and...
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:33 PM
“Don’t gather some of the most brilliant activists in the industry, treat us like crap, and then expect us to do nothing about it.” After the Game Awards cancelled its Future Class programme, @alyssamerc.bsky.social talked to its former honorees
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
The true cost of the trans "conversation", which is and always has been just another name for trans persecution. I hope that all the columnists who are obsessed with dissecting trans people's right to exist and participate in all aspects of life see this and examine the harm they're doing.
For @teenvogue.com I wrote about the death of trans athlete Lia Smith and how trans youth kind themselves with central pillars of their lives being constantly ripped away from them because of politics. www.teenvogue.com/story/politi...
Politicizing Transgender Athletes Is Dangerous. Lia Smith Deserved Better.
"Let her passing be an inflection point for how you think about trans rights and trans people more generally."
www.teenvogue.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:32 PM
The true cost of the trans "conversation", which is and always has been just another name for trans persecution. I hope that all the columnists who are obsessed with dissecting trans people's right to exist and participate in all aspects of life see this and examine the harm they're doing.
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
20 years ago today I was trying to find a dodgy little import game shop near Bournemouth with printed-out directions from Google Maps, so I could spend half my meagre pay from my first job on a plastic guitar. Here's Chris Lord on one of the all-time great games:
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
Guitar Hero at 20 – how a plastic axe bridged the gap between rock generations
Guitar Hero’s controllers let anyone become a star in their own living room – and made the bands featured in the game household names again
www.theguardian.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:06 PM
20 years ago today I was trying to find a dodgy little import game shop near Bournemouth with printed-out directions from Google Maps, so I could spend half my meagre pay from my first job on a plastic guitar. Here's Chris Lord on one of the all-time great games:
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
When GTA V came out I did a bunch of radio interviews about it, and the game was mostly approached as a violent, dangerous waste of time. One presenter said "when I talk to people like you, I think, why don't you read a book?" (I told him I have a Masters degree in literature, that shut him up)
November 8, 2025 at 7:59 AM
When GTA V came out I did a bunch of radio interviews about it, and the game was mostly approached as a violent, dangerous waste of time. One presenter said "when I talk to people like you, I think, why don't you read a book?" (I told him I have a Masters degree in literature, that shut him up)
Busted? @sammygecsoyler.bsky.social reports on the week's events at Rockstar Games:
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
UK union accuses GTA maker Rockstar Games of firing employees attempting to organise
According to The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, the developer fired more than 30 staff last week for being members of a union-affiliated Discord channel
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Busted? @sammygecsoyler.bsky.social reports on the week's events at Rockstar Games:
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/n...
Just reached the unexpected "organised crime" chapter of Pokémon Legends Z-A - thanks Game Freak for this cherishable opportunity to try and explain loan sharks and compound interest to my small children
November 6, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Just reached the unexpected "organised crime" chapter of Pokémon Legends Z-A - thanks Game Freak for this cherishable opportunity to try and explain loan sharks and compound interest to my small children
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
lol
November 6, 2025 at 4:47 AM
lol
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
The extremely strange afterlife of the Xbox Kinect camera, which came out 15 years ago today: www.theguardian.com/games/2025/m...
Ghost hunting, pornography and interactive art: the weird afterlife of Xbox Kinect
Fifteen years since Microsoft’s motion-sensing gaming camera was released for the Xbox 360, artists, roboticists and more are still finding new ways to use it
www.theguardian.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:43 AM
The extremely strange afterlife of the Xbox Kinect camera, which came out 15 years ago today: www.theguardian.com/games/2025/m...
The extremely strange afterlife of the Xbox Kinect camera, which came out 15 years ago today: www.theguardian.com/games/2025/m...
Ghost hunting, pornography and interactive art: the weird afterlife of Xbox Kinect
Fifteen years since Microsoft’s motion-sensing gaming camera was released for the Xbox 360, artists, roboticists and more are still finding new ways to use it
www.theguardian.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:43 AM
The extremely strange afterlife of the Xbox Kinect camera, which came out 15 years ago today: www.theguardian.com/games/2025/m...
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
My book, Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun, is out next February! It is a lively cultural history of the world's most beloved video game company, drawing from 20 years' worth of reporting and interviews. Pre-order here: linktr.ee/super_nintendo
September 3, 2025 at 1:05 PM
My book, Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun, is out next February! It is a lively cultural history of the world's most beloved video game company, drawing from 20 years' worth of reporting and interviews. Pre-order here: linktr.ee/super_nintendo
If you are looking for a spooky diversion today and you're too much of a wuss for actual horror media, Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival has grown into something special
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
I tried out a virtual Halloween festival – and got more than I bargained for
Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival began as a lockdown project and has now become an annual gaming tradition. My children and I paid it a visit
www.theguardian.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:29 AM
If you are looking for a spooky diversion today and you're too much of a wuss for actual horror media, Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival has grown into something special
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
Here's what I learned from spending 8 hours of my weekend playing a game about revolutionary donkeys with a crowd of other people in a theatre
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
No half-assed performance: how playing with a live crowd turns video games into performance art
Spending eight hours in a theatre with 70 people playing through political donkey epic asses.masses was gruelling – and a tribute to gaming’s shared joy
www.theguardian.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Here's what I learned from spending 8 hours of my weekend playing a game about revolutionary donkeys with a crowd of other people in a theatre
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
Great primer here on all the *extremely weird shit* we’ve seen these last couple of days linking Trump, ICE and the Master Chief.
Vital to have people like @alyssamerc.bsky.social on this beat, as miserably bleak as it is.
Vital to have people like @alyssamerc.bsky.social on this beat, as miserably bleak as it is.
This appropriation of gaming imagery and culture to push authoritarianism is, as @alyssamerc.bsky.social points out here, the natural extension of what Gamergate began
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
Why Trump’s White House is using video game memes to recruit for ICE
A recent spate of posts has garnered attention, but Trump and his allies have long been using gaming imagery to mobilise a toxic subculture of ‘rootless white males’
www.theguardian.com
October 29, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Great primer here on all the *extremely weird shit* we’ve seen these last couple of days linking Trump, ICE and the Master Chief.
Vital to have people like @alyssamerc.bsky.social on this beat, as miserably bleak as it is.
Vital to have people like @alyssamerc.bsky.social on this beat, as miserably bleak as it is.
This appropriation of gaming imagery and culture to push authoritarianism is, as @alyssamerc.bsky.social points out here, the natural extension of what Gamergate began
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
Why Trump’s White House is using video game memes to recruit for ICE
A recent spate of posts has garnered attention, but Trump and his allies have long been using gaming imagery to mobilise a toxic subculture of ‘rootless white males’
www.theguardian.com
October 29, 2025 at 11:40 AM
This appropriation of gaming imagery and culture to push authoritarianism is, as @alyssamerc.bsky.social points out here, the natural extension of what Gamergate began
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
I am about to go and do my autumn/winter book shopping. What's the best thing you've read lately? I am a voracious reader of all things except horror/crime fiction
October 28, 2025 at 1:51 PM
I am about to go and do my autumn/winter book shopping. What's the best thing you've read lately? I am a voracious reader of all things except horror/crime fiction
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
astonishing is absolutely the wrong word. it's disgusting, terrible, awful, harrowing that such a vast majority of trans people know how unsafe Britain is. but if you're paying attention it's hardly astonishing.
In @yougov.co.uk polling of the trans community, to the best of our knowledge the first of its kind ever conducted, an astonishing 84% said Britain is “fairly unsafe” or “very unsafe” for trans people.
goodlaw.social/ncfw
goodlaw.social/ncfw
‘Abject terror’: survey shows 84% of trans people feel Britain is unsafe
YouGov poll reveals safety crisis for trans people in the UK
goodlaw.social
October 27, 2025 at 3:50 PM
astonishing is absolutely the wrong word. it's disgusting, terrible, awful, harrowing that such a vast majority of trans people know how unsafe Britain is. but if you're paying attention it's hardly astonishing.
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
Over at The Ringer, I went long on the history of PlayStation online, from SOCOM and Uncharted 2 to its current live-service woes.
Notable hearing Shawn Layden on GaaS: “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.”
www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...
Notable hearing Shawn Layden on GaaS: “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.”
www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...
Why Can’t Sony Make More Multiplayer Hits?
How the PlayStation maker lost—but still survived—gaming’s live-service struggle
www.theringer.com
October 27, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Over at The Ringer, I went long on the history of PlayStation online, from SOCOM and Uncharted 2 to its current live-service woes.
Notable hearing Shawn Layden on GaaS: “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.”
www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...
Notable hearing Shawn Layden on GaaS: “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.”
www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
I reviewed The Seance of Blake Manor by @spookydoorway.bsky.social and absolutely adored it. Interesting procedural detective work, folk horror, Irish mythology, colonial subtexts and jump scares!! 👻
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
The Séance of Blake Manor review – gripping gothic detective game steeped in mystery and menace
An atmospheric folk-horror adventure combines colonial guilt, spiritualism and supernatural chills in a tale of secrets and seances on Ireland’s haunted west coast
www.theguardian.com
October 27, 2025 at 2:26 PM
I reviewed The Seance of Blake Manor by @spookydoorway.bsky.social and absolutely adored it. Interesting procedural detective work, folk horror, Irish mythology, colonial subtexts and jump scares!! 👻
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...
Reposted by Keza MacDonald
I got to write this nice piece for @theguardian.com about the birthday of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Something that at least isn't full sorrow and horror, you know.
Happy birthday to the NES, companion to millions of Nintendo childhoods
Forty years ago today, the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the US – and a generation of kids were sucked into video games for life
www.theguardian.com
October 26, 2025 at 9:12 PM
I got to write this nice piece for @theguardian.com about the birthday of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Something that at least isn't full sorrow and horror, you know.