Taylor Hardwick

Delphinium's Kickstarter will go live on October 27th, 9:00AM ACDT 🩵💫

Announcing... DOGPILE!!! ✨🦴

Dogpile is a roguelike deckbuilder about merging DOGS. Play dogs, get money, customize your dogs with special traits, refine your deck, PLAY MORE DOGS!

Free demo is live on Steam, WISHLIST NOW!!!
store.steampowered.com/app/3839300/...

Great to collab with colleagues at Sydney. Global video game/loot box policy evaluation is an international collaborative effort. Would be great to work with German 🇩🇪, Spanish 🇪🇸, and Brazilian 🇧🇷 colleagues to check (forthcoming) national rules. Please do get in touch with us if interested! 👋🏻

Co-authored with superstar team @marcuscarter.com @benegliston.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social @leonxiao.com - you can find the preprints here:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Loot boxes are still rife in kids’ mobile games, despite ban on ‘gambling-like’ features Games with ‘loot boxes’ should be classified for over-15s – but a new study shows many of the most popular mobile games completely ignore the rules.

New article in @theconversation.com today reflecting on Australia’s 2024 loot box regulations and how, 1 year later, there remains widespread non-compliance - and generally really confusing age ratings for mobile games on the App Stores!

theconversation.com/loot-boxes-a...

YouTube video by Little Pink Clouds Letters to Arralla OUT NOW!

Letters to Arralla is OUT NOW on Steam with a limited time 20% launch discount!! 🏝️💌

After 5 long years of development and lots of fruit & veggies eaten to power our developers, this cheeky game is finally ready to be delivered directly into your hands!! ☺️ Play now on Steam!

youtu.be/7GbGTEpsoIM

Frosty is back to celebrate the coolest upcoming and recently released games made in Australia & Aotearoa, this December 🍦🥳

We’ll be featuring exclusive reveals, announcements, and updates. Developers can submit their games now until Sep 30! ⤵️

forms.gle/tt8y9N1dPweS...

Charlie Kirk died in the America he wanted I mourn the loss of human life. I feel compassion, empathy and grief at an inexcusable killing. But I find nothing to lionise in his legacy.

Given this is making some waves - here is the piece and you can judge for yourself.

(I'm fine, there are no issues - right wing ecosystem just doing what right wing ecosystem does).

Take care of you - it's rough out there! Ax

amyremeikis.substack.com/p/charlie-ki...

✨I’m recruiting for a research project on game monetisation!✨
I’m keen to chat to game devs about how monetisation shapes the dev process. Interviews will be 60mins via Zoom. To learn more, head to bit.ly/40mOB3f

if you'd like to participate, shoot me a DM or email taylor.hardwick@sydney.edu.au 😊

MORE RANTS!!!!! 😂

✨I’m recruiting for a research project on game monetisation!✨
I’m keen to chat to game devs about how monetisation shapes the dev process. Interviews will be 60mins via Zoom. To learn more, head to bit.ly/40mOB3f

if you'd like to participate, shoot me a DM or email taylor.hardwick@sydney.edu.au 😊

FREAKON 2025 ANNOUNCED - SEASON OF DECAY We’re looking around at a world rife with rot. More layoffs, more greed, and the birth of a whole new type of AI guy have filled the air with a foul stench. It’s tempting to imagine our community coul...

FREAKON IS BACK
www.freakon.com.au/blogs/news/f...

We’ll be hosting GachaCon 2026, a hybrid academic conference on gacha games with Genshin Impact as the theme, on 12–13 February 2026 at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. 🇭🇰🇨🇳

Call for Papers: tinyurl.com/gachaconcfp

You can take a girl out of Dubbo but you can’t stop Dubbo from following the girl forever and ever and ever (team Freeplay @ Dubbo skate park tho)

The return of Waypoint Constellations✨

🎫 events.humanitix.com/waypoint-con...

A close collaboration with @serenade.games to celebrate Sydney's games and creators.

🗓️On Oct 14th just before SXSW's games festival begins

Follow and sign up for more info as we tease out the secrets of this event.

(Crowd chants) dubbo 👏 dubbo 👏 dubbo 👏

Freeplay 💕💕💕

Freeplay Angles, at Science Gallery (Grattan St, Carlton) on Thurs 31/07, Fri 01/08, and Sat 02/08. The image shows a tarot spread of Lovers, Death, and Fortune in an orange and blue colour scheme. The image is by Percy Harris.

The Freeplay Angles 2025 schedule is now online, and tickets are on sale! Angles runs from 31st July - 2nd August at Science Gallery Melbourne.

www.freeplay.net.au

Gaming’s Great Downsizing and the Garage-Band Game Economy Brendan Keogh explains the post-2008 collapse of the Australian games industry and how it might prefigure changes coming for the rest of the world

If you liked or hated my takes on ‘deprofessionalisation’, I went into a lot more detail in this great chat with @pushtotalk.gg for his newsletter.

Connected what’s going on now to what I observed in the Australian industry in the 2010s

www.pushtotalk.gg/p/gamings-gr...

Thank you!! 🥰

Then, we make 4 recs for designing games in kids’ best interests:
1. No monetised random chance features!
2. Easy access to refunds for child accounts
3. Better protection for kids’ accounts & items, and
4. Reversible & transparent virtual currencies

✨Games are good, but they could be better✨

Kids used words like “scams”, “lying” & “false” to describe harmful spending features & outcomes in games. So, we argue that kids are harmed when game monetisation features are deceptive & misleading. Spending in games isn’t bad - but it is when it deceives children.

Super excited to present our research on how children perceive & experience harm resulting from game monetisation at #CHI2025 today! Co-authored with @marcuscarter.com @saharkin.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social & @benegliston.bsky.social - check it out here: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

It was fun! It’s great to see the research coming together 😊

Playing the Player - CPRC Australians of all ages are engaging with gaming to relax, learn or connect with friends, but common design features can leave players worse-off – 95% of Australian adult gamers encounter manipulative...

Really interesting and important report out today on deceptive design practices in games and how they impact players from @cprc-research.bsky.social @coolrobbie.bsky.social and @bradyjay.bsky.social - some really great recommendations on making games safer for everyone!

cprc.org.au/report/playi...

We are professionals

Sorry gamers, Nintendo’s hefty Switch 2 price tag signals the new normal – and it might still go up We saw Sony adjust prices for the PS5 mid-generation in response to production costs. So there’s no reason to assume the Switch 2 price will remain static.

Some thoughts from @benegliston.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social and myself in The Conversation today on the spenny Switch 2 release price and how it reflects the state of the industry (& mostly, sorry gamers)

‘Literally just child gambling’: what kids say about Roblox, lootboxes and money in online games Kids who play Roblox games describe ‘scary’ virtual currencies and ‘cash grab’ random rewards.

New article in @theconversation.com today by myself and @marcuscarter.com on how kids talk about when spending money in Roblox is harmful to them. TLDR; virtual currencies and random reward features should be better regulated!

theconversation.com/literally-ju...

This is based on a paper by us & @saharkin.bsky.social @tianyizhangshao.bsky.social @benegliston.bsky.social on how kids talk about in-game spending harms broadly. It’s not the spending itself that’s bad - it’s when the spend misleads kids!

Check the preprint here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

‘Literally just child gambling’: what kids say about Roblox, lootboxes and money in online games Kids who play Roblox games describe ‘scary’ virtual currencies and ‘cash grab’ random rewards.

New article in @theconversation.com today by myself and @marcuscarter.com on how kids talk about when spending money in Roblox is harmful to them. TLDR; virtual currencies and random reward features should be better regulated!

theconversation.com/literally-ju...