Brenton Woodrow

Why were there gender-balanced teams at Sega in the late 80s, and why was this never the case again afterwards? I also provide a chronology of the industry's pioneers in Japan, while addressing the issue of gender discrimination, before discussing working conditions more broadly in a later chapter.

TWO WEEKS UNTIL DEMONSCHOOL

YouTube video by Squidge Rugby So R360 is going to be a disaster.

Mike Tindall's rebel league has been gaining a lot of attention. It's about to be rugby's Hindenburg. We break down why this is a bad-faith disaster waiting to happen.
youtu.be/NITlYX7FT-c

Illustration: a portrait of Rieko Kodama with some of the games she has worked on. The dominant colors are yellow, purple and red. Counterclockwise from top left: Rieko Kodama, Alis and Lutz from Phantasy Star, Sonic in a maze, Alex Kidd and his motorbike next to Flicky on a waterfront pier, Joe Musashi and his dog near the Statue of Liberty facing a skyline, the three playable characters from Golden Axe seen from behind on the edge of a cliff, and one of the flying ships from Skies of Arcadia.

I wrote a long article about Rieko Kodama, her career at Sega, the evolution of her company, the games she worked on (including some canceled games and/or games for which she is not credited), the status of women and working conditions in the video game industry, etc.
vgdensetsu.net/riekokodama/

Marathon Closed Technical Test: Steam signups open! Apply now. Test runs from Oct 22, 10 AM PT - Oct 28, 10 AM PT

Steam signups for Marathon's NDA’d Closed Technical Test (Oct 22, 10 AM PT – Oct 28, 10 AM PT) are open in NA and EU. Hit “Request Access” on our Steam page:
🖥️ s.team/a/3065800

NA and EU Console players, sign up via Bungie.net:
🎮 bung.ie/3VOVUgH

Such a good post about game industry hype cycles. Rare in that it comes from an ex-CEO (Nexon) yet also contains deep wisdom about how broken the industry is.

If you make games and run a studio, read it.

www.owenmahoney.ai/owen-mahoney...

I don’t know, there’s something magical about the feeling that you could experience crushing misery or ecstatic glee at any moment.

Of course my home team would lose that game.

"Oh yeah? You like baseball? What if I make you smoke *an entire pack* of baseball?"

An internal scan of a runner shell with the text "RESPONSE"

We’re opening Marathon playtest signups for an NDA’d Closed Technical Test from October 22 - 27. Info here: www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Ar...

I used to work for a company called GameTap, we were probably the first "Netflix for games," started around 2006. It didn't go well. I used to think the idea was ahead of its time, and maybe it was, but I also think times have changed and this no longer makes sense. 🧵

Favorite part of my week every week. Thank you for making it possible!

As a resident of #Portland it is impossible to capture how unhinged this is. We are a low crime city and the ICE protest "siege" consists of one auxiliary ICE office that normally has at most a dozen weirdos debating what performance art they should use to block a single driveway

Buy @foddy.net's cool video game, you will not regret

Meeting of the GDC organizers.

“Attendees and non-attendees have given us the feedback that the conference has become too expensive and often features sponsored talks which are offensive to game developers.”

“…I think we should rebrand and call it a Festival.”

That big news I teased yesterday?

I've written a book!

Attacking the Space: Inside Rugby's Tactical and Data Revolution is the book I wanted to read as a rugby obsessive kid. It will be released on the 29th January 2026, the pre-order link is:

geni.us/AttackingThe...

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And one more good morning post to keep the 9/9 SEGA Dreamcast tradition alive:

Big “there’s 30 people who’d happily do your job for less” energy in the game industry.

YouTube video by Squidge Rugby A Guide to Women's Rugby for fans of the Men's Game

I get it. It's daunting to learn from scratch players, teams, tactics. But with the World Cup on the horizon, there has never been a better time to get your head around Canada being better than South Africa. We present, A Guide to Women's Rugby for fans of the Men's Game-
youtu.be/HkOECTLYqkA?...

Is Gerrymandering Cheating or Just A Good Strat? American democracy operates like a complex board game where the rules keep changing, cheating is normalized, and spoilsports threaten the entire system.

This story was a subject line in my mailbox. I thought "this is either very good, or I'm unsubscribing from this newsletter."

It's very good, it's from Kill Screen and it looks at democracy as a game, and goes from there and keeps going.

It's my pleasure to announce that Cartomantic is going to be a part of the Seattle Indies Expo!

If you're in the area for PAX, come say hi! Morgan, Riley, and I will be there. Play our early-in-development demo and check out other awesome indie games while you're at it.

Info: six.seattleindies.org

Anybody who knows anybody that might be interested in Demonschool and might give it a little boost, please entice them to fill out this form! We put a lot into this game and we really want people to see it.

Some real walkin around music

Very cool! Their article on my first indie game is back on here too. I loved working with the Shadegrown team.

kotaku.com/three-cheers...

ah yeah the familiar whiplash of seeing a legacy media org cover something you're an actual expert in and realizing "oh if this is how badly they're fucking up this, how badly are they fucking up every other topic?"

Nintendo has always had the sauce but a lot of their magic comes down to “These people have been making games their entire lives and they actually want to teach youngsters how to make good games instead of sabotaging them to make Line Go Up.”

Beep21 has released the second part of its interview with Kenji Tosaki about the Saturn analog stick (codenamed C-01), who was involved with the development of Sega peripherals from 1988 to 2001. I will attempt to summarize it in this thread.

note.com/beep21/n/n85...

Laser'd
'Virtual On'
SEGA Saturn

Murder on Sex Island by Jo Firestone: 9798217091454 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books A sexy reality show. A missing contestant. A one-of-a-kind detective. “Bless Jo Firestone’s quiet, mad genius. . . . Hilarious and completely brilliant, [a] bloodstained love-letter to reality-dating...

This has been one of my favorite books I’ve read over the last 2 years. Genuinely funny and fun to read. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/789705...

Now’s a good time to remind you that you may be actively giving money to Microsoft via Game Pass.