The political economy of games journalism: Interview with David Nieborg
Plus Roblox earnings, Amazon layoffs, and DouYu's CEO disappearance
In this week’s episode, Laine checks in after recovering from the Covid vaccine, while Joost reflects on the travails of getting older.
It’s a hodgepodge of news events from this past week, and the hosts chat it out. Amazon Games lays off about 180 workers, leading Laine and Joost to consider what these layoffs might signal about the economy at large. In the world of earnings, Roblox beat expectations, while Take Two dropped the announcement of the trailer for GTA6 (yes you read that correctly) and got a whole 6% price bump as a reward. Meanwhile, in the world of scary weird things we would not want to have happen to us, Chen Shoujie, CEO of the Chinese live streaming platform DouYu, has gone missing—likely picked up by Chinese authorities of platform violations with regard to gambling and pornography.
The big hit of our show, however, is a visit from games researcher David Nieborg, talking about his newly released, co-authored book Mainstreaming and Games Journalism, written with Maxwell Foxman. A free open access ebook version is available from MIT Press—so there’s no reason not to check it out!
And Laine would like to remind you that the new OLED Steam Deck goes on sale tomorrow.
Listen in!