Who knew Pokémon Moon’s aloof captain Mallow lived a second life as a fashion queen? I’m at the fourth gym in Pokémon Black Moon 2. In the original game, it belongs to Elesa, an electric-type trainer seemingly modelled after Lady Gaga. In that game, she battles you on a catwalk, after you face off against three… Read more »
Before Infinite Lives was conceived and launched this time last year, there was another name floating around for this newsletter: Utility Jigglypuff. It was an in-joke among my mates that just wouldn’t die. Hot off watching a video from Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng, a competitive Pokémon player, professional commentator and YouTuber, I was explaining how the hyper-competitive side of this… Read more »
The odds were not on my side. I had a two in three chance of dying to this boss, and there was very little I could do about it. I’m over halfway through Fantasian Neo Dimension and without realising, I’ve stumbled into a trap within the game. I noticed this weird-looking bubble on the world… Read more »
It’s unlikely Australia’s competition watchdog, the ACCC, took notice of Sony’s global outage a few weeks ago. But if they did, it could provide some insightful guidance for its latest inquiry where its touching on the murky framework that governs digital access to games. Sony’s PlayStation Network suffered a major outage in early February that… Read more »
This is the first in a series of articles looking at how professional game reviews shape the industry. As a flurry of February releases hits gaming devices, a new report is set to perhaps rekindle an age-old gaming industry debate. Published this month in the Journal of Business Research, new research has drawn a line between critical… Read more »
A Kiwi startup that wants to make kids love maths as much as playing Roblox has raised NZ$1.5 million (A$1.35m) in pre-Seed funding. The round for Polymath was co-led by Blackbird’s NZ office and fellow Aotearoa VC GD1. The app gamifies maths for kids, underpinned by an algorithm that adapts learning moments to each child’s progress.… Read more »
Humour me with a little thought experiment. Go ask someone, anyone, to name one love story in film, literature and music. They may stumble on one of the three, but I’d wager they wouldn’t do too badly. Now ask them for a love story in a video game. If they don’t game, I’d reckon they’d… Read more »
To this day, my friends and I still aren’t sure what killed our online Smash Night. We usually play in person, but for one reason or another, we decided to play online. It had worked before, why wouldn’t it work again? We started a lobby, shared the code, and then… it froze on the loading… Read more »
We’re just a few weeks into 2025 and its already shaping up to be significantly more eventful than the past year. We’re set to see a brand new console launch, a major games developer aim to steer itself out of hot water, and a console-maker realise its goal to become hub for cloud gaming. It… Read more »
Thanks for reading Infinite Lives this year. This is my last edition for 2024, I’ll be taking a break — using the time to play my new Steam Deck — and be back in late January, 2025. Catch you in the New Year! Finally, a PlayStation 3D platformer that rivals Mario. I even went as… Read more »
There’s a world in which you could consider 2024 unremarkable for the gaming industry. Like most other years, there were mass redundancies, launch delays and stuff-ups — that’s sadly become the norm. There were also breakout successes and major points of hype too. Each major player had their time in the sun. But coming off… Read more »
It was a policy blitz like no other. No less than 31 separate bills were passed by our government on November 28, clearing the way for a federal election in Australia at some point next year. Among them, a controversial but broadly supported bill to ban those under 16 from accessing social media. It’s generated… Read more »
It has fewer users than the Epic Games Store but holds the power to make or break both AAA and indie games. In nine months of writing about the games industry — but over two decades of playing them — never have I heard so much about one platform that I knew so little about.… Read more »
The global video game industry is surprisingly flush with data. There are charts that measure the hype of games on Steam, monthly trackers of most-played games, and financial reports and sales — whenever they leak — from the major gaming companies. It’s not all serious stats either. Last year Larian Studios, the makers of Baldur’s… Read more »
Chris Hansford tempted fate buying a second-hand Steam Deck off Facebook marketplace. He wasn’t scammed, and his model arrived as advertised. It was instead an unfortunate case of terrible timing. Hansford purchased the device a few weeks before the company announced they would start selling the Steam Deck in Australia in late November. Had he known,… Read more »
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