Total Playtime

This week's episode is dedicated to a single bit of particularly crushing news: the demise of Bioware as part of EA's cost-cutting/the ongoing contraction of AAA game development. Nate's graphics card also died so he was unable to join us, but Alice, Brendy and myself gathered to say a few words about the departed, and quite a lot more about Alice's new drinking habit. 

Plus: the art of finding suitably deranged people to write opinion columns, the complexity of squash, and what to do with 500 surplus missing-cat posters. 

This website and its paying subscribers enables this podcast to exist and we thank them for it, along with Marsh Davies for our artwork, God Ribbon for our music and Alix Attenborough for our editing. You can share your memories and/or hating tips at [email protected], and rate us five stars (no other scores permitted) wherever you get your podcasts, it will help others find the show and by extension this website. 

Links!
The EA buyout was heavily leveraged. Some people took out an ad in Times Square to support their petition. The woman giving $50,000 in a shoebox to a fake FBI agent is just one highlight of The Cut; you may also consider being humiliated by Prada. Please consider The Jankword. 

Games!
Titles from ex-Bioware devs include Exodus, Eternal Strands, Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical and Mythforce. Set The Record Straight. Pool of Madness. Mosaic of the Strange (or 2025 Mosaic Retrospective if you want to feel sad). corru.observer.

Recommendations!
Jennifer Tolstoy's Pets of Desire, You be the judge: should my husband stop letting our cat drink on the kitchen counter? and Holy. 

It’s another bijou two-hander this week, as Alice and I meet to pick over the remains of another week in PC gaming and get the latest updates on her dog and her neighbours, both of whom are making annoying noises. 

Annoying noises in gaming, meanwhile, come from the resurfacing of the GTA leaks guy (let’s face it, it’s almost certainly a guy) and the newfound union of Warner Bros and Paramount into a new games/movies behemoth. The latter now includes Bobby Kotick, about whom we have nothing bad to say. There’s also a bit of AI chat and some game recommendations, which tops up our quota just enough to merit another run of highly self-indulgent subscriber episodes plucked from the cauldron of Nate’s brain. 

If you’d like to experience those subscriber episodes (along with Discord access to both the hosts and your fellow listeners) you can do so right now by subscribing to Jank. Doing so will turn this from a fortnightly podcast to a weekly one, and instantly unlock over a year of previous episodes. The podcast only exists thanks to our subscribers and we thank every one of them. Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies (who also writes a great review) and our editing is by Alix Attenborough; you can send us feedback at [email protected] or leave a comment below. 

Links!
The GTAVI leaker RETVRNED and seems to think there is more juice to squeeze. Bobby Kotick is also back, and we won’t hear a word said against him. Skydance unites Warner Bros and Paramount Games Studio, and the latter were at least quite keen on games.  Capcom announced plans to change their RE Engine into an "AI generation engine" but nobody who speaks English is entirely sure what they mean. The happiest man in gaming hates generative AI. Pony Island 2 is the latest Mullinslike and you can sign up to the playtest. The horse game lady is Alice Ruppert. Evil Trout accidentally specialised in bringing Itch games on Steam. 

Games!
Pony Island 2, The Archives of Trevosa

Recommendations!
Jack Tucker: Comedy Standup Hour and Vertical Slice.

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here.   

Alice and Nate are away this week, possibly because we're talking about layoffs again, chiefly those at Microsoft again. Still, this does spare us from having to tell Nate live on air that an unrevealed Age of Empires game has been cancelled. 

Otherwise it's a bit of a bad-news rundown through the extended Xbox universe and into Bungie's recent decision that it's going to spend time on Destiny 2 after all, before Brendy brightens things up with some chat about the cheerily implausible fighter-plane-based fiction of Ace Combat 8. There are also some important tips about carrying car batteries, thus cementing our position as providers of service journalism. 

You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice. 

Our art is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies, our editing is by Alix Attenborough and the entire podcast is thanks to the paying supporters of Jank. Share your insights on impairment-based financial charges at [email protected], in the comments below, or in the rarified environment of the Jank Discord.

Links!
Turns out that estate agents are held in higher regard than journalists although we've still got the edge on "politicians generally" and "social media influencers". Xbox did layoffs again. Don't call it a reset. Ninja Theory is marked for closure.  Microsoft bought Activision for $69 billion. The reshuffle suggests a reverse acquisition. Bungie is de-vaulting Destiny and re-vamping Marathon. 

Games!
Forza Horizon 6. Clockwork Revolution. Gears of War E-Day. Fable (2027). Destiny 2. Marathon. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Permaban.

Recommendations!
The Hundred Brothers and Resident Evil (2026).

Alice is away this week, so three grown men get to sit around and puzzle over a particularly baffling week of news items and become steadily less certain that we were describing reality. There were some positives: Nate got to let a year’s worth of Hearthstone annoyance off his chest, Brendy got to drop an unexpected Halo deep cut, and I got to talk about a nice cat that I met. All solid therapeutic behaviours. 

Plus: subscribing to Accomplished Shootsman Magazine, earning money for being meat in the room, and surviving the horrors of modern capitalism. You can listen right here on this page, or find us in many of the places you get your podcasts. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is by Alix Attenborough. The podcast only exists thanks to those who subscribe to Jank (and previously funded us on Patreon) who are additionally rewarded with an extra episode every other week dedicated to things like our videogame book club and the developing trials of Games Satan. Subscribe today and get us closer to being able to afford Brendy full-time.

Links! 

Blizzard announced a bunch of stuff at Blizzon including a Starcraft FPS that is not a service game, World of Warcraft Forever and new levels of Hearthstone depravity. PhysInt is coming to Xbox because Sony dropped it for being too expensive. Here’s how to unlock the Skyrim companion which is an IKEA bookcase voiced by Matt Berry, which was made by Kinggath Creations. IKEA already made some Xbox furniture. The Breaking Benjamin guitarist will complain about his Fallout 4 mod on stage until the user rating improves. Here’s the battle they soundtracked in Halo 2.  Post Malone played his $2m Magic: The Gathering card. We played Wardogs without spending any money. Brendy has previously written about Foxhole. 

Games!

Wardogs does not contain any actual dogs, sorry. Starcraft Ghost never came out. World of Warcraft. Hearthstone. Operation Flashpoint. Battlefield. Foxhole. 

Recommendations! 

The Nice Guys, 1670 on Netflix, and The Employees. 

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here.  

For the first time in a while all four of us could make this recording, and it's a free-to-all news episode to boot. This meant we had to address the twin issues of Gamescom and an abundance of GTA 6 footage, both from vegetable-themed hackers and latterly Rockstar themselves via an extended preview on Netflix. The former is a much more interesting discussion point, although not particularly impressive unless it later transpires it was the previous GTA hacker doing it with even less technology this time. 

I am also able to share some limited insights from Gamescom, although not all that much because I only saw three games and one of them I can't write about. Please support Jank so that we have enough money to send Brendy next year and have him report on all the very weirdest games on the different international stages. 

Plus: Nate's utterly inevitable Bane-reciting-Shakespeare impersonation, the tedium of hat management, giving an octopus in a mech suit a New Jersey accent and fleeting discussion of some games we played, like we're a videogame podcast or something.

Our art is by Marsh Davies, our music is by God Ribbon, our editing is by Alix Attenborough and our existence is thanks to paying subscribers of Jank: thanks for making the podcast happen.

Links!
The new GTA looks like GTA. The Cyberleek manifesto is pretty cringe. Google's Project Genie made share prices go down because the market doesn't know anything. The hacker cashed out $200,000 which barely seems worth the effort of being indefinitely detained. Here's everything from Gamescom Opening Night Live. Brendy reviewed Vholume. 

Games!
Exodus, Vholume, Star Wars: Zero Company, Desktop Explorer, Fable (2027).

Recommendations!
Robot Dreams by Sara Varon, Murderbot on Apple TV, Czarface meets Frankie Pulitzer (specifically track 6) and using bleach-soaked paper towel to remove black mould spots.

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here.   

Alice and Nate were both unavailable this week, prompting Brendy and I to realise the crushing shortage of local whimsy in our lives. Our daily existence is simply devoid of rural oddities or freestyle whimsy that lends itself to a banging cold open, so we ended up with several minutes of middle-aged car chat which Brendy heroically drags back to a gaming reference. 

Those matters aside we turn to the matters of the week, chiefly Saber’s CEO lashing out at a departed writer who handled it by having a great night out that ended in karaoke, which is the sort of karmic vengeance we should all aspire to. Plus: good philanthropy yet with concerns about whether philanthropy can actually be good, the ongoing destructive instincts of large corporations, and big walks with medium guns. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is once again by Alix Attenborough. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send your favourite CEO faceplants and vintage shooter recommendations to [email protected], or simply comment on this article. 

Links!

Stella Sacco said she'd been kicked from Rideshare Stimulator and replaced with genAI, something which is now reflected on the Steam page. Matthew Karch responded poorly and subsequently apologised; Stella went to karaoke. The battle continues on LinkedIn which is OK because you shouldn’t go there anyway. Thimbleweed Park 2 is being funded by this one rich guy who liked the first one. Oxenfree developer Night School is closing five years after they were bought by Netflix. It would appear that Amazon is buying rare books in order to destroy them, part of a wider trend of AI firms destroying books. 

Games!

Rideshare “Stimulator”, Hell Let Loose, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Verdun, Day of Infamy, Big Walk.

Recommendations!

Steve Rosenberg’s Reading Russia, and Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism. 

It’s a free-to-all episode this week, so Alice, Nate and myself turned ourselves to the major issues of the day: Xboxes are really expensive, how a Skyrim username error can get you wrongly imprisoned for soliciting minors, a new Thimbleweed Park and a very detailed explanation of how good the Space Marine x Helldivers 2 partnership is. 

Join us for a detailed overview of the Astra Militarum, a half-remembered summary of the Xbox P&L and a fleeting cameo from Alice’s dog. Plus: children who chew on cigars from birth, engaging worm protocol, and clown husbandry. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and this week our editing is by Dave of the Sonic The Comic podcast who did a banger job even with limited guidance. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist; if you sign up for Jank then you get an extra podcast every fortnight which will soon include Season 2 of Text Adventure. You can send comments and suggestions of Space Marine deep lore to [email protected], or simply comment on this article.

Links!

Xboxes are now incredibly expensive in the UK and EU. Xbox had a big revenue drop but Microsoft did just fine. Brendy says don’t call it a reset. Double Fine had to lay people off. Rebekah at Kotaku summarised how hard it would be to reach a billion people a day. The Space Marine Legendary Warbond is out next week. Ron Gilbert announced Thimbleweed Park 2 and it is neither sequel nor prequel but Alice is excited regardless. An innocent man spent 18 months in prison because the police got his Skyrim name wrong. Clown husbandry. RIP Tusko. 

Games!

Thimbleweed Park 2. Helldivers 2. Age of Empires 2: The Three Kingdoms. The Mermaid Mask. Wax Heads.Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?!

Recommendations!

Strange Aeons reads Clown Husbandry. The Mean Time perform Your Monster: The Beast Inside.Josienne Clark’s Errors Tour.  

This week it’s a free episode available to all, in which our four hosts gather to judge the news of the week - chiefly, Bethesda’s smoke-bomb declaration of Fallout 5 in an effort to distract from laying off a number of people who would have made it; Sony’s abandonment of discs as a storage medium and EA’s correct prediction of the World Cup final. If that all sounds a little dull, don’t worry, Nate naturally and effortlessly channeled it into pornographic takes of classic Gothic novels. Plus: the four male hobbies, a Henry Cavill origin story and headphones made out of eldritch meat. 

Our art (now feat. Brendy) is by Marsh Davies, our music is by God Ribbon and our editing is by Alix Attenborough. The podcast only exists thanks to those who subscribe to Jank (and previously backed it on Patreon, which will endure for one more month). 

Links! 

The Trojan Horse worked until it didn’t. Bethesda announced that it is making Fallout 5 which wasn’t fooling anyone. Obsidian missed their New Vegas bonus due to a single Metacritic point. Alice reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl and people got cross about it, so now she has to review the next two books as well. Sony is giving up on physical discs, which is bad news because they have a history of delisting digital purchases. Microsoft has a plan for converting Discs2Digital. 

EA correctly predicted the World Cup again. Nate did not imagine the psychic pig; he was called Mystic Marcus but has not been seen since 2022 and so must be considered missing, presumed bacon. Messi was vanquished by the baby he once bathed. Peter Serafinowicz is really excited about being in the Elden Ring movie. Remember to switch off your poison sockets. Alice subjected innocent people to Brian Butterfield’s Christmas Pizza. Look Around You. Here’s the Jank review of The Incident At Galley House.

Games!

The Incident At Galley House is a glow up of Type Help and here’s how that happened. The Mermaid Mask. Hypogea.  

Recommendations!

Chinatown, Widow’s Bay, Beef, DW Documentaries.

Total Playtime is now the official Jank podcast, and is produced through the munificence of our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here. 

This week we started recording mere hours after Xbox started firing people, so we didn’t have the full despair reserves to draw on but we managed to discuss it anyway. We also mourned the loss of the corporeal, as represented by Sony’s announcement they’re ceasing disc production, and celebrated the spiritual, as represented by Alice’s potentially magical waspman. 

There’s also an exclusive tease of an upcoming Jank article, and it’s right at the start so you don’t even have to keep listening – although of course you should because there’s so much to learn here about Nate discovering horny Marvel artwork. Plus: getting vouched for by a non-naughty priest, drinking a pint of wasps, piracy for the greater good, wholesome role models for 40-year-old men having feelings, and giggle-based social deduction. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our editing is by Alix Attenborough, and our art is by Marsh Davies - and now freshly updated to add a tiny image of Brendy to your pod-listening device. Thanks to our backers on Patreon and Jank for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send feedback and your own preferred social insect suggestions to [email protected], or simply comment on this article. 

Links!

The 'Physical' edition of GTAVI costs £70 and won't have a disc. Bees are worshipped in Manchester. Schism! Schism! Schism!  Hit Points on GTA 6. Nick Harkway’s Angelmaker.  Sony are discontinuing dics. Unfortunately Sony also want you to know that you don't own digital things. Xbox has the chance to do the funniest thing ever, if they weren't still busy deciding who to fire. What fate our games? Arkane has the benefit of formidablé employment legislation so their future is uncertain. You can’t fire Ted Gill because he quit, and the Subnautica devs are all getting a bonus because the Krafton CEO took legal advice from ChatGPT. When Captain America swings his mighty dick. Brendy reviewed Wall-E (2008). Crate and Crowbar discussed 007 First Light. Here is Nirvana The Band The Show singing game titles to the Wii shop music.

Games!

Hot Wheels Unlimited. 007 First Light. Wall-E. Meccha Chameleon. Prop Hunt. 

Recommendations!

Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie. The Devils. Get a Raspberry Pi. The Drain Unblockers.