Games
Worlds with rules worth arguing about.
We cover the systems underneath games — markets, incentives, and the design decisions players feel before they can name them. One game at a time, in public, every Monday.
How We Read a Game
Systems, not patch notes
A patch note tells you what changed. We work out what it costs, who absorbs it, and which behaviour it quietly makes irrational.
Economies read as arguments
Every price in a virtual economy is a claim about scarcity. When the claim stops holding, something in the design has moved. That is the story.
A recommendation at the end
We write for people who have to decide something — what to craft, where to fight, when to sell. A piece that ends in a list of options has not finished.
In Coverage
One live · two lines open
01
Albion Online
In coverageA full-loot sandbox where every item in the game was made by a player. That single rule pulls the whole economy into view, which makes it the clearest place to start.
Weekly Market Report · Decision Guides
Read the coverage02
Second title
ScoutingWe are reading two candidates with player-driven markets and enough public data to check our work. The shortlist goes public before the first piece does.
Selection notes in the Journal
Follow the selection03
Third title
OpenUnassigned on purpose. Two games covered properly are worth more than five covered thinly, and we would rather leave the line blank than fill it early.
—
Get told when it movesWhat Gets a Line
Not every game rewards this kind of reading. Before we commit a line to a title, it has to clear four tests — and most do not.
- 01A market players actually set, not a vendor price list.
- 02Decisions with a real cost — something is lost when you choose wrong.
- 03Public data we can check, so a claim can be proved wrong.
- 04A playerbase large enough that the systems get stress-tested.
On Building Our Own
A title of our own is on the map, and it is not being built this year. Covering a live economy well takes the whole week, and a game built in the hours left over would be worth neither the time nor your attention.
When that changes, the design notes go public before a single line of it ships — the same way everything else here works.
Shelved, not abandoned. The line stays drawn.
The Monday Line
New coverage every Monday, 06:00 UTC.
One email a week: what shipped, what moved in the markets we watch, and what we got wrong.
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