🍪 Game Over Screens We Didn’t Want to See Today

Hello there industry veterans, studio survivors, and people who’ve been here long enough to feel when a day hits differently.

Today feels heavy. Like one of those editions that reads less like a news roundup and more like an obituary. And maybe it’s just me, but it really feels like since December we’ve been losing a lot of industry veterans. Founders, builders, people who shaped entire eras and then quietly stepped out of frame. Not always the loudest names, but absolutely the ones who made everything else possible.

So today isn’t about hype or announcements. It’s about pausing for a second and acknowledging what’s being lost, and what kind of industry we’re still trying to hold together.

Albert Penello Has Died at 53

Albert Penello, a longtime Xbox and Electronic Arts (EA) veteran, has passed away at the age of 53. His career spanned some of the most formative years of modern console gaming, working across platform strategy, partnerships, and publishing during a period when the industry was still defining its shape.

He wasn’t a headline chaser. He was infrastructure.

🦊 Kiki: This one hit me harder than I expected. People like Penello are the reason the industry functions day to day, even if most players never know their names. Strategy roles, platform roles, partnership people, they spend their careers making other people’s work possible. Fifty-three is way too young, and moments like this remind you how fragile all of this really is behind the scenes.

🍪 Chip puts the controller down and just sits there for a moment.

Sega Co-Founder David Rosen Has Died

David Rosen, co-founder of SEGA and one of the founding figures of the arcade era, has also passed away. His influence reaches far beyond any single company. Arcades helped define gaming as a social and competitive experience long before online play existed.

That legacy still echoes through modern games.

🦊 Kiki: Arcades were loud, messy, competitive, and communal in a way we barely recreate anymore. Rosen helped shape a version of gaming that wasn’t optimized or monetized yet. You showed up, put a coin down, and played. Every time the industry talks about rebuilding community, it’s chasing something people like him already understood decades ago.

🍪 Chip watches an old arcade screen flicker softly.

Final Fantasy IX Character Designer Toshiyuki Itahana Leaves Square Enix

Toshiyuki Itahana, the character designer behind Final Fantasy IX, has left Square Enix. FFIX remains one of the most emotionally resonant entries in the franchise, remembered for its warmth, charm, and sincerity.

His departure feels quiet, but meaningful.

🦊 Kiki: FFIX still feels weirdly untouched by time, and that doesn’t happen by accident. The characters had heart without cynicism and emotion without trying to be edgy. When someone like Itahana leaves, it’s not just a job change. You lose a creative sensibility, and those are almost impossible to replace with tools or process.

🍪 Chip flips through a sketchbook and stops turning pages.

Former ZeniMax Online Director Leaves After Project Blackbird Cancellation

A former ZeniMax Online Studios director has left following the cancellation of Project Blackbird. Like many exits tied to canceled projects, it happened quietly, without spectacle or closure for the teams involved.

Another reminder of how often work simply disappears.

🦊 Kiki: Project cancellations have become so normal that we barely stop to think about the human cost anymore. Years of work and belief just gone, and the industry shrugs and moves on to the next roadmap. We talk a lot about resilience, but not enough about how exhausting this cycle actually is for the people living through it.

🍪 Chip watches a folder labeled “Cancelled” fade into the background.

Hollow Knight Silksong Wins Steam’s Game of the Year 2025

Team Cherry Hollow Knight Silksong has won Valve corporation Steam’s Game of the Year for 2025. A massive community-driven win for a game that has been anticipated, delayed, debated, and still deeply loved.

Context matters here.

🦊 Kiki: I love Silksong, full stop. I played it, I enjoyed it, and I get why people rallied behind it. But after playing both games, there’s no universe where I think it’s better than Expedition 33. E33 took bigger risks and did more interesting things across the board. What pushed this vote wasn’t craft, it was timing. After the AI scandals and all the trust issues this year, the community wanted to reward something that felt undeniably human. Silksong became the emotional safe pick. That doesn’t make it undeserved, but if this vote happened before that mess, I’m convinced E33 would’ve taken it.

🍪 Chip holds up a sign that reads “angry vote”.

Trusting Instincts in a Year Obsessed With Pleasing Everyone

Talking about E33…

Clair Obscur Expedition 33’s team at Sandfall Interactive has said they want to trust their instincts for what comes next instead of letting fan pressure steer the project. In the current climate, that mindset feels increasingly rare.

🦊 Kiki: Expedition 33 feels like a game that exists because someone ignored a checklist. It commits to tone, pacing, and weirdness in a way that feels intentional. If they start sanding down those edges to keep everyone happy, they lose the thing that made people care in the first place. Trusting instincts is risky, but designing by crowd consensus is how games quietly lose their soul.

🍪 Chip steps back from a crowd of shouting silhouettes and gives a thumbs up.

Ubisoft Halifax Employees Form a Union

Ubisoft Halifax employees have officially formed a union. Another sign of a broader shift across the industry, especially inside large publishers where instability has become routine.

🦊 Kiki: When you talk to people inside big studios right now, the word that keeps coming up is stability. Not power, not statements, just some sense that the ground won’t disappear under them every six months. Unionization keeps popping up because the current setup hasn’t been protecting anyone for a long time. And the more companies act like everything is fine, the more this becomes the only option people feel they have.

🍪 Chip plants a small flag labeled “basic protections.”

• Stay grounded like the people who built this industry from nothing

• Keep listening like communities voting with emotion and intent

• And remember industries don’t collapse overnight, they erode when no one’s paying attention

🦊 Kiki · 🍪 Chip · ⭐ Byte · 🦁 Leo