Total Playtime is a weekly podcast about PC games, formerly funded by Patreon and now part of Jank. This is a free episode, but premium episodes are published every two weeks and are only available to paying subscribers. You can join them over here.

The prodigal dad returns! Yes, Brendy finally got enough sleep to return to podcasting with his newly minted As A Father Of A Daughter viewpoint, meaning that we are now tied in a dead heat between parents and what I’ll generously call “free spirits”.

There was too much news this week, to the point where we even snuck in some commentary about Kier Starmer. It’s only brief, though, as we move on to considering the social media ban and the associated elevated risk of teens becoming cool hackers, the head of AI who thinks generative AI is bullshit, and what was at the time the latest bad news for Xbox although characteristically they’ve pulled some more out since.

Plus: the Steam Machine, Nate’s narc child, and please don’t touch my grass. Please ask your doctor if having a baby is right for you. Thanks to all the Patreon and Jank backers who made this happen, the podcast would not exist without you. Thanks also to Alix Attenborough for the editing, Marsh Davies for the art and God Ribbon for the music. Submit parenting advice of any quality to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com or in the comments below.

Links!

The UK is banning social media for under 16s and the gaming impact is somewhat unclear. Poncle are 'reviewing' their collab with Epic. The former head of Take Two's AI division says it's 'poisoning the well', and a bunch of game devs hate it. Ed Zitron has many thousands of words about why OpenAI is full of shit. Tommy Thonson covers the good AI in games. A superficial level look suggests an AI disclosure on your game means 60% fewer reviews. What happened at State of Unreal. Here’s GI.biz on rising genAI costs and what uses it actually has in game dev. The Steam Machine is pretty pricey but it’s okay, you can’t buy one anyway. Here’s James’ review. Valve probably wanted it to be $750 which it turns out is like £570. Claude Guillemot and Bobby Prince recently died. The Microsoft gaming closure rumours will continue until morale improves. Big John Valorant Pub Pop Up

Games!

Iron Nest and Beware of the Cartographer!

Recommendations!

Gelatelli Mini Sticks Double, The Pitt, The Bells of Westminster, For Whom The Spell Tolls, and Mr Beast’s Beef Lumps.