Our project to preserve the history of Sega Channel — including over 100 new Sega Channel ROMs.

By Phil Salvador

December 15, 2025

Sega broke ground in the late 90s with one of the first digital game distribution systems for consoles. Sega Channel offered access to a rotating library of Sega Genesis titles, along with game tips, demos, and even a few exclusive games that never came out in the United States in any other format. In an era of dial-up internet, Sega Channel delivered game data over television cable — a novel approach that gave the service its name.

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https://gamehistory.org/segachannel/

Under Vincke, Larian has been pushing hard on generative AI, although the CEO says the technology hasn't led to big gains in efficiency. He says there won't be any AI-generated content in Divinity — "everything is human actors; we're writing everything ourselves" — but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text.

The use of generative AI has led to some pushback at Larian, "but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we're using it," Vincke said.

Last year, I suggested that Xbox could have a big year ahead in 2025, but that it would once again come at a cost, including layoffs, price increases, and other nasty bits of news. And that is more or less what happened this year. We got a lot of games, but that was about the only good news for Xbox in 2025.

That steady drip of big new games that were mostly good, sometimes even great, wasn’t enough to overcome a year in which Xbox expanded desperately in many directions while squeezing wallets tighter and tighter in an effort to be everywhere and increase profits substantially to satisfy Microsoft leadership. All the while, it was dealing with an ongoing and growing consumer boycott due to the tech giant’s continued involvement in Israel’s horrible war crimes against Palestine.

It's basically like a fantasy football draft but for games, thought it looked interesting!

I watched (in a second screen sort of way as I tended to some work) the Game Awards last night. I’m not interested in talking about what the ceremony means—it’s an obviously vapid affair—but the powerful sweeping of awards by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was interesting to see. it also left me feeling a bit… odd.

Before I say anything, I wanna say that I’m happy for that team and think they made a very cool game. very little if anything I am writing here is a judgement on the game itself or the quality of the experience therein. It’s good! if you play it, I think you’ll have fun.

But while I’m often interesting in talking about games, I’m also interested in how we talk about games. This is what made Horses fascinating to me and it’s draw me out to write again. Because as the night went on and Geoff Keighley talked about the power of indie games like Expedition 33, I couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable. Something felt off, y'know?

In watching Expedition 33 get subsumed into Keighley’s mainstream machine and the narrative picture he wanted to paint about 2025, I couldn’t help but frown. 2025 might be the year where indie games and alternative sub-genres outshine a flagging AAA space but I think we need to be honest about what drew Keighley to Expedition 33 and drove him to drag that game first and foremost into the narrative he was trying to build. Because when Geoff Keighley mentioned “indie games” what he really means to say is “indie games of a certain scale and aesthetic.” This is what many people mean!

So I want to talk about RPGs and I want to maybe talk about budgets and I want to talk about respectability. Because for as impressive a story I think Expedition 33, it hardly a mistake that the indie RPG that supposedly redeems the genre is one which, national identity or not, chases so hard after AAA games and Hollywood…

Hi all! It's been a while since I posted here. I have a bad habit of buying a lot of games in bundles on Humble and Fanatical, and have gathered quite a large amount of game keys that way.

More than I can reasonably play in my life. Especially since I am also still interested in new games coming out ;).

So I had the idea to give something back to this awesome community. A free steam key for everyone (*) who genuinely desires one. Just mention what types of games you like to play and I will try to find one that fits. These are all relatively cheap games, so don't expect any AAA blockbusters. Please don't just ask for a game to then resell it, I will not say what game it is so you will have to redeem it to know your gift ;).

(*) I will stop eventually, so we'll see how long this statement stands ;).

🎁🎁🎁

I love sidescrolling beat'em ups like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. I feel that very often new games in the genre are hard to discover, unless they have a big license like Marvel attached to them. Do you know of any good new games in the genre that came out this year? Indietitles and hidden gems are always appreciated.

Set to release February 27, 2026

What are y'all playing?

I beat Ghost Trick Phantom Detective. I think it's up there as one of my all time favorite games. Really a wonderful time all the way through. Next I'm not sure but probably back to BG3 grinding

Postal: Bullet Paradise developers Goonswarm have fiercely denied the accusations that they used generative AI to create elements of the game... and announced that they are closing down.

In a post on Xitter, sent to RPS after we requested comment on the story below, the developers write that "our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation". They say they’ve received a lot of insults and threats as a consequence.

"We’re truly sorry for the artists who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusation," the statement continues. "It’s tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident. We’ve decided to shut down the studio and end all future activities."

The statement doesn't mention the obvious financial impact of having a publisher cancel your videogame project. I'll ask for more clarification.

Horses, a first-person narrative horror game, was banned from the Epic Games Store just hours before it was set to launch on December 2nd. Then, a day after launch, the Humble store (temporarily) banned it as well. The decision shocked the developers at Santa Ragione, makers of the critically respected Saturnalia, as these storefronts were the homes they’d found for their game two years before it was preemptively banned from Steam.

Valve and Epic say Horses violates their sexual content policies. Humble hasn’t yet said why it banned the game.