Stephen Totilo

-deep breath- I’m going independent! After a career of covering video games for MTV News, Kotaku and Axios, I’m launching Game File, a reader-supported site and newsletter for my reporting about video games. gamefile.news

Sega is accepting applications from Roblox creators to make officially licensed Like a Dragon games (must be faithful to the lore!). Part of new Roblox plan for officially licensed games Roblox's goal: 10% of all game content revenue going through Roblox gamefile.news/p/roblox-like-…

NEW: With Zelda, now Donkey Kong... Nintendo is boldly re-shaping some of its key franchises to involve player creativity, and making that creativity the essence of the game It's a Minecraft approach, though Nintendo's been tinkering for some time gamefile.news/p/donkey-kong-…

I wrote about the three times my life intersected with Hulk Hogan's--and the weird ways that strangers can impact each other's lives Covers: - how I co-created his reality show - the time he showed me a Kinect game - and that trial gamefile.news/p/me-and-hulk-…

A stunning figure from the Switch 2's launch: Some 500,000 Switch 2 Pro Controllers sold in the U.S. in June. Nearly 1 in 3 Switch 2 owners got one. They sold for $85, after a post-tariff-announcement hike from the original $80 announced price gamefile.news/p/even-85-swit…

I wrote about Kaizen: A Factory Story, a new puzzle game I'm really enjoying. This is the former Zachtronics team, who decided to have mercy and make an easier (but still captivating) game about assembling things gamefile.news/p/kaizen-a-fac…

NEW: A jam-packed Game File with lots of new Ubisoft reporting - How their CEO reacted to a face-to-face grilling about "woke" content and "Stop Killing Games" - Surprise mention of a new Ghost Recon - Number of young workers at Ubisoft plummets More: gamefile.news/p/ubisoft-ceo-…

Quite a claim in the Subnautica founders' lawsuit against Krafton: They say Krafton's CEO fretted during a lunch about the financial impact of Subnautica 2's launch (and studio earn-out). They also say Krafton later said, no, his translator messed up gamefile.news/p/subnautica-l…

NEW: Wrote about a wrinkle to the developer vs publisher Subnautica 2 dispute Charlie Cleveland, the Unknown Worlds founder who Krafton alleges worked on movies to the detriment of the game, has long been transparent about his and his studio's workloads gamefile.news/p/the-intensif…

NEW: The CEO of Supercell (Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, Mo.Co) wants game companies to take more risks to find more hit games. Trying to just replicate existing successes, he says, is "gonna be a kiss of death in in our industry.” gamefile.news/p/supercell-il…

NEW TALL CHART comparing compensation for Microsoft's CEO and its average worker The social version here shows the short version To show fluctuations in both lines, I needed to make a chart that was 20,000 pixels tall. Click to see (and scroll) gamefile.news/p/microsoft-ce…

Nintendo's president, acknowledging rising development costs and longer dev cycles, says Nintendo can make some games faster and is exploring options Could always be executive puffery. But sounds like Nintendo has ideas, and that this is for *some* games gamefile.news/p/nintendo-dev…

Ubisoft's former chief creative officer Serge Hascoet, former VP of editorial Tommy Francois, former director Guillaume Patrux convicted, fined, given suspended sentence (no jail time) over harassment TF also convicted on charge of attempted sexual assault uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/french-co…