gamingTuesday, June 30, 2026
A new study quantifies what many players already suspected: games using generative AI are getting hammered in reviews. Meanwhile, the Steam Machine saga takes another hit as Dbrand's Companion Cube case gets canceled, and a clever piece of code art is winning awards.
The first hard data on how generative AI is affecting game reception lands with a thud.
Game Oracle's study of 16,554 Steam games from 2025 found that 21% use generative AI, and those games average 53% poorer first-month review scores. The data backs up the anecdotal backlash.
The Steam Machine concept keeps stumbling, this time over a Portal-shaped case that never got Valve's blessing.
Dbrand announced a Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine without Valve's approval, and Valve refused to license the Portal IP. The case is canceled, and the whole episode underscores how little third-party momentum the Steam Machine has.
Fighting game rosters expand, an obfuscated Pong wins a coding contest, and Nintendo keeps adding Mario Kart tracks to its music app.
Trinity Glassfille, a lore-heavy character from BlazBlue's story, is finally coming to Centralfiction as a playable fighter. Arc System Works continues to support the game years after its original release.
A winning entry at the IOCCC obfuscated C code contest is a version of Pong that recompiles its own source code every frame, embedding the game state so each run produces the next frame's code. It's a technical curiosity, not a playable game, but a neat piece of programming art.
Nintendo added Free Roam tracks from Mario Kart DS and Wii to its Nintendo Music app, part of a weekly rollout tied to Mario Kart World. The DS playlist gets 12 tracks, the Wii gets 13.
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