Rich Stanton

Rich Stanton

Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Latest articles by Rich Stanton

xdefiant trailer
XDefiant is now ex-Defiant as the game closes and its executive producer leaves Ubisoft: 'We just didn't have the gas to go the distance'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "We saw a lot of reactions from other games to what we were doing and that to me speaks volumes."

News
Fortnite parodying Apple's 1984 advert.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney takes yet another victory lap after Apple's latest appeal fails: 'The long national nightmare of the Apple tax is ended'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "Tim, you're gonna make Tim Cook retire early."

9 Comments
News
Counter-Strike 2 header image
Valve buys fan favourite Counter-Strike map from creator: 'They reached out to buy it on day 1, a great honor and I don't want anyone to think we hesitated for one moment'

By Rich Stanton Published

News Cache was already in the Workshop, but now looks set for the competitive map pool.

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Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, looks at the camera.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney takes his victory lap as Fortnite returns to the app store after nearly 5 years: 'Thanks to all of the folks who initially sided with Apple then later came around to the winning side'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "A clear win for Epic Games."

11 Comments
News
The G-Man looking at the camera.
Former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw says he 'retired too hard', but there's no way he's coming back for Half-Life 3: 'We need new stuff, [not] me going 'Well the G-Man wouldn't do that in my day'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "Definitely the Half-Life part of my life is way behind me."

20 Comments
News
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 13: Elon Musk attends the 2024 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 13, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
Someone flipped a switch on Elon Musk's Grok AI so it wouldn't stop banging on about 'white genocide' and South African politics, xAI blames 'an unauthorized modification' but doesn't say who did it

By Rich Stanton Published

News "It’s awfully easy for the people who are in charge of these algorithms to manipulate the version of truth that they’re giving."

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LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 17: Hideo Kojima attends the UK premiere of "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" at the BFI IMAX Waterloo on May 17, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Hideo Kojima has an idea for a game where you age and die, 'but no-one would buy it', then immediately suggests one where you eventually forget how to move

By Rich Stanton Published

News I mean, the Memento license is right there.

12 Comments
News
Sam Altman testifying on capital hill.
OpenAI CEO whines to Congress about pesky regulations, once more insists the tech's impact will be 'as big as the internet, maybe bigger'

By Rich Stanton Published

News As far as senators are concerned, it's all about beating China.

News
Protagonists Jason and Lucia in Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rockstar says GTA 6's second trailer is now the biggest video launch of all time, whatever that means

By Rich Stanton Published

News Half a billion views and counting.

News
Philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates speaks to youth participants at the Global Solutions Summit
Bill Gates says Elon Musk's DOGE cutbacks are directly responsible for kids dying: 'The picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one'

By Rich Stanton Published

News Adds that Musk has no idea what these agencies do.

News
The character Neil in Death Stranding 2, who here is posing like Solid Snake.
Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding 2 has so much tactical espionage action that even his own staff 'worried it was getting a little Metal Gear-ish'

By Rich Stanton Published

News Th-thank you Boss!

12 Comments
News
Protagonists Jason and Lucia in Grand Theft Auto 6.
Rockstar just dropped a ton of new GTA 6 details

By Rich Stanton Published

News Jason's a veteran, and everyone is on the make.

News
Chess pieces
Eric Barone's been playing lots of chess and reckons Elon Musk's 'tech tree' idea isn't awful: 'What if someone did a Balatro treatment… a chess roguelike?'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "I'm not like a huge chess guy, it's just always been something that I've wanted to be decent at."

News
starcraft 2 face
Nexon wins the bidding war to make a new StarCraft as well as distribute a Blizzard mobile game that's being called 'Overwatch 3'

By Rich Stanton Published

News I can't be the only one wondering: why?

News
Vault Boy waves through a Vault door
Fallout creator laments the loss of the game's earliest development materials: 'I had that in digital form and was ordered to destroy it'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "The amount of stuff that's been lost about Fallout and its early development saddens me," Tim Cain says.

News
The Google Chrome logo intimidates Ripley
OpenAI exec tells judge hell yeah, we'd happily buy Chrome—and stuff it full of AI!

By Rich Stanton Published

News Ay ay ay!

12 Comments
News
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 13: Elon Musk attends the 2024 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 13, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
OpenAI countersues Elon Musk and the gloves come off: 'These antics are just history on repeat—Elon being all about Elon'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "When he didn’t get his way, he stormed off."

News
Gordon Freeeman and Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2.
Half-Life 2's 2003 beta reveals the mystery behind a City 17 river that once led players to the foot of the Citadel

By Rich Stanton Published

News Valve once had us spending a lot more time exploring the waterways of City 17.

News
Dawn of the Hunt Ascendancies
Path of Exile 2's nerf-happy update has the playerbase revolting, review-bombing their baby, and scorning the developer's promises: 'Like reading a Blizzard post on fixing Diablo 4'

By Rich Stanton Published

"I'd rather just go into work than play this game right now."

Strategy
Shigeru Miyamoto holds up a Game Boy.
Nintendo's fearsome CEO once called Shigeru Miyamoto in to ask if Tetris was any good, who replied 'your secretaries and accountants are all playing at lunchtime and after work, and that's never happened before'

By Rich Stanton Published

News Knew what to look for.

News
LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 17: Hideo Kojima attends the UK premiere of "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" at the BFI IMAX Waterloo on May 17, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding's now had over 20 million players, and the fact folk are still playing 'makes me the happiest'

By Rich Stanton Published

News "Sams from all over the world are still delivering."

News
A moon looks down menacingly in The Duskbloods.
Nintendo got a Bloodborne spiritual sequel before PC even got the first game

By Rich Stanton Published

News Dammit!

News
Starcraft Protoss cover
A whole bunch of Korean studios are trying to convince Blizzard to let them make a new StarCraft game, including MMO specialist NCSoft

By Rich Stanton Published

News You must construct additional videogames.

News
The Valve guy from the Portal 2 intro slowly looks over his shoulder in ominous fashion.
Valve considered making a 'B title' before Half-Life, until an exec told Gabe Newell 'that's just not gonna work… the company will fail'

By Rich Stanton Published

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Half-Life wallpaper - Gordon Freeman
Former Valve exec says the company struggled to sell Half-Life until coming up with the ultimate 'one simple trick' of marketing manoeuvres: slapping a 'Game of the Year' sticker on the box

By Rich Stanton Published

News "Okay, so you've done the game. Now what happens?"

News
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