GYGO Cosy: EA Makes Bank… and Staff Redundancies

Hi pals, Zainabb here, doing my best to be cosy in a world filled with horrors. I don’t just mean the type of cosy where you light a candle, bundle up with sixty blankets and plushies, and play a game where you have the time and capacity to grow food and craft things. This sort of escapism is important sometimes, but I’m also finding cosiness in befriending our local crows and squirrels, in attempting to grow flowers (my chaotic squirrel friends keep digging up the seedlings), and in spending time with loved ones watching films like Sinners with casts of colour resisting white supremacy. Keep on resisting, feeling joy, and connecting—and playing your favourite games when you need to rest in between.

The Crips for eSims for Gaza Bundle is now live on itch.io! You can get over 200 games, zines, and more for $16 with all proceeds going directly to Crips for eSims for Gaza.

And as always, resources for a free Palestine include The Palestine Academy, the Palestinian Feminist Collective’s amazing action toolkit and my own newsletter, Crips for Palestine. If you’re able, please donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians or Crips for eSims for Gaza.

EA Releases Even More The Sims 4 DLC While Mandating Office Attendance for Workers

We’re not even halfway through the year and the number of The Sims 4 packs just keeps increasing. This month, we’ve seen the release of three new DLC packs: the Kitchen Clutter Kit; the Restoration Workshop Kit, which focuses on the handiness skill; and the Golden Years Kit, which offers new Create-A-Sim items for elder Sims. Each pack is available for PC and Mac, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One.

While I’m absolutely here for kitchen clutter and, finally, a whole CAS kit for elders, at £4.99 a pack—and ten Kits and one £34.99 expansion pack released so far this year—The Sims 4 publisher EA must be making a whole lot of money from this insane release schedule. But that’s great news because it means EA can better afford to look after its workers! Right? …Right?

Unfortunately we live under capitalism, and EA now requires workers living within 30 miles of one of its offices to attend the office for at least three days a week, with remote working being phased out completely within the next two years. According to IGN, many EA employees have reported feeling “upset and confused” about the changes, especially those with caregiving responsibilities or health conditions. Workers living over 30 miles away from an EA office are concerned about the long-term implications for their roles. The changes also come shortly after EA laid off 300 employees, including customer support and marketing team members.

In other news…

Square Enix has released new screenshots of Kingdom Hearts 4, shortly after it announced the cancellation of mobile game Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, which would have made use of GPS-based gameplay similar to Pokémon Go. Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced back in 2022 but still has no planned release date.

In distinctly un-cosy news, Nintendo has updated its policies to make clear that “unauthorised use” of Nintendo products may result in the company “render[ing] the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.” This comes after Nintendo shut down popular Switch emulator Yuzu last year.

To celebrate its third anniversary, Citizen Sleeper developer Jump Over the Age has released a free solo TTRPG called Citizen Sleeper: Spindlejack. The game puts you in the shoes of a Spindlejack (basically a courier in the game’s world) tasked with making deliveries, building your reputation, and upgrading your bike. You can download the game from itch.io here.

Rusty Lake, the developer behind the weird point-and-click puzzle series of the same name, has its ten year anniversary this year, and it’s also released free stuff to celebrate! It dropped a short game called The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show which seems to drop some clues about the next title in the Rusty Lake universe, titled Servant of the Lake. The Mr. Rabbit Magic Show is available for iOS, Android, and PC via Steam or itch.io.

The developer of tactical RPG Tenderfoot Tactics, Badru, has pulled the game from Xbox in support of the BDS National Committee’s call to boycott Microsoft, a company that provides services and technology to the Israeli military, and which recently fired two employees for protesting these ties. Badru stated its support of the boycott on social media, adding that it “call[s] on others in our community to do whatever they can to fight this historic injustice.”

Zainabb Hull is an editor at Sidequest, a writer and organiser, and sort-of artist. They’re also a trans, queer, and disabled brown femme who runs Crips for Palestine, a newsletter sharing digital actions that disabled folks and allies can take in solidarity with Palestinian people.