Jon Hicks - Jank (Page 3)

02 Feb 2026 By Jon Hicks

Jank Mail: launches, losses and Morrowind

Last week in PC gaming

Welcome to Jank Mail, our weekly newsletter, summarising the last week in PC gaming and our own contributions to it. Henceforth it will arrive on Saturday, but I was running late this weekend. The thing about being called Jank is that any such haphazardness can be attributed to brand marketing, so it’s on purpose actually.

The most significant event in PC gaming last week was, of course, the launch of Jank: a new reader-funded website about PC games which strives to publish things that other outlets are too commercially sensible not to. Graham wrote our introductory manifesto, and Brendy explained and then embodied it by making three game developers climb a mountain, asking some others about working at Telltale, and explaining why AI can’t do game criticism.

We all nominated our best games of the decade so far, and debuted our regular guides to what you should play and read this weekend. We recommended Sektori and reviewed Sword of the Sea and Big Hops, and debuted our partnership with the Total Playtime podcast by making Graham read the Death Stranding novelisation, which captured the most wearing parts of the game and none of the highlights but

01 Feb 2026 By Jon Hicks Feature

The Reviewer's Guide To Game Reviewers

The Reviewer’s Reviewers may only be judged by God (if unavailable, Digital Foundry)

This week Larian boss Swen Vincke, a man never short of an opinion, donned the cursed sash of Twitter Main Character with the suggestion that games critics should be subject to their own Metactritic-style judgement, just to see how they like it.

“It’s easy to destroy things, it’s a lot harder to build them," he wrote on X, a platform I’m not going to link to because I don’t want to expose you to all the horrifying footage it contains. "The best critics understand this. Even when they’re being critical, they do their best not to be hurtful.”

An image of a Tweet by Swen Vincke that reads "Sometimes I think it'd be a good idea for critics to be scored, Metacritic-style, based on how others evaluate their criticism. I like to imagine it would encourage a bit more restraint. The harsh words do real damage. You shouldn't have to grow callus on your soul just because you want to publish something." — Never be the Twitter main character.

“Sometimes I think it'd be a good idea for critics to be scored, Metacritic-style, based on how others evaluate their criticism. I like to imagine it would encourage a bit more restraint. The harsh words do real damage. You shouldn't have to grow callus on your soul just because you want to publish something.” He subsequently deleted much of the thread, correctly stating it was being taken out of context, although Edwin has preserved it over on RPS.

The idea was roundly slated for overlooking the fact that publishing anything,

30 Jan 2026 By Jon Hicks Podcast

The Death Stranding novel proves that Kojima's stories don't work without him

Reading bad game books so you don't have to

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27 Jan 2026 By Jon Hicks Jank business

Jank is partnering with Total Playtime

As part of our launch, Jank is partnering with the fine podcast Total Playtime, which not-at-all-coincidentally is hosted by Jonty and Brendy along with fellow veterans Alice Bell and Nate Crowley. It has been running for a little over a year and publishes free episodes every two weeks, or monthly for those who back it on Patreon.

The free version of Total Playtime is available here, and every two weeks it offers:

Discussion of the latest PC gaming news
Judgements on the games we’re playing
Recommendations for new games
Updates on Alice’s dog and Nate’s cats
A recommendation every week of something that is not a videogame, because true satisfaction can only be achieved from a balanced cultural diet.

As part of the partnership, paying subscribers of Jank will get access to the paid tier of Total Playtime, starting from this Thursday’s episode. That means you get an exclusive members-only episode every two weeks, mostly about PC gaming, although the backing of our Patrons has permitted it to wander to some more esoteric places. Recent episodes have included:

Ranking game awards shows, because they covered the games already
Hypothetical product partnerships between major videogame franchises