Riley MacLeod

@rcmacleod

Co-founder of Aftermath, a worker-owned site about video games, the internet, and everything that comes after. riley [at] aftermath [dot] site. Previously: Kotaku, Washington Post. Trans; he/him

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Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir rcmacleod.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· 29d

OK this shit has gone too far

In Irish Gaelic, "focáil leat" translates directly to "fuck off". It is a vulgar phrase used to tell someone to go away or leave you alone.If you are looking for the vastly more common, polite, and friendly Irish greeting instead, you might be thinking of "Go n-éirí leat" (pronounced guh nye-ree lyat), which means "Good luck!

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· 29d

Oh... no...

MAGA Media’s Traffic Meltdown: Traffic to right-wing media sites continued to crater in June, with every one of the 20 largest right-wing outlets posting year-over-year declines for the second consecutive month, according to en exclusive sneak peak at The Righting’s latest analysis of Similarweb data. Seventeen of the 20 sites suffered double-digit drops, led by The Blaze (-55%), Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire (-50%), The Federalist (-49%), and Donald Trump’s X clone Truth Social (-48%). Bari Weiss’ The Free Press was also down 21% since last year. Ouch! Some news publishers also saw declines, including CNN (-35%), The WaPo (-27%) and The NYT (-10%).

► “The ongoing negative trend in traffic is bad news for news websites,” The Righting chief Howard Polskin said. “It’s surprising because a war with Iran and volatile gas prices should be driving more visits to news outlets. Consumer dependency on A.I. for their information needs is certainly one factor depressing visits, but news fatigue and the growing popularity of other platforms like podcasts and YouTube cannot be ruled out.”

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· 29d

I’m just trying to read a short story about a person’s many phone numbers, for goodness sake.

The story “Guthán, facs, agus ríomhphost” from the book An Ghaeilge ó Lá go Lá

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· 29d

When I Google Irish phrases I can't find in the dictionary Google AI tries to talk to me in Irish and I hate it so much, stop trying to make conversation with me

An bhfuil tú ag lorg cabhair le téarmaíocht ghnó ar nós "íoc agus seachadadh" (Pay and Collect) nó ag iarraidh an frása "gabh mo leithscéal" a úsáid chun íoc i siopa? Tá leaganacha éagsúla den fhrása seo ann ag brath ar an gcomhthéacs:Íoc agus bailigh: (Pay and collect) Is minic a úsáidtear é seo i siopaí ar líne nuair a íocann tú ar an idirlíon agus nuair a théann tú ag piocadh suas na hearraí go pearsanta. Ag íoc i siopa: Má tá tú i mbialann nó i siopa, is féidir a rá: "Gabh mo leithscéal, an féidir liom íoc le cárta?" (Excuse me, can I pay by card?) Íoc agus scaoil saor: Ciallaíonn sé freisin íoc as rud éigin chun é a fhuascailt nó a scaoileadh saor. An bhfuil tú ag iarraidh íoc ar líne agus earraí a bhailigh, ag iarraidh íoc as rud éigin i siopa, nó ag lorg aistriúchán cruinn i gcomhthéacs faoi leith? Inis dom agus is féidir liom an t-eolas nó an frása ceart a thabhairt duit.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 9

👀

There’s another trick I only learned today, after more than a decade of experimenting in Dunwall. Shoot a Wall of Light from a distance, and it’ll flare briefly, reacting to the bolt and swallowing it whole. If that shot should coincide with the instant a guard trundles through the gap, then they’ll be incinerated along with it. From an assassin’s perspective, it’s a clean kill, carried out from a distance and leaving no trace.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 9

Related: there’s two more books of Heartstopper as Gaeilge but how will I get them, curse you tariffs

Heartstopper in Irish
“Bhuel is maith liomsa thú agus tá tú uaim ar an bhfoireann!”
“Haha! Go maith!”
“‘Is maith liomsa thú’” x 6

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 9

Lol come on

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 8

Working through an Irish reading comprehension textbook and I love its weird art, everyone here looks like they’re shoplifting

A page from An Ghaeilge ó Lá go Lá, with a line drawing of people in a music store

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 8

I've ever only played part of one Assassin's Creed and watched someone else play another, but is the one y'all are talking about today worth it for the sea shanties if you are me, a nerd about the sea? aftermath.site/moby-dick-ma...

The museum closed at six, and with just marathon overnighters left, I realized I was in it now. I chatted with a Seaport employee I’d previously seen performing sea shanties, a lifelong passion of theirs. When I asked them if 2021’s sea shanty boom had been good for their career, they told me that actually the biggest effect they’d seen was from the soundtrack to Assassin’s Creed games, from which kids visiting the museum regularly make surprisingly obscure requests.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 8

wait sorry can we talk about the lede here, where they *got to take the test at home because they were afraid they might get shot* and then used it to cheat

For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring. Quite a few students had expressed anxiety about being in a classroom after a gunman killed two students and injured nine in a December mass shooting at Brown, and so “it was appropriate,” he said, to allow students to take their exams at home.

But by the end of the semester, Serrano regretted the decision. Dozens of students in the class likely used artificial intelligence to cheat and earn perfect or near-perfect scores on their midterm, he said. Serrano in turn made the final exam in-person, which led more than a dozen students to drop the course and even more to fail it. Administrators’ response to the widespread cheating event has been “meek,” he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can—and should—respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 7

I know I'm never getting more Dishonored, but I'd still like a world where big companies are willing to take a chance on things like it

Reading the memo, I can’t help but think about Arkane Lyon, whose fate is currently in flux as Microsoft negotiates under French labor laws. The studio is making a Blade game, and previously made Deathloop and the Dishonored series. Its US arm Arkane Austin, which made the well-received Prey and less well-received Redfall, was closed by Microsoft in 2024. I don’t personally care much about Blade–the MCU is impenetrable to me–but Dishonored is one of my favorite series: the kind of immersive sim gameplay that’s seen me spend days of my life replaying its levels, set in a distinctive, unique world. The games might not have been breakout hits, and I’ve long given up on any serious hope of more of them, especially when the games I do have will last me a lifetime. But whatever happens to Arkane Lyon, it’s hard to imagine this new Bethesda or this new Xbox being willing to put its money into games cut from the same cloth, into niche genres or wholly-new worlds that might not pay off.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jul 6

This bit from the memo is sending me

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 30

🙃

The majority’s position is thus fundamentally inconsistent. It credits the West Virginia Legislature’s concern
that a class consisting of transgender girls like B. P. J. is
large enough to pose an existential threat to girls’ sports,
but at the same time holds that this class is too small to be
protected by the Equal Protection Clause. In other words,
this potentially overbroad generalization is both necessary
to furthering substantially the State’s interests in girls’
sports and effectively irrelevant to assessing the classification’s lawfulness. The Court’s equal protection precedents
neither require nor support this contorted logic.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 27

I don't hate gambling as a rule, but this line is killing me bc I think everyone knows what these markets mean is actually the opposite--conversation as betting. Everything as betting, everything as just a way for some outside guys to siphon money off the rest of us www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/t...

Mr. Archibong added, “Influencers will drive volume, and culture will drive attention.” His post contained a subheadline explaining the rationale for Arena: “Betting as Conversation.”

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 27

On the plus side it's been a useful book series for helping me remember a word for "angry," "feargach," which in my mnemonic for it breaks down to something like "every man" and look how mad this man is

Casaim thart agus siúlaim liom. Tá Daid le ceangal! "Tá rogha agat, a chaitín,--bain úsáid as do dhorasín, anois díreach--nó ní rachaidh tú amach arís, go deo!" 'Breithlá sona' mo thóin!

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 27

Working my way through my some kids' books my friends brought me from Ireland and it's very humbling to be sitting here with my notebooks and dictionaries and the Irish language Discord trying to translate things literally meant for children (I understood *almost* all of this page though!)

Is fuath liom barróga. Go háirithe le linn siesta. Agus tuigeann Sibéal é sin go rímhaith. Nach mór an crá croí í?

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 25

Got to go to an after-hours thing at the botanic garden and the rose garden was full of bunnies

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 23

Excited to yell “that’s @hellgatenyc.com” evey time @hellgatenyc.com is on the screen

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 23

Non-gaming outlets don't *have* to address the concerns of a gaming audience, but they also don't have to launder PR

Xbox’s aims for its participation in this story are abundantly clear. As I wrote previously, the company and its execs can’t sit around being sad about their own decisions. They need to portray themselves as making tough choices to put the company in a better position, aggressively on the up and with a clear plan for the future. This story does that, with the added bonus of not having to speak to a gaming audience who might be motivated to hold their feet to the fire or who might have the context to poke holes in the story they’re laundering through EW. If you’re Xbox, this is a great story at a great time in a great outlet, talking to the new audiences you hope to attract to your movies and TV shows and to the entertainment industry power players you want to get on board.

But as gaming outlets close or get converted to SEO and AI slop, and as major media companies pull back from gaming coverage, stories like this read as painfully tone-deaf to anyone who understands gaming as something that existed before its early covid boom, or who cares about the industry enough to know why it needs rigorous reporting. It is simply telling the story a company wants to tell, at a time when that story is of particular use to that company. That's a job for PR, not a journalist and their outlet. The real story is messy and complicated, and it also involves people--Booty and Sharma, sure, but also the game creatives it speaks to who surely find themselves in the complicated position of hyping their games while worrying about their fates. By going wide without going deep, and by prioritizing the company above the real people involved, the piece not only doesn't tell the whole story, but lets down both the people the writer spoke to and EW's readers.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 22

This is how I live now!

Here's how I'm currently dealing: I play for about 20 minutes until the game stops working. Then I disconnect and reconnect my Bluetooth dongle, resetting the whole situation. I play until the game breaks again, then repeat.

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 18

In fairness, I think *he's* terrible, so at least it's mutual

Trump was also unsparing with Bezos, who is portrayed by Haberman and Swan as transactionally obsequious in indulging and doubling down on Trump's criticisms of The Washington Post, as well as sending Trump a selfie featuring himself and his then-fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, over text.

When Trump and Bezos dined in December 2024, according to the book, Trump told Bezos, “This Washington Post is really unfair. You've got to take better care”—a remark that prompted Bezos to commiserate with the incoming president.

“The people there are terrible,” Bezos allegedly replied, complaining about the business side of The Washington Post he had hoped to make profitable. “They don't listen. My other companies, they listen.” (This exchange was earlier reported by the New York Post.)

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 18

God, get the fuck out of here, Google AI (I just wanted to check the spelling)

You seem to be cut off! "I'm loath to" means you are reluctant or unwilling to do something. If you'd like to finish your sentence, I can help you:

Work through a tough decision you are hesitant about.
Phrase an email or message where you have to decline something politely.
Explore alternatives so you don't have to do the thing you're avoiding.

Let me know what you were loath to do so we can figure it out.Could you finish your thought or tell me what situation you are facing, so we can figure out the best way to handle it?

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 18

Having insurance is a fucking joke lmao (This is just one part of the bill, I *wish* I owed them $500! The lesson here is... not to seek medical care I guess?)

Amount charged: 509
Allowed amount: 517.71
Amount covered by plan: 0
Amount applied to deductible: 517.71
Copay/Coinsurance: 0
Total amount you owe: 517.71

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 17

Xbox hyping up its Gamescom appearance today is a failure to read the room, at the least

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 15

Tá leabhair nua agam as Éirinn! Seo é “Heartstopper” i nGaeilge! Táim ar bís é a léamh!

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 15

It's not news that Xbox seems to have no idea what it's doing in its big "reset," but talking about axing a studio it was praising just weeks ago for doing the very thing the company seems to claim it wants is... well, basically what we've come to expect

Prestige and awards aren’t the same thing as money, which Xbox appears to be in a panic to recoup, with Sharma’s memo noting slim profit margins and revenue declining by half a billion dollars in the last five years. Even games that players love don’t inherently spell cash in Xbox’s pockets. But if showcasing the kinds of stories games can tell is the “goal,” as Booty has it, and if new games like South of Midnight are a key part of what Sharma thinks Xbox does, then it’s hard to imagine the calculus here.

And it’s hard to imagine which, if any, of the other smaller studios under Microsoft’s umbrella could be safe. Fears are already swirling around studios like Double Fine and Arkane (the latter of which already saw its Austin arm closed in 2024)--while these are both speculation, they show how anxious fans are to try to predict Xbox’s thought process, and highlight how hard it is these days to understand what a company thinks comprises a game or a studio that’s good enough to deserve to keep existing. It feels like nothing but non-stop fistfuls of cash are enough to keep a studio off the chopping block, the Minecrafts and Call of Dutys that Sharma calls only part of Xbox’s value. But what’s the other part–what are the “new IP” if they aren’t the award-winners, aren’t games doing new things with story and setting that help games be something more than the stereotypes non-players have of them from those CoDs and Minecrafts, aren’t the smaller studios putting out games players love?

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 12

heard a woman watching wonder if anyone is seeing the weather impeding this as a sign from God, a thing I also thought about lol

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 12

The workers are back and everyone is cheering

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 12

I believe in you, DC

Riley MacLeod@rcmacleod· Jun 12

This story is wild, by the way www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...