So I was curious if there are any top streamers, any video essayists, any just people in the scene that you recommend people check out, you know, reporters, if they want to learn more about the space.

I think, before I answer your question directly, to, to speak more about learning the beauty of fighting games, watch an EVO.

Watch a live EVO broadcast, and when you hear the crowd cheering, when you pan and see this big Las Vegas convention center full of people watching two guys, like, you know, beat each other to death in Tekken, that shit chokes me up every time.

It gets me every time because it's all different kinds of people from all walks of life, men and women and nine-bir- non-binary folks.

You got trans folks involved with this.

You've got furries [laughs] involved with this.

Like, across all these different kinds of games that some of them are really wholesome and some of them are super violent, that, like, spirit of, like, competition and hearing, like, a really skilled commentator explaining to you what's happening, and because fighting games are just so easily parsable that you can tell, like, this guy's winning, this guy's losing, this really exciting thing happened, and it turned the tides or whatever, that more than watching any kind of streamer or hearing any kind of break- some technical breakdown or whatever is what will convince you, like, bar none.

And I also wonder how much that has changed over the years.

Yeah.

If you can approach this game with like an understanding that, you know, I, this is not something I wanna do, then yeah, you can probably have a good time with it.

And I think, at least as far as my limited experience with like different kinds of gotcha games are concerned, Love And Deep Space is really good about giving you stuff for free that you can experience the, maybe not to the exact depth or breadth as someone who pays for the stuff can, but you can still get a bit of that without having to pay.

So if you wanna just be a free to play player, yes, it will take you longer, and that's the point, because it wants to get you on the payment wheel.

But you can still enjoy a majority of the experiences for free.

So let's just, you know, put that in the, uh, the disclaimer box.

But as far as I'm concerned, like I think the thing that helps me stay out of like the parasociality of it is the fact that I just don't engage with the fandom at all.

Ash

So that is my recommendation.

Hi, my name is Ash Parrish, and I'm a freelance video game journalist whose work you can find on Aftermath, Kotaku, and my podcast, The Insert Credit Show.

So my favorite game of 2026 so far is the mobile gotcha game Love and Deepspace.

It's made by the same creators of Infinity Nikki, and while technically Love and Deepspace released in 2024, I'm gonna ask that you walk with me for a minute to explain why I picked this game instead of anything more recent.

So at the beginning of 2026, I was laid off from my job as a games journalist at The Verge.

I was blindsided and devastated by the news, and as a result, my relationship to gaming changed overnight.

I couldn't play them anymore.

That's probably true.

Um, you know, you've h- got all these different versions like Beatles Rock Band and, like, Guitar Hero Aerosmith and, you know, all that kinda stuff.

Like, we didn't need all that.

Like, give them time to space it out, maybe develop more innovations for their controller or do something.

Like, give them time to cook a little bit instead of just, like, serving meal after meal after meal after meal, and then eventually we're full and we can't eat anymore.

Um, yeah.

I think time and not saturating the market would've saved this game a little bit, and we would've had it for a little bit longer.

Like, how do you just, like, hook up a guitar controller and play?

That's probably true.

Um, you know, you had got all these different versions like Beatles Rock Band and like Guitar Hero Aerosmith and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Like, we didn't need all that.

Like, give them time to space it out, maybe develop more innovations for their controller or do something.

Like, give them time to cook a little bit instead of just like serving meal after meal after meal after meal and then eventually we're full and we can't eat anymore.

Um, yeah, I think time and not saturating the market would have saved this game a little bit and we would have had it for a little bit longer.

I don't think it would have maybe become like a Call of Duty kind of deal where, you know, we need one every year or we need one so often, but...

Like, how do you just, like, hook up a guitar controller and play?

Mm.

... something that I felt like I needed with my regular Switch.

I'll throw that in a bag and keep it going, and I've never had any issues.

But one thing I've, I've noticed with the Switch 2 is like I put it in my, my carry-on bag, and I feel, like I, I get this nervous feeling like I should be protecting this, and I...

when I pulled it out of my bag to play it on the plane, I noticed that the left Joy-Con thumbstick was not as responsive as I was used to it being, and the right one was a little bit more responsive, and I think it may have gotten jostled or squished where the, the Joy-Con may have gotten pressed in.

I managed to work it out, so it feels fine now, but I'm like, okay, yeah, this... we, we need some kind of protection, because I just can't have this out rawdogging life.

Um, other than that, like it's really good.

Hm.

Oh.

... it's actually really cool and informative.

Like, we don't get to see very much how the sausage gets made.

We have, like, Mark Cerny talking about PS5 teraflops and things like that and your eyes cross and you're like, "I have no idea what you're talking about.

None of these words are in the Bible." But seeing Nintendo really break that down with how their Joy-Cons work or, you know, what...

Explaining frame rates, like there was a tutorial or a little quiz or little info thing that explained, like, here's the difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS and 120 P- FPS.

And it's just something you know intellectually and you can see the difference, but actually having a technical explanation for why 30 FPS looks different than 60 XPS, FPS was, like, really informative and I really appreciated that.

... down to, like, you're, you're gonna run this thing into, like, a thousand dollars without trying very hard.

Tell me why that is.

So at first, yeah, because I believe at first Microsoft was throwing tons and tons and tons of money at these developers to lock their games up on Game Pass.

They've kind of, like, turned off that [chuckles] money hose, uh, for various different reasons that I'm sure you can guess.

And now i- as we get, you know, more and more data, uh, about it, like, we're hearing that if you put your game on Game Pass, you might lose up to 80% of sales you would've otherwise made via if you had kept it on, like, Steam or, or just kept it as a standalone game, not part of a s- a subscription service.

And with the way that studios are hurting now, you're not getting the kind of money you thought you were gonna get that Microsoft was handing out before.

On top of that, you're putting all these potential sales at risk w- and with the way that indie studios have been hurting with the whole, like, post-pandemic retraction and having to lay off, like, hundreds of thousands of people at this point, like, why would you take that risk? Like, you need every dollar and every dime that you can scrape from people to keep yourself afloat, so it doesn't make sense to potentially kneecap 80% of your sales by putting it on my- on Game Pass.

So-There are still studios that are making that determination, but there are people that are increasingly deciding, "No, this isn't worth it to us anymore," that, that attraction that the time when being on Game Pass was attractive has passed, so we're gonna have to, you know, do this ourselves.

Evidence so far suggests no. It's, it's the big question to me, and I think to Microsoft.