Bits: The Byteside Blog
Cyberpunk legend Mike Pondsmith shares how to become a game designer
Mike Pondsmith, designer of the great Cyberpunk tabletop RPGs, kicked off PAX Online with encouraging words for budding tabletop game designers.
The key Australian details on the new Xbox Series X/S deals
Outright, subscription, or trade-in hunting? We look at the ways you can slice your plans for an Xbox Series X or Series S on the Australian market.
PAX Online 2020: How to make the most of the massive digital convention
Here's how to make the most out of your PAX Online 2020 digital convention experience – all from the comfort of your own home.
Dark and full of terrors
Too many parents react swiftly to a few scary headlines but don’t actually do much to educate their kids or have conversations about being a savvy digital citizen.
Twitch just became the best Watch Party tool around
Even if you don't care about trying to build an audience, this is a great tool for just sharing a show and hanging out with friends.
The value of uninformed consent
Everyone thought they were getting free services in exchange for ads. But if the depth of the tracking involved was truly known to make the ads so good, would we really have agreed at the start?
Digital culture is culture
The impacts of the digital world upon every day culture have never been greater. It's time to treat them that way.
D&D's latest rules expansion gives the race overhaul fans have been waiting for
D&D announced its latest rulebook release, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. The biggest expansion of options for the game in three years.
The End Of Infinite
Like the infinite scroll, every media form keeps chasing the ability to keep us in neverending flow of content.
High stakes lawsuits
Epic v Apple is a very big deal.
Apps, clouds and platform control
Will we end up where Steve Jobs started the iPhone? With web-based apps that preserve control for those who make them beyond the borders of the App Store?
More than a business story
More tech stories in the culture pages, please.
Digital scarcity
Limitlessness always seems viable within a digital context. But how does it work when real people have to use it?
Some friction is good for you
the hunt for 'frictionless' interactions and interfaces misses an important fact: some friction is essential to making things that matter.
External motivations
This week school has gone back here in NSW and while the world is still in a very difficult place with the pandemic, our kids had a pretty ‘normal’ holidays. The first since October 2019. The summer was black. Kids couldn’t play outside because of the fires. They couldn’
Transparency is a vulnerability
Today I pulled the trigger on expanding the Byteside team, creating an opportunity to bring two paid writers on board to work with me across the site, the newsletter, the social presence, and the podcasts. I love working in a team. I’ve got a good track record of helping
Byteside is evolving: come work with us!
Byteside, the miniature media empire covering tech, games and digital culture, is adding new (and paid) opportunities to join the editorial team.
Hearthstone goes back to school with Scholomance Academy expansion
The key details on the latest Hearthstone expansion: Scholomance Academy! Spellbursts, Dual Class, and a living Kel'Thuzad?
Picking Your Battles
Facebook can be a place for good. It has those pockets all over its swampy landscape. Demanding it be better is more important when it’s urgent it gets on with the job of fixing runaway racism, conspiracies, and anti-scientific bloviation.
It's over before it begins
No time for a column today, but I do want to say I’m admitting defeat in my quest to truly delete myself from Facebook. I’ve had multiple occasions over the past week where I have had professional reasons to use the service. To not be able to report
