Mediavania
Culture
BONUS QUEST: Spiritus Ex Machina
The fortunes, daemons, and egregores your fandom, your chatbot, and your Minecraft server are conjuring as we speak
Writer
Jay Rooney
24 indexed pieces
Writes forGame & Word
Game Development
You Can’t Shadow Drop a Delay
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-August 3, 2026
What Amazon's Tomb Raider Gaffe Can Teach Indies About How NOT to Announce a Delay
Game Development
Support or Sequel?
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-July 27, 2026
Four Tests for Deciding Where Your Next Dev Month Goes
AI & Gaming
Slop, Please: Your Prose Is NOT in Order
OR: Against Pangram scans, virtue signaling, moral cosplaying, moral panicking, witch hunts, and Substack deputizing the witch hunters.
Game Development
We Have Hit "Peak Roguelite"
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-July 23, 2026
A field note on what "Roguelite Fatigue" says about genre saturation, product-market fit, and why a proven formula is not the same as a safe bet
Game Development
The Hard Reset
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-July 9, 2026
Xbox's Brutal Layoffs Were the Entirely Predictable Endpoint of Microsoft's Many Strategic Missteps
Game Development
When Everyone Does a Little Marketing, Nobody Does Effective Marketing
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-May 18, 2026
Ready Check #4: The Launch Readiness Series
Game Development
All Killer, All Filler
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-May 13, 2026
Mixtape's Press Problem: When Polish Becomes a Liability
PC Gaming
Time on Steam Isn’t the Same as Marketing on Steam
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-May 11, 2026
Ready Check #3: The Launch Readiness Series
Game Development
The Scorecard, Explained: Why These Six Categories and Why These Weights
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-May 4, 2026
Ready Check #2: The Launch Readiness Series
Game Development
Early Marketing IS Game Development
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-April 29, 2026
How Pizza Tower found its groove and its players.
Game Development
Why Most Game Launches Fail Before the First Trailer Drops
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-April 27, 2026
Ready Check #1: The Launch Readiness Series
Game Development
Why Eastern Studios Are Eating Western AAA’s Lunch
Spawn Point Marketing by Jay Rooney-April 20, 2026
And what the indies watching from the sidelines can learn from it all
Culture
BONUS QUEST: The Banned Bible Book That “They” Don’t Want You to Play
The Book of Enoch, Heaven’s System Failure, and the Video Games That Keep Repeating the Crime
Culture
Theater Kid Surrealism, With the Parking Brake On
A Game & Word Review of "Kentucky Route Zero"
