For my American friends grappling with how to survive (and resist authoritarianism) through the next four years, this seems like good advice: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump

The moment where my worlds collided: legendary horror game composer Akira Yamaoka's brief remarks on doing a track for football game Winning Eleven 4 (ISS Pro Evo for those of us in PAL regions), in response to a question I snuck into our TerrorBytes documentary interview with him.

Here's a German-language review of my new book, noting that it goes beyond nostalgia to [also] provide a sound analysis of the cultural and technical evolution of football video games. https://gentlegamer.de/2024/10/a-tale-of-two-halves-the-history-of-football-video-games/

Directing a horror gaming documentary is weird. Sometimes I'm trawling through archival records, other times I'm puzzling out how to craft a compelling story from ~50 interviews. And then there are moments where I'm a digitised Keanu Reaves getting beaten up by flying books. (And I wouldn't have it any other way.)

I had a great time talking on the Retro Asylum podcast about football games, my new book, and the family-centric nature of sports videogame nostalgia. https://retroasylum.com/2024/10/20/episode-340-a-tale-of-two-halves-richard-moss-interview/

@iSabreman Yes, definitely. Even showing restraint and leaving out anything I felt was overly derivative, I still ended up with more than 30 Spectrum football games. There was a point also where I considered going for just 2D titles, since there are hundreds of them, and then leaving 3D for a volume 2, but I really liked the idea of showing the slow, messy transition from 2D to 3D.

And I'm touched by the lovely praise in Time Extension's review of A Tale of Two Halves.

"If you're a fan of footy video games and yearn for the good old days when each week seemed to see the release of a new interactive take on the sport, then you'll absolutely love this; Moss' accessible, knowledgeable but often amusing prose is a joy to read, and brings to life one of the most exciting periods in video game history – an era we're unlikely to ever see again."

https://www.timeextension.com/reviews/a-tale-of-two-halves-the-history-of-football-video-games

Design Week interviewed me about my new book and some of the design insights I've picked up while writing it. https://www.designweek.co.uk/the-greatest-and-strangest-football-video-games/

It's publication day for a dream project of mine: A Tale of Two Halves: The History of Football Video Games, a 628-page book about the many many attempts to distil the beautiful game (association football) into digital interactive entertainment.

A Tale of Two Halves explores 30+ years of football games in all their forms—even platformers like Soccer Kid and GO! GO! Beckham—with a season-by-season breakdown of the genre's history, lots of insight, and plenty of fun stuff like PES player shirts and pixel illustrations. And 13 in-depth interviews, too.

It comes in two flavours: a standard edition, with shoelace bookmark ribbons for a touch of whimsy, and a "Captain's Edition" that adds in a heavy-duty slipcase and swanky fabric armband emblazoned "Captain." Both are available directly from Bitmap.

https://www.bitmapbooks.com/pages/search-results-page?q=tale%20of%20two%20halves

(Or if you're in Australia, you'll save loads on shipping by going to Pixel Crib: https://www.pixelcrib.com.au/search?options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=tale+of+two+halves)