Unlike PC Gamer's UK editorial staff, Ben Affleck knows ball. Metaphorically, I mean. Though he probably also knows what the Miami Heat is. Speaking on the October 12 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Affleck reflected—with a touch of regret—on the time Starcraft swallowed his entire life.

"There was a game called Starcraft that probably took the most life out of me for a period of time. I had just gotten famous, and all I did was stay home for three years and play Starcraft."

The celebs, folks—they're just like us. More so than usual in Affleck's case, I suppose, since the actor's videogame career doesn't only encompass a brief dalliance with Blizzard's RTS series. "Valorant's a great game. It's a great game," he continued, "The problem with that game is that—the kids that have been raised playing, I just get fuckin' rocked. I'm like, 'Are you mother fuckers cheating?' And I get mad. And they're like 11, they're like, 'Fuck you loser!' It's very humiliating, but that's a great game."

Which is pretty much my experience playing anything with anyone. But do you think Affleck—one whole Batman and one half of Good Will Hunting—stopped there? More fool you. "I love 2K, I love Madden. The early Doom—which then gave rise to Quake and gave rise to all that—we played that endlessly," he recalled.

"We were doing Good Will Hunting, we were playing Doom… I remember writing and taking these long breaks to play Doom. I can't believe it's been out that long." Doom, for our younger readers, released in 1993, which was the same year I was released also.

Also on the big Affleck list of videogames: Myst, Donkey Kong, Tetris, and Miss Pac-Man, though I don't know that those last three count as elite ball-knower knowledge.

Anyway, it sounds like RTSes were Affleck's big love, and he laments that they've "sort of gone out of style." You and me both, Ben. At least we got those Command and Conquer remasters.

Biddy Blas actor Richard Summers-Calvert has reacted to the outpouring of love towards his elite-tier Glup Shitto in Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

As a racing game, Star Wars: Galactic Racer has been going down well with fans of the genre. With the high-speed and punishing races being exhilarating to play, there's no wonder it's one of the best-reviewed Star Wars games ever.

However, even bigger than the game itself is the reaction to a new little critter introduced into the franchise through it, that being one Biddy Blas. As soon as release day, people were dubbing Biddy Blas "the best Glup Shitto ever," and his screeches of "scrib doon" and "ding dong pookie, ding dooooong" have been all over social media since launch.

Biddy Blas actor Summers-Calvert – also known as professional wrestler Charles Crowley – posted a video on Twitter acknowledging the love his teeny little crocodile man has received, saying "I am overwhelmed and overstimulated."

Summers-Calvert adds that he's been receiving messages asking about his absence from Comic Con, with the actor recounting the overnight hype for him following the release of Galactic Racer, saying, "Just give me a second, I feel like people have woken me up and they've gone 'DING DONG POOKIE, DING DONG.'"

"I am so so grateful and so happy that everybody loves Biddy Blas," Summers-Calvert says, and urging fans to tell their local conventions that they're interested in seeing him. He then promises that if he is at a convention, he can "scrib doon."

How former Burnout devs came full circle for Star Wars: Galactic Racer to bring the edge back into racing games: "'Arcade' is not the absence of depth."

Following Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games' public announcement that it would be undergoing a "huge pivot" for "maximum AI acceleration," one former producer shares his take on the controversial technology and its role in the development process.

Aakash Gupta, who worked at Epic as a producer on Fortnite, explains that Tim Sweeney's push for a new "AI first" approach to game dev and how quickly it's moved – just see the now-delayed Disney extraction shooter – isn't surprising.

"Fortnite Battle Royale was built in two months," he writes on X. "I was a producer at Epic, and that's the speed Tim Sweeney moves at when he decides the whole company is turning. He just decided again."

Indeed, he did, hence the whole "huge pivot" – a pivot that isn't new to Epic, and has likely long been in the making by the time it's publicly announced.

"Inside Epic, a pivot means the whole company turns that week," as Gupta states. "People get new teams, new bosses, new roadmaps, and nobody blinks because that's how the place has always run. By the time Tim posts a memo about it, the moves usually already happened."

And, when it comes to AI, Gupta doesn't think any amount of backlash will stop Epic – or other studios, for that matter– from utilizing the tech.

"Here's where it gets bigger than Epic though Epic makes Unreal Engine, the software a massive share of big-budget games are built on. Studio heads can ban AI art. Voice actors can strike over AI voices. Steam can put warning labels on AI games," he says.

But, "None of that touches the layer Epic controls, because Epic makes the tool everyone builds with." He recalls how Epic "wired" AI models like Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini into its Unreal Engine, with more underway.

"So for millions of game developers, AI shows up as a built-in feature of software they already pay for" – public pushback be damned. According to the ex-Fortnite producer, it's all "for show," anyway.

"Honestly, the industry's AI fight is mostly for show," he describes. "Google Cloud found nine in 10 game developers already use AI agents at work. The debate happens on stage while the usage happens at the desk."

I've located the survey he cites here, too, which alleges that some 87% of devs are employing the use of AI during production, for everything from optimization to "dynamic balancing" and much more.

So, Gupta concludes that the AI controversy begins and ends publicly, while use continues behind devs' doors – whether opened or closed: "While everyone argues about whether games should use AI, Epic quietly turned it into a checkbox inside the editor. Most developers will click it without ever having the debate."

While I'm not sure I agree with Gupta here, I can't say Epic Games' own move is surprising at all.

Studio CEO Tim Sweeney has made his stance on generative AI quite clear in the past, dubbing Steam's required AI disclosures "really irresponsible of Valve" as they supposedly make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

He's always come across as openly pro-AI use in game dev, to say the least… even if it's not a great look considering his company's widespread layoffs earlier this year.

Gupta and Sweeney aren't alone in their thoughts on the questionable tech, either. Former Square Enix executive Jacob Novak has responded to Epic's AI news himself, writing, "Epic, by far one of the best technical leaders in games, is saying no hand written code. If you're not doing the same you will be left behind. It is over for non-AI workflows."

It's a heavy-handed message, but it does beg the question: how far will this whole AI thing truly go?

I suppose only time can tell, but the future feels a bit bleak right now. Between Epic and these other supposed devs using gen AI, I worry for folks in creative roles and those coding, too. It can't be easy for anyone in those positions, that's for certain.

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii continues his love affair with AI slop as he releases a new game he generated in 30 minutes