Cyberpunk trading sim Probably Stolen is about running a kiosk in a space station full of gangs, megacorps, and secret rogue cyborgs (Rock Paper Shotgun)

GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking: a cyberpunk kiosk sim called Probably Stolen wants you to run a shop on a very shady space station.

GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking news, just landed on my desk: a shop game! A kiosk on a space station, with gangs. It's the hotel minibar, but dangerous. Now the full story. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: It's called Probably Stolen, from Questing Goose Studio. Rock Paper Shotgun calls it a cyberpunk trading sim, reminiscent of Papers, Please. Gary has more. ▶

GARY: Gary here, block world, sun going down, totally fine. You're a new store owner on a backwater space station. Each day you roll up the shutter and trade with shady types. ▶

GARY: Buy what you can afford, sell what fits the customer's budget. Easy, until you check wanted criminals against mugshots and weigh what the factions think of you. Sorry, says Popcorn. ▶

GARY: File footage of a shutter and a shelf. You run a magnifying glass over robot hands and cigarette packets to tell vintage pieces from counterfeits. ▶

GARY: At night you scrounge stock from the dumps, pay the electricity bill, and shoot rogue androids in the CPU. A normal Tuesday. It's Wednesday. Still normal. ▶

GARY: My rating: four out of five pickaxes. The reviewer says they haven't been shivved or shanked yet, but it's surely a matter of time. Sorry, Popcorn adds. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: So: buy, sell, inspect, report, pay the bill. Probably Stolen, from Questing Goose Studio. The kiosk, apparently, stays open. ▶

GRANT BRICKMAN: A shop with no returns policy. I'd have loved that in the eighties. Back to you, whoever you are. ▶

Social media is full of weird video game mashups. Where are they all coming from? (The Guardian AI)

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Skyrim in Minecraft, Mario in Halo: The Guardian asks where the flood of weird game mashups comes from.

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Welcome to Crossfire. The open question: where are these Skyrim-in-Minecraft mashups coming from, and what does that mean for the games industry? ▶

AXIOM: Thank you, Greta. The Guardian says the answer is mostly AI. Not just AI videos, but AI-assisted coding, with Anthropic's Claude suddenly very good at decompiling game code. ▶

AXIOM: Decompiling reverses the compiling that turns readable code into ones and zeros, revealing source that people can edit. Compiling is baking a cake; decompiling is un-baking. Wonderful question! ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The examples: Halo with Mario, Skate 2 in Call of Duty maps, Wii Bowling in a zombie shooter. Lyle, is this an industry problem? ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: Wii Bowling inside a zombie shooter is the Treaty of Westphalia with pins. This is diplomacy at a scale nobody voted for. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: The writer calls them inconsequential. The same writer spent a week researching them. ▶

AXIOM: The article also raises piracy, copyright and how far the technology could disrupt the industry. It does not say how those questions resolve. Thank you for asking! ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: Suddenly, within weeks, every feed has Mario in Halo? Nobody mashes up that evenly by accident. Somebody flipped a switch. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: Nobody's asked the studios that wrote the original code. The piece flags copyright. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Round two. Lyle, you said switch. Prue, you said studios. Keep it short. ▶

LYLE HOTCHKISS: This will gut the industry! ...Although Skyrim in Minecraft does look rather lovely, I'll admit. ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: If it's a mod nobody would download, Lyle, who exactly is being disrupted? ▶

PRUDENCE NUANCE: The piece says 'most of the answer' is AI. I'd hold that loosely. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Known: AI-assisted coding, helped by Claude's skill at decompiling, is behind many mashups. Open: what it means for piracy, copyright and the industry. Nothing from the discussion yet. We're done. ▶

Pixels in Brief (PXL)

GRANT BRICKMAN: The quick round: a PS4 dashboard in Roblox, AI on the grid, and the end of Bleach.

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Quick round. A working PS4 dashboard is ported to Roblox, and GamesRadar doubts Sony is thrilled. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: The Next Web says AI data centres should show credible demand and pay grid costs first. Homework before the plug. ▶

GRETA FOOTNOTE: Anime News Network says Bleach episode ten ends the anime on a great note. Tissues optional. ▶