Welcome back, readers. We have once again made it in our elliptical journey around the Sun. The Gregorian calendar changes tomorrow, bringing with it the promise of new beginnings and the allure of fresh possibilities. Anything is liable to happen in 2026; but before we can set our sights on the coming future, we first have to see the past off into the placid lake of our collective memory. (We don’t know where this tortured metaphor is going either.) What we do know is that this year we really had our work cut out for us. Over 820 articles made it into the weekly roundups that Chris put together over the past 50 or so weeks.
In addition to that, we collected another 120 articles from over the two short weeks we held the submission window open. Nearly a thousand discrete pieces of writing, from over 400 authors, originating from nearly 250 outlets, blogs, academic journals and newsletters. We haven’t crunched all the numbers going back 16 years but we’re fairly confident that 2025 has given us the biggest selection pool ever for a TYIVGB post. And while quantity does not necessarily correlate with quality, it has been incredibly heartening to read so many incredible pieces of writing, week after week after week after week. Games media is in as precarious a position as the profession has ever been, and it’s going to take all hands on deck to help it survive what may still be coming, rebuild, and get back to a state where it can thrive. But we have never been less worried that good writing about games will disappear. Let’s dive in.