The greatest hat in all Diablo has surfaced in Diablo 4

Looks like Diablo 4 has Diablo 2’s most powerful hat, as Blizzard has now confirmed a Harlequin Crest drop in the new action RPG. Harlequin Crest may not be a name that means much to you if you didn’t play hundreds of hours of Diablo 2 or Diablo 2 Resurrected, but the unique hat—called Shako by veterans for the class of items it was based on—was a staple of nearly any powerful build. Blizzard’s global community development director for Diablo, Adam Fletcher, confirmed the drop of a Harlequin Crest for Korean players via Twitter: “Can confirm they do indeed have a Harlequin Crest :),” he said.

That legacy will probably live on, as reported by wowhead, because the Diablo 4 Harlequin Crest is a beast. It’s got a bonus to everything every class build wants: life, resource generation, every single stat, cooldown reduction, damage reduction, and a whopping +4 Ranks to all your skills.

How do you get a Harlequin Crest in Diablo 4? That much isn’t 100% clear, for now, but the current thinking is that—wherever it shows up—it’s not going to drop until you’re over level 90, whether it drops in nightmare dungeons or well into the game’s final reaches.

The Shako was a must-have item for Diablo 2 players, easily the most expensive helmet in the game, and by far the best-in-slot for endgame play on the highest difficulties. It had an extremely beefy bonus to magic find, to boot, which meant filling out the rest of your endgame build was easier if you got the Harlequin Crest early on. It was also, in Diablo 2 and especially Resurrected’s world of sharing equipment between characters, an incredibly versatile piece. It was the best hat for everyone.

By the way, if you’re the kind of person to be going legendary gear hunting we can’t recommend enough that you turn on advanced tooltips for the stat range indicators, as that’ll let you know whether to keep stuff for extraction or for re-rolling. Since, trust us, you’ll need that gold later on.

If you’re just getting started on Diablo 4 amid its very chaotic release window then we’ve got a beginner’s guide to Diablo 4 that just might suit your needs. I’m not being hyperbolic when I call its release chaotic, either. We’ve had stuff like North American wildfires, this whole not-E3 thing going on, and that’s just outside the game: The first Level 100 Hardcore player died due to a disconnect, for example. We’re also not enamored of all those premium skins, or the general microtransaction hell aspect of the open world.

Perhaps our Tyler Colp best summarized it in our Diablo 4 review, calling it “a live service action RPG that almost buries everything that makes it great.”



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Today’s Wordle hint and answer #721: Saturday, June 10

If you need a little help with today’s Wordle then you’ve come to the right place. Keep on scrolling for tips, guides, and a handy list of past answers, as well as a clue for today’s game and, of course, the answer to the June 10 (721) Wordle. No matter what puzzle assistance you’re looking for, you’re sure to find it here.

I was in danger of thinking myself out of today’s Wordle answer, chasing after words that may be valid but weren’t especially helpful, instead of going for the choice I really should have picked three guesses earlier. As frustrating as it is to type myself out of a better result, at the end of the day, a win’s still a win.

Today’s Wordle hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

A Wordle hint for Saturday, June 10

“One more time” is another way of saying today’s answer, which refers to anything that either can or must be done repeatedly. You might watch your favourite movie _____, for example. There are two vowels today. 

Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success: 

  • A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants. 
  • A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
  • The solution may contain repeat letters.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. 

Today’s Wordle answer

(Image credit: Future)

What is the #721 Wordle answer?

You just can’t lose. The answer to the June 10 (721) Wordle is AGAIN.

Previous answers

The last 10 Wordle answers 

The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.

Here are some recent Wordle solutions:

  • June 9: BALSA
  • June 8: CRUMB
  • June 7: HATER
  • June 6: SCOUT
  • June 5: ENNUI
  • June 4: BEAST
  • June 3: NANNY
  • June 2: HUMID
  • June 1: JAZZY
  • May 31: AGILE

Learn more about Wordle

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.

You’ll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.

After that it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above. 

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 


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This cult classic Suda51 and Shinji Mikami collaboration is getting a remaster, and god willing it’ll come to PC

Lurid swear-em-up Shadows of the Damned—a 2011 action-adventure collaboration between Suda51 and Shinji Mikami—is getting a remaster. It was announced yesterday—amid a deluge of Summer Game Fest announcements—in the form of a trailer in which main character Garcia Hotspur arrives at the developer’s offices and shoots an unarmed man in the head. I think Nintendo announced that new Zelda the same way.

If you’re unaware, Shadows of the Damned is a splashy, weird third-person shooter that’s been trapped on the PS3 and Xbox 360 since it released 12 years ago. It’s loud and brash and zany—your signature gun is called “The Boner,” which should give you some idea of the plane we’re operating on here—and while it wasn’t a smash hit in its day, it’s occupied a sacred space in the hearts of fans as a cult classic for over a decade.

Thing is, of course, that the devs at Grasshopper Manufacture haven’t said anything about what platforms the remaster is going to be released for. We’ll learn that, hopefully, at the Grasshopper Direct on June 14. Of course, we still don’t know which platforms the studio’s Lollipop Chainsaw remake is going to release on, so maybe Grasshopper will keep it all a  delightful secret until the last possible moment.

You’ve gotta think it’ll hit PC though, right? Pretty much everything does, these days, and the studio’s been pretty good about putting its games on god’s own platform over the course of its last several releases. Unless Sony has money-hatted the devs into an exclusive—which would probably still hit PC a year or two after release—I can’t see any reason why Grasshopper wouldn’t put the Shadows of the Damned remaster on PC.

We’ll find out soon, with any luck. In the meantime, can someone prod Suda about releasing Flower, Sun, and Rain on a platform besides the PS2 and Nintendo DS? All this gunplay and vivid violence is well and good, but some of us (me) just want to solve maths puzzles at a tropical resort threatened by terrorists and time loops, you know? You know.


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Every Summer Game Fest 2023 trailer and moment you should see

If you want to watch the full 2023 Summer Game Fest showcase, it’s archived on YouTube (with the Day of the Devs and Devolver Direct streams following it). For the abridged version of Geoff Keighley’s live videogame announcement show, we’ve collected what we think are the most notable trailers and moments below, including another look at Alan Wake 2, a surprise Star Trek grand strategy game, and an appearance by Nicolas Cage.

Lots more events are coming over the next few days, including the Xbox and Starfield showcases and the PC Gaming Show—here’s the full summer showcase calendar.

Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 will be “Remedy’s first survival horror game,” according to Sam Lake, who showed up on the Summer Game Fest stage. It definitely looks a lot more like a “full-blooded horror game,” as Robin put it.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Finally, a look at the city of Baldur’s Gate itself. I’ll leave it to a very hyped Ted to discuss this trailer.

Mortal Kombat 1

Our first look at Mortal Kombat 1 gameplay—that is, from the new game called Mortal Kombat 1, not the first Mortal Kombat—and it looks like we’d expect it to: goofy and gruesome. Oh, and Scorpion and Sub-Zero are brothers now?

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

There were mixed opinions about this new Prince of Persia game on the PC Gamer team, but Ted’s excited to see Ubisoft perhaps returning to its old 2003 ways with this 2.5D throwback.  

Lies of P

Pinocchiosouls refuses to break character, including in this new trailer in which Geppetto’s sci-fi puppet boy uses a parasol to block bullets and witnesses the breaching of a shark submarine, and walks sullenly through grim nightmare France in an impossibly white, ruffled shirt looking for all the world like he was meant to be played by Timothée Chalamet. 

We got to go hands on with a demo of the closest PC players are getting to Bloodborne and somehow it’s actually good. You can try a demo for yourself right now over on Steam. It launches officially on September 19.

Remnant 2

The Remnant 2 announcement trailer had some delightful-looking bosses in it, and things just escalate in this one—the last thing we glimpse is a giant purple alien dude that shoots energy beams out of its mouth (or I think that’s its mouth?). We also got a release date: July 25. I’m gonna play it, for sure.

Palworld

It’s hard not to be intrigued by a game that looks and sounds a lot like Pokémon but with lots of guns and the option to imprison, kill, and even eat the creatures you collect. We’ll finally get to try Palworld in January when it enters early access.

Sand Land

A gorgeous game from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama—Wes has the details here.

Space Marine 2

If you weren’t interested in this Warhammer 40K shooter before now, perhaps the announcement of three-player co-op will interest you? Fraser didn’t like the original Space Marine, but now says that “it’s hard not to get pumped as three burly blokes march through corpses and slaughter hordes of ferocious alien nasties while showing their love for the Emperor.”

Return to Moria

After Gollum, we could use a great Lord of the Rings game, and this dwarven crafting and base-building game could be the one. (If not, Amazon’s working on a LotR MMO again, though who knows how that’ll go.)

Star Trek: Infinite

A TNG-era Star Trek grand strategy game wasn’t in any of our predictions this year, but we’re certainly not unhappy to see it. The game’s being published by the grand strategy lords at Paradox, and we’re cautiously optimistic about it.

Fae Farm

Heads up cozy farm simmers, Fae Farm is another particularly adorable farming adventure game. There’s quite a lot in this new trailer: combat, crops, animals, and four-player co-op.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

This was the final reveal of the show. It’s a nice trailer and all, but what we want to know is: When the hell is it coming to PC, Square Enix?

Street Fighter x Exoprimal

This wasn’t a big announcement or anything, but if video of Mecha Ryu fighting a dinosaur exists, it feels like everyone should watch it at least once.

Nicolas Cage on how he’ll be “fused” with you

Early in the show, actor Nicolas Cage showed up to talk about his upcoming Dead by Daylight survivor, and whether or not you care that Nicolas Cage has a Dead by Daylight survivor, it’s a charming little interview in which Cage explains why he chose to lend his likeness and voice to the game, and how he wants players to feel they’ve “fused” with him when they play his survivor.


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Diablo 4 with DLSS 3 is the ultimate demon-slaying experience

Diablo 4 has arrived. Over a decade on from its last outing, the indomitable action-RPG where you choose from one of several legendary heroes to take on the demonic forces of hell has arrived to keep us clicking, looting, and slaying for the foreseeable future. With Lilith, the daughter of the series’ former big boss Mephisto, leading the line of heretical villains, those venturing into the world of Sanctuary once more will have their hands full trying to keep her minions at bay.

In a testament to the game’s optimisation, Diablo 4 is available across both last-gen and current-gen consoles, as well as PC of course. And while you shouldn’t doubt that it’s a hell of a ride on all platforms, there’s also no question that thanks to the power of NVIDIA’s latest line of GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs and AI-powered DLSS 3 technology, the game reigns supreme on the platform the series first spawned on: PC.

So what does NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 40-series (encompassing the RTX 4060 Ti, 4070, 4070 Ti, 4080 & 4090 GPU) do to take the Diablo experience to new heights?

(Image credit: Nvidia)

To answer that question, we need to look at the latest generation of NVIDIA’s miracle-working framerate-boosting technology, DLSS. DLSS 3 combines DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation and NVIDIA Reflex to more than double frame-rates in Diablo 4 at 4K while ensuring optimum responsiveness and low system latency. This has actually been tested too, and in the chart above you can see the massive difference between having DLSS 3 in Performance Mode and having it switched off. Note also that the benchmarks are running the game unadulterated at 4K resolution with Max Settings.

With DLSS 3, DLSS Super Resolution and DLSS Frame Generation work together for your GPU to generate entirely new frames by reconstructing 7 out of every 8 pixels displayed on the screen, creating massive performance boosts at minimal power cost. All this is overseen by NVIDIA’s AI supercomputer, which trains DLSS to get better and better at reconstructing frames, which in turn improves image quality even further. So expect DLSS 3 to improve with each major update.

Diablo 4 is, as per series tradition, forgiving to players as they’re finding the ropes early on, but as you ramp up the difficulty and embrace greater challenges in pursuit of greater loot, you’ll need every advantage you can get (especially when you start facing off against other players in PvP). The searing frame rates unlocked by DLSS 3 Frame Generation helps, but another weapon in NVIDIA’s arsenal is NVIDIA Reflex, which reduces system latency by up to 67% in Diablo 4.DLSS 3 performance in Diablo 4

(Image credit: Blizzard/Nvidia)

In a game where a well-timed charge by a Barbarian can quickly close the distance on a pesky Sorceress, while an elusive Rogue depends on evading attacks before stabbing poison into their enemies for insidious damage-over-time, every frame, and every millisecond of latency, counts. NVIDIA Reflex keeps your gameplay smooth and more responsive, delivering the reaction time needed in those crucial moments.

Ready to see what DLSS 3 can do? To enable DLSS 3 in Diablo 4, go to Options > Graphics, then under the Performance section switch on DLSS Frame Generation and your desired DLSS Super Resolution quality settings. NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency is enabled automatically when you turn on DLSS Frame Generation, but you can also enable it separately in this section.

Diablo 4 is the perfect game to harness the power of NVIDIA’s latest technologies. After all, what better way to utilise them than in a war against the forces of hell itself? Head over to the official RTX 40-series page to find a graphics card that will give you an edge like no other. 


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Today’s Wordle hint and answer #719: Thursday, June 8


Give yourself a little help with today’s Wordle with our freshly written clue for the June 8 (719) puzzle, or spend some time reading our tips and tricks so you can make the most of every guess. Need something more? You’ve got it: the answer you’ve been looking for is only a quick click away.

Today’s puzzle couldn’t have gone much smoother for me if it had tried—this must have been my lucky day. The first guess laid down clear foundations, the second expanded upon them in a number of helpful ways, and that meant my third go was also my last, finding today’s Wordle answer in record time.

Today’s Wordle hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

A Wordle hint for Thursday, June 8



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Diablo 4’s first level 100 Hardcore character has died in the worst way possible


Just two days after claiming the Diablo 4 Hardcore crown as the first player to reach level 100 in the game’s unforgiving permadeath mode, streamer Souaïb “cArn” Hanaf’s in-game avatar has died in the most ignominious way possible—felled not in a glorious showdown with a powerful enemy, but by a random server disconnection.

cArn was simply roaming the overworld map and beating up trash mobs when it all went wrong. “Hello?” he said in early but obvious alarm as the screen suddenly froze. “I’m fucking… are you kidding me?” A second later, the screen went black.



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Today’s Wordle hint and answer #718: Wednesday, June 7

Need to give your daily Wordle game a boost? Then you’re in the right place. Keep on scrolling, and you’ll find all the hints and tips you need to improve every game. There’s also a helpful clue for the June 7 (718) puzzle and the all-important answer to today’s Wordle further down the page.

Finding two greens and a yellow on the second go—good letters, too—should have given me a quick and easy win. Instead, I found myself one vital letter off from the solution for several guesses in a row. This ended up being a close game, but I finally managed to find today’s Wordle answer in the nick of time.

Today’s Wordle hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

A Wordle hint for Wednesday, June 7

The answer to today’s Wordle refers to the sort of person who strongly dislikes someone or something, often in an unkind and petty sort of way that is disproportionate to any actual issue, if there ever was an issue at all. You’ll need to find two different vowels here. 

Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No letters are repeated in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn’t like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you’re new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success: 

  • You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word. 
  • A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
  • The answer could contain letters more than once.

There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by the end of the day. If you’re struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there’s no harm in coming back to it later on. 

Today’s Wordle answer

(Image credit: Future)

What is the #718 Wordle answer?

Keep winning Wordle. The answer to the June 7 (718) Wordle is HATER.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 Wordle answers 

Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It’s unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you. 

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

  • June 6: SCOUT
  • June 5: ENNUI
  • June 4: BEAST
  • June 3: NANNY
  • June 2: HUMID
  • June 1: JAZZY
  • May 31: AGILE
  • May 30: KNEEL
  • May 29: MOUSE
  • May 28: SKIMP

Learn more about Wordle

(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.

Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another “good” guess to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.  After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS). 

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 


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Two pulse-pounding PvP modes come to Farming Simulator 22, and yes I am serious

You might not think of the Farming Simulator series as a place for thrills, ticking clocks, ruthless competition, and head-to-head PvP, but you really should because Farming Simulator esports are not only a thing but an awesome thing.

If you haven’t seen the Farming Simulator League before, it consists of fast-paced hay bale stacking competitions and Arena Mode, where two teams race across identical farms to harvest wheat, press hay bales, and deliver them to a barn as quickly as possible. It’s a real gas to watch, and if you don’t believe me here are some FSL highlights in gif form:

Now you can play those some modes yourself, because both hay bale stacking and arena modes are available in Farming Simulator 22 for free. Up to six players can compete, with three per team. Just like the pros, the PvP modes have a pick-and-ban phase, powerups that can be grabbed during the match, and bonuses for delivering grain to a silo or loading your bales into the upper window of the barn rather than the door at ground level.

So if you’ve ever watched a FSL tournament and dreamed of speeding around in those virtual tractors and harvesters as a crowed cheered for you, you can give it a try at home. (Note: You will have to supply the sound of a cheering crowd yourself.) 

If esports aren’t your thing, there’s still plenty of excitement to be found in Farming Simulator 22, like that time I spent $1.3 million dollars to farm enough ingredients to make a single cake.


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Bill Gates says he’s a gamer now, calls them ‘a terrific metaphor for human connection’

Bill Gates has written a new blogpost about a “terrific” novel by Gabrielle Zevin called Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Titled “This novel about video games felt personal to me,” Gates discusses the book’s plot, some of his own personal gaming history, and uses this lens to muse about his relationships with key Microsoft players.

“I never thought I’d relate to a book about gaming, but I loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” writes Gates. “Am I a gamer? For a long time, I would have said no because I don’t spend hundreds of hours going deep on one game.

“But when I was younger, I loved arcade games and got very good at Tetris. And in recent years, I have started playing a lot of online bridge and games like Spelling Bee and a bunch of the Wordle variants. The definition of a gamer is becoming a lot broader and more inclusive, and it might be fair to start calling me one”.

I wonder just how good at Tetris qualifies as very good in Gates’ mind, because he’s obviously an exceptional individual and this claim only made me think of a recent Minesweeper story. A former Microsoft employee recalled that, when Minesweeper was being played internally prior to release, Gates got so hooked and was spending so much time on the game that staff had to engineer a high score he couldn’t beat. I half-suspect Bill’s hiding a World of Warcraft habit.

The novel Gates is discussing centres on the life and friendship of Sam and Sadie, who bond as kids over Super Mario Bros. before embarking on a game development career together. “Although there are plenty of video games mentioned in the book—Oregon Trail is a recurring theme—I’d describe it more as a story about partnership and collaboration,” writes Gates. Sam and Sadie create a big indie hit called Ichigo, but the success creates friction and problems in their relationship, with both straining to follow their own path: Gates sums it up as being “about how a creative partnership can be equal parts remarkable and complicated”.

It puts Gates in mind of his own remarkable career, and the friendships and collaborators he had along the way in building one of the world’s biggest software firms. A line in the book says that “true collaborators in this life are rare” and Gates says “I agree, and I was lucky to have one in Paul [Allen]”.

Paul Allen was a childhood friend of Gates, a member of the same computer club, and would later persuade Gates to drop out of Harvard in order to co-found Microsoft. In fact Allen came up with the name of the company, “Micro” from “microcomputer” and “soft” from “software.” Following Microsoft’s enormous success, he and Gates had a troubled relationship in the 1980s and things got a little nasty between them, before the pair patched things up, remaining friends until Allen’s death in 2018.

“An early chapter describing how Sam and Sadie worked until sunrise in a dingy apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could have just as easily been about Paul and me coming up with the idea for Microsoft,” writes Gates. “Like Sam and Sadie, we worked together every day for years. Paul’s vision and contributions to the company were absolutely critical to its success, and then he chose to move on. We had a great relationship, but not without some of the complexities that success brings”.

Gates goes on to muse about one of the questions raised by the character Sadie in the novel, a feeling that the pair’s success is down to timing, to making their game at the right time and in the right era. 

“I know what she means: Paul and I were very lucky in terms of our timing with Microsoft,” writes Gates. “We got in when chips were just starting to become powerful but before other people had created established companies”.

Another character in the novel is Marx, who isn’t a creative like Sam and Sadie but has a business savvy and feel for the realities of production that enables the company’s success. Gates calls him “a charming, funny character who you can’t help but root for” and says “If Paul and I were Sam and Sadie, Steve Ballmer was our Marx”.

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as the 30th employee, and was the company’s first ever business manager. Ballmer had first met Gates at Harvard, where they had rooms in the same hall, and was with the company in various senior roles including president until he replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, a role he held until his departure in 2014. Ballmer and Gates are said to have had an incredibly close relationship, one Ballmer described as “brotherly” in 2016, but plenty of head-butting too, particularly in later years. In the same 2016 interview Ballmer said he and Gates had “drifted apart” ever since Ballmer resigned as CEO.

“[Steve Ballmer] didn’t write code, but the success of Microsoft was highly dependent on him,” writes Gates. “Like Marx, Steve made sure we hired the right people and had the tools we needed for the company to take off. The comparison isn’t perfect: We always appreciated Steve’s value, but in the book, Sam comes to resent Marx and downplays his contributions. (And of course Steve became Microsoft’s CEO, a position that Marx never reaches at Unfair Games.) But Zevin understands that dreamers alone can’t turn big ideas into reality—you need doers, too”.

Gates ends with a hearty recommendation for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and says video games and the industry around them “is a terrific metaphor for human connection. As Zevin writes, ‘To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. To play requires trust and love.'”


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