"There is method in his madness," says Polonius, the king's advisor, referring to Hamlet. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet pretends to be mad. But he only pretends to be so to gain time and prepare revenge against his father's murderer. With this metaphor, Christopher Tulloch, a professor of communication at Pompeu Fabra University, defines Donald Trump's communication strategy, also with the Iran war. In recent weeks, the official White House account has shared several videos on social media referring to video games like Call of Duty or Nintendo's Wii Sports. And with clips from movies like Braveheart, Superman or Top Gun. Frenetic scenes mixed with declassified images of attacks on Iranian facilities.

It has been ten years since a phenomenon that revolutionized the streets and phones of thousands of people around the world. The Pokémon Go app, an augmented reality game in which players have to go outside and search for creatures with their mobile camera, became a huge success. But the mobile cameras of users have served the game's creator, the company Niantic, to achieve a more ambitious goal. It has used the photos, without players knowing, to create a three-dimensional map of the world that autonomous robots will now use to move through the streets, especially when delivering packages and orders.

This Thursday marked the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of Dragon Ball, the television series that marked a generation of Catalans when it was shown on TV3. After 8 years without publishing new episodes and after several negotiations, the franchise has given the green light to a new season, Dragon Ball Super: Galactic Patrol, created by Toyotaro, disciple of Akira Toriyama, original author of the story of the monkey boy and who died in 2024 due to a cerebral hemorrhage. In this new installment, we will see how Goku and Vegeta join the galactic patrol with the aim of defeating the antagonist Moro.

"I have friends who have boyfriends or boys who come in to have sex," says Jana, 7, about some classmates who play on Roblox, a popular online video game platform that also allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. According to the company's latest reportThe platform continues to grow: by the end of 2025, it had 144 million daily users, who had dedicated 78.6 billion hours to the game throughout the year. This figure would be equivalent to the entire population of Catalonia (around 8 million people) playing Roblox 24 hours a day for more than a year.

On January 15, Amazon Prime Video released the first image of Sophie Turner – Sansa Stark in Game of Thunder– like in Lara Croft in the new series about the video game Tomb Raider. This image marks the start of filming, and the production is expected to premiere sometime in 2027, the same year in which a film based on another famous video game is also expected to be released. God of WarFor some years now, streaming platforms have been increasingly focusing on adapting successful video games, those with a strong fanbase, or those with compelling stories well-suited to a different format, into series.

Playing video games is a common activity in Catalan homes, especially during the Christmas holidays. For this reason, the Government of Catalonia has published "Shared Game: A Guide to Enjoying Video Games as a Family," a tool designed to help families transform digital gaming into a healthy, mindful, and shared experience. The guide offers practical advice and simple resources to help families support children and young people before, during, and after playing. It is an initiative of the Catalan Video Game Roundtable—a forum for industry stakeholders and the Government of Catalonia—promoted by the Department of Culture and developed jointly with the Departments of Education and Vocational Training and of Health, and with Good Game Generation, an organization specializing in promoting the educational and transformative use of video games.

The board of directors of the video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) has approved its sale to the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund PIF, the asset management firm Silver Lake Partners and the Affinity Partners fund, owned by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, for $55 billion (US$7 billion). This is one of the largest transactions in the history of the sector.

It all started with a team of five employees in a coworking space, and now there are 700. The American video game company Scopely settled in the Catalan capital in 2017, after visiting several European cities, to establish its technology headquarters. "They helped us the most in Barcelona," said Javier Ferreira, the multinational's co-CEO, at the inauguration of its new headquarters this Monday.

Gisela Vaquero (Besalú, 1984) is a video game designer, producer, and content creator. She is the founder of Jellyworld Games and the Women in Games association, which supports female video game developers.

She attended the Salvador Vilarrasa School in Besalú. "It was right next to my house, but I often woke up to the music already playing, signaling everyone was leaving, and I was always the last to arrive," she says. She was a very introverted child, "very quiet and calm." "My parents weren't around much. A relative looked after me; I used to call her." Uncle Botey, and he taught me the alphabet before I could even walk. We had a table with painted games, goose, checkers, chess, and he taught me how to play. And that stuck," she adds.

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A huge sector

It's become quite common in recent years for the video game industry to gross more than other entertainment formats such as music or film. Furthermore, despite the post-pandemic crisis facing the industry, video game revenue in Spain continues to rise.

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The video game industry is experiencing a moment of global expansion and Catalonia has established itself as one of the hubs One of the most important centers in Southern Europe. With a sector experiencing sustained growth in terms of employment, revenue, and cultural and social impact, the demand for professionals trained in design, programming, and project management continues to grow. To meet current demand, the Center for Image and Multimedia Technology (CITM), affiliated with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), has become a key player in the development of local talent.

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The American company Scopely, one of the world's leading video game developers and with a Catalan soul - it bought the Barcelona-based Omnidrone in 2022 and is based in Barcelona - has completed, after weeks of negotiations, the purchase of Niantic's gaming business for 3.5 billion dollars (about 3). Niantic is known for being the software company behind the famous video game Pokémon GO, one of the most successful mobile games in the world.

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This week we want to recommend a wide range of activities for the coming days. You can choose from the Winter Circus at the Ateneo Popular de 9 Barrios, Christmas getaways, a laugh about parenting with a show by Miriam Tirado, or delving into the adventures of Geronimo Stilton, among others.

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The mobile videogame company Scopely, one of the world's leading companies in its sector, has announced the purchase of GSN Games from Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) in a deal valued at about $1bn (about €862m). The deal reinforces Scopely's commitment to Barcelona, as GSN Games also runs an operation in the Catalan capital, according to company sources. Scopely has a center in Barcelona with 405 professionals, while GSN Games also has about 20 of the 400 employees it has worldwide. Scopely, based in Los Angeles, opened its first office outside the United States in Barcelona over four years ago.

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