2023 was a record year for Steam. Games worth $9 billion were sold (excluding microtransactions). This accounts for more than 580 million copies, with almost 14 thousand games released. The platform's peak concurrent users (CCU) exceeded 33.6 million. Game sales on Steam grew by 17.8% in 2023 compared to the previous year. The platform size in 2023 is twice as large as it was in 2019. Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, Lethal Company, Sons of the Forest, and Starfield - leaders on Steam in terms of the number of copies sold (I’ve excluded free games).

In my last email, I shared about the incredible style of prata that I encountered in Melbourne & an accompanying recipe. I made a batch today, so I thought I’d show you step-by-step photos in case my recipe instructions in the last newsletter weren’t clear. I’m going to show you how to achieve really good results without having to flip or use any special equipment like a stand-mixer. The following measurements make five pratas.

Benny the Bull is my hero. Benny is the little blue beast who got the goods on Dora of Dora the Explorer. He established early on that she was a hidebound and callous little nut. She preferred to lecture through the fourth wall of the Nickelodeon TV show than to actually protect the residents of her cartoon kingdom in a timely matter. Does that sound like anyone you know in real life?

I hadn’t planned on snapping street fashion on my trip to Japan, but from the minute I stepped onto the streets of Osaka, it captured my attention. We talk a lot about personal style on here — discovering it, expressing it, refining it — and in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo, the outfits themselves were indeed fascinating. At the same time, observing the street style with fresh eyes at an individual level had me thinking about the culture and society in which these people live.

Welcome to a new week and a brand new edition of Publishing Confidential. It’s taken me a few days to gather information and wrap my head around what I’m writing about today, but I think you’ll find it intriguing. Shoutout to the reader who brought this to my attention—you know who you are! Let’s dive in: THE WHAT: Bantam, an imprint of Penguin Random House, released the book Argylle by the “author” Elly Conway on January 9, 2024.