It looks like footage from a news report. A cop approaches a graffiti-covered, seemingly abandoned building, the sound of his own footsteps and his uniform brushing the mic and disturbing the silence. Only 30 seconds in does the trailer start to look more like a video game: the exaggerated gun reload, the way the cop effortlessly vaults a barrier. But at a passing glance – even at close examination, on a phone screen – it looks as if it could be real. Unrecord, a "bodycam first-person shooter" being created by French independent developer Drama, made an impact with its shockingly realistic trailer last week.

Believe it or not, this issue marks a year of Pushing Buttons. However long you've been a subscriber, I wanted to say thank you so much for reading. Whether I've been chewing over the week's gaming news, philosophising over what games can offer us in times of crisis or just writing (again) about how brilliantly creepy Zelda: Majora's Mask is, putting this newsletter together has consistently been a highlight of my working week. I try to bring you a balance of analysis, opinion, reminiscence, recommendations and good old-fashioned journalistic storytelling, but if you have any thoughts on what you'd like to see more of in this newsletter, hit reply and tell me. And if there are any guest writers you'd like to see in your inbox in 2023, let me know who they are and I'll try to make it happen. When the first issue went out, the world was still emerging tentatively from Covid-19 lockdowns, when video games had been a vital social lifeline for millions.

During the pandemic, video games have had an unprecedented boom while pretty much every other cultural sector – from music and nightlife to theatre and cinema – have tanked. With everyone stuck inside looking for ways to alleviate their boredom and socialise safety, it is no wonder that the global games market grew from $150bn in 2019 to $180bn in 2020 (£). Millions of people bought consoles (the Nintendo Switch especially saw a huge surge); and some of us who already had consoles felt like a shiny new PlayStation 5, say, might alleviate the pandemic blues for a while. Every facet of gaming, from mobile to consoles, Twitch viewership to concurrent Steam player numbers, was given a boost. It's also hardly surprising, then, that the games industry is now facing a contraction.

Welcome back to Pushing Buttons, folks. In case you're wondering where I've been, I was on secondment from video games for a week covering Glastonbury. Thankfully, a decade-plus of E3 coverage prepared me well for the fragrant crowds and inevitable liveblogging tech issues. Thank you to our ever-brilliant games correspondent Keith Stuart for covering for me while I screwed my head back on after the festival. Pride events took place in London last weekend, and among the million people lining the streets for the event's 50th-anniversary were parade contingents from PlayStation, Microsoft and Square Enix, among other game publishers and developers.

Welcome to Pushing Buttons, the Guardian's gaming newsletter. If you'd like to receive it in your inbox every week, just pop your email in below – and check your inbox (and spam) for the confirmation email. This week marks a truly important video game anniversary: it is 50 years since Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney incorporated Atari Inc, the company that laid the foundations for the video games industry. There have been many appraisals of the company and its landmark achievements in the games press over the past few days – from the arrival of a Pong machine in Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California, in 1972, through classic titles such as Breakout, Asteroids and Missile Commands, to the iconic home consoles. But one element that often gets overlooked in these nostalgic reveries is the way in which Atari taught the first generation of electronic gamers how to think symbolically.

Welcome back to Pushing Buttons – this is Keza, back with you after a period of convalescence. As I was lying in bed with Covid, watching what felt like 4,000 trailers from the live-streamed summer video-game showcases, I struggled to tell the difference between a lot of them. Every shooter seemed to be set in space. Every wholesome indie seemed to feature frogs or bears. Admittedly I was quite ill, but also, as our games correspondent Keith Stuart explored in last week's newsletter, we've reached a point where a lot of mainstream culture, including games, is starting to feel as if it's folding in on itself.

The absence of the E3 expo in Los Angeles for the past two years has left a gigantic vacuum in the video game calendar. Last week, the industry did its best to fill that gaping content maw with three online events – the Summer Game fest, the Xbox and Bethesda showcase and the PC gaming show. They were underwhelming for many seasoned players. Major reveals included a remake of The Last of Us, a remake of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy XVI and news about the reimagining of the classic role-player System Shock. Even fresh titles seemed familiar.

Welcome to Pushing Buttons, the Guardian's gaming newsletter. If you'd like to receive it in your inbox every week, just pop your email in below – and check your inbox (and spam) for the confirmation email. Remember how, in the wake of yet more awful shootings in the US this month, Fox News decided to blame video games rather than, you know, the almost total absence of meaningful gun control? Remember how I said last week that the video-games-cause-violence "argument" was so mendacious and nakedly manipulative that I wasn't going to dignify it with a response? Well, here I am, responding, because the supposed link between video games and real-life violence is one of the most persistent myths that I've encountered over the course of my career, and it has an interesting (if also infuriating) history.

The Xbox Adaptive Controller was Microsoft's first real attempt at making accessible hardware. And while it was very well-received, it didn't really impact non-gamers. Today, the company is launching a new product with a much wider audience: a mouse. The Microsoft Adaptive Mouse kit actually consists of a mouse, attachable tail, hub and button. They're modular and highly customizable, offering a wide variety of ways for people with different needs to interact with their laptops, tablets or phones.

Welcome to Pushing Buttons, the Guardian's gaming newsletter. If you'd like to receive it in your inbox every week, just pop your email in below – and check your inbox (and spam) for the confirmation email.Sign up for Pushing Buttons, our weekly guide to what's going on in video games. The New York Times's acquisition of viral word game Wordle has not been without its controversies: some players are convinced that the words have become more obscure (remember CAULK? I've felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction with it myself since late February, though I'm not sure how much of that is a natural drop-off from the times of Wordle mania, and how much has anything to do with the game itself. This week, though, there was a genuine controversy when the NYT decided to remove the word "fetus" as a solution to one of last week's puzzles.