Mark Videon
@realmarkvideon.bsky.social
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Digital products, factories, markets and more. Don't miss a thing.
https://blog.markvideon.dev
pinned post!
the tl; dr
blog.markvideon.dev/the-story-so...
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The Story So Far
I'm telling the story of software in a manner that does not assume the knowledge of particular technical concepts. The big picture: running software (e.g. an opened app) is a manufacturing process. Wh...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/the-story-so-far/
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Mark Videon
Glenn Fiedler
5 days ago
New article coming Monday
mas-bandwidth.com/the-best-thi...
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The best thing that has ever happened for multiplayer games
Starting today, Amazon GameLift Servers provide network bandwidth in and out of AWS at no additional charge.
https://mas-bandwidth.com/the-best-thing-that-has-ever-happened-for-multiplayer-games/
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add a skeleton here at some point
8 days ago
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had a moment yesterday after solving an issue hundreds of thousands of people have been hitting for nearly 2 years
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Bowling: Who Do You Think You Are? I AM!
Alt: Bowling meme: Who Do You Think You Are? I AM!
https://static.klipy.com/ii/c3a19a0b747a76e98651f2b9a3cca5ff/76/58/q62mS4BR.gif?hh=280&ww=498&mp4=8AauuHhvmlljVaFERqD&webm=8HcGzXRjf3EhTHPpBS
13 days ago
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Got some exciting news that's too good not to share something with the world but also precarious enough that I'd prefer not to elaborate yet. Nevertheless, vibes are good!
15 days ago
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Phil Spencer was tasked with achieving enterprise software grade returns in a games market where Microsoft is decidedly third of three places. Truly remarkable misunderstanding of the games industry from one of the world's largest companies
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15 days ago
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As far as software goes 2026 is looking as strong a year for video games as I can remember
16 days ago
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If we want to understand the value of the work, we need to understand what the work is.
blog.markvideon.dev/the-title-pi...
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The Title Picture: Roles & Responsibilities
Digital products, factories, markets and more. Don't miss a thing.
https://blog.markvideon.dev/the-title-picture-roles-responsibilities/
18 days ago
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reposted by
Mark Videon
Video Game History Foundation
24 days ago
From 2012's E3 Show Daily magazine -
https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ef9efaf7-e5c3-4410-a628-3d26daf05240
- remember when Microsoft thought the Xbox's Kinect motion controller would be a "watershed moment" for home entertainment? (Nobody gets it right all the time, folks.)
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Like many technologists, one of the ideas I have been grappling with over the last couple of years is - what's the point of this whole thing?
blog.markvideon.dev/education-di...
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Education & Digital Systems
Digital products emerge from digital factories. I write about both.
https://blog.markvideon.dev/education-digital-systems/
30 days ago
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reposted by
Mark Videon
Daniel Ahmad
about 2 months ago
7 months to go
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AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI,
blog.markvideon.dev/the-one-abou...
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The One About AI
I have previously made some allusions to the saturation of LLMs in the current moment by comparing it with what happened during the last major hype cycle. Today as a developer it seems every conferenc...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/the-one-about-ai/
about 2 months ago
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the tl; dr
blog.markvideon.dev/the-story-so...
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The Story So Far
I'm telling the story of software in a manner that does not assume the knowledge of particular technical concepts. The big picture: running software (e.g. an opened app) is a manufacturing process. Wh...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/the-story-so-far/
about 2 months ago
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did not expect that
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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I've used the term digital factory a lot and it's probably past due to look at some examples from the real world to ground the concept. Donkey Kong Country (1994), Microsoft Office (2010) and Netflix (2026)
blog.markvideon.dev/yeah-but-lik...
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Yeah But Like, What Actually Is The Factory Though
Late last year I presented at a conference, and a while later I received some feedback. There were a couple of things that came up that I was sympathetic to: One was that following the (abstract) conc...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/yeah-but-like-what-actually-is-the-factory-though/
about 2 months ago
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'Microsoft in games' continues to live in my head rent-free. I think their big problem is managing certain kinds of IP that has a life outside of digital products. The strengths and weaknesses of IP like Forza and Flight Simulator are pretty well aligned with the strengths and weaknesses of MS imo
about 2 months ago
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I feel like the 2026 Xbox and AI strategy is going to look and sound a lot like the 2013 Xbox and Azure strategy Third-party games are probably not going to do a bunch of custom integrations for the platform in last place, so not sure what gives
about 2 months ago
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There are so many boutique publishers of books about digital games these days, what a time to be alive
@bossfightbooks.com
@apwot.bsky.social
@thevideogamelibrary.org
@wearegamebound.bsky.social
@rocketbooksltd.bsky.social
Has me dreaming a little dream about opening a little store/museum
about 2 months ago
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gotta go fast
blog.markvideon.dev/going-faster/
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How Can We Go Faster?
Across previous pieces I broke down delivery into various stages from a commercial strategy to a user's perceived experience. Ideally every stage is executed perfectly, and the flow is linear. If that...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/going-faster/
about 2 months ago
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I think most people understand that existing data centres have considerably large energy requirements but the amounts required to support the most ambitious versions of the AI-powered future are eye-watering and almost certainly involve regressions toward a transition to renewable energy
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2 months ago
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Finish The Fight
blog.markvideon.dev/whats-so-har...
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What's So Hard About Making Games?
Although the group of people who play digital games has arguably grown to be much broader and more diverse over the last two decades, until recently it was a widely held belief that digital games were...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/whats-so-hard-about-making-games/
2 months ago
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RE: Allbirds going from sustainable shoes to AI compute
2 months ago
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Lost some good people at work today. Pretty rough
2 months ago
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Allegedly my 50th post
blog.markvideon.dev/delegation-o...
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Delegation & Outsourcing
Markets and factories are two examples of widespread recursive patterns in software. There's another prominent pattern that I've mentioned a number of times across various posts, and that is the handshake agreement. The concept behind the handshake agreement is simple - a system (or primitive) needs to trust the output
https://blog.markvideon.dev/delegation-outsourcing/
2 months ago
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sponsoring Anton - they’re calling it the hot new trend anyone can be part of
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2 months ago
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can someone make LinkedIn without the grift please
3 months ago
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Today I wrote about how people find software and also developer-focused content. A lot of '1+1=2' and '1+1=7' out there. BFFR.
blog.markvideon.dev/search-socia...
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Search, Social Media, Discovery, Engagement
Social media is a nexus of many of the topics I've written about. The company formerly known as Facebook has had a major hand in shaping society, digital markets for both physical and digital goods, p...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/search-social-media-discovery-engagement/
3 months ago
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On-prem, source control, secrets, bundled content, build pipelines, and so on.
blog.markvideon.dev/managing-inf...
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Managing Infrastructure
In the last go around I covered the advent of the public cloud which is effectively a hosting resource for the web. Before the cloud, developers could pay specialised companies for hosting services. T...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/managing-infrastructure/
3 months ago
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Further to this point I wonder if Mass Effect 3 was in production today, to what extent the ending controversy could have been avoided with a generated ending cutscene based on a broader pool of decisions you made throughout the series
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3 months ago
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Chewing on what some Gen AI use cases might look like if used relatively tastefully in products we recognise today. Technologists often ask the public to do the imagining for them see Kinect, hybrid compute for Xbox One, PS3 power of the cell.
3 months ago
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The One Where We Juxtapose Software Delivery with Team Austin vs Team Bischoff at WWE Survivor Series 2003
blog.markvideon.dev/grappling-wi...
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Grappling With Expectation
I've made one or two mentions to professional wrestling in previous posts. It's a well that I think we can draw a little more from. To understand how, recall how the general concept of the factory mod...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/grappling-with-expectation/
3 months ago
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Have to wonder whether this contributes to a period of time where people drift away from digital spaces. Getting pretty expensive to read procedurally generated complaints and ad copy. Is anyone getting what they want?
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4 months ago
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This is a good example of why The Project is part of the conversation about digital factories. Streamers contribute to the success of The Project, but they play no part in the design of digital factories or the delivery of the digital product, in this case, the game.
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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Today I visited the SA Games Expo hosted by the SA Film Corporation and saw some great stuff.
5 months ago
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I’ve travelled to Melbourne for Freeplay stuff a number of times and it has never failed to inspire. Very sad to see this
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5 months ago
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Interesting…
5 months ago
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🥲
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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Metroid Fusion is incredibly punishing, if this were the only game in the series I had played I’d probably never touch the seres again
6 months ago
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This kind of stuff has been totally ground out of video games for so long that many people would have no idea that once upon a time there were modes of engagement beyond transactions
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6 months ago
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You’re building something that has never been built before. You’re asked to guess how long it will take to do it. You are held to this estimate because no one really engages with point 1 Needless suffering
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6 months ago
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I am astonished by the increasing prevalence of gambling in (video) games media Are gamblers really performing consumer research to find new games to play?
add a skeleton here at some point
6 months ago
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đź‘€
blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2025/12...
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Sky’s the Limit: The Cloud9 × JetBrains Global Hackathon Is Live | The JetBrains Blog
Last month, we announced that JetBrains is now the Official AI-Powered Coding Partner of Cloud9. The response from the community has been incredible, and today, we’re taking the next step in that jour
https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2025/12/09/sky-s-the-limit-the-cloud9-jetbrains-global-hackathon-is-live/
7 months ago
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For as long as I can remember I’ve largely seen mergers and acquisitions celebrated by customers and workers, in defiance of what happens in their wake, time after time.
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7 months ago
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Advent of Code has never been my thing. There are alternatives. Here is one a colleague of mine shared with me, where the goal is simply to make continuous progress:
eli.li/december-adv...
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Oatmeal - December Adventure
The Advent of Code is cool, but a lot, and not everyone’s jam. The December Adventure is low key. The goal is to write a little bit of code every
https://eli.li/december-adventure
7 months ago
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Took some time this weekend to do a few proof of concepts of various things I've seen at conferences this year. Great experience using home_widget from
@abausg.bsky.social
- amazing docs
7 months ago
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Input handling is a part of Steam’s moat that doesn’t get a lot of attention
add a skeleton here at some point
7 months ago
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There are conferences. There are hackathons. There are meetups. There are workshops. There are a range of opportunities to connect with other people in the field of software development. Is this so different to other fields?
blog.markvideon.dev/meetups-conf...
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Conferences, Hackathons, Meetups, Workshops... And Why
Recently I've been summarising what software developers do. My latest post explores what the best developer in the world might look like based on that model. The short answer that there is so much var...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/meetups-conferences-and-why/
7 months ago
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Today I had a nice opportunity to test my theory that the way to get the most out of LLMs is to navigate commoditisation. I needed a web page that simulated storing cart state for a store in cookies, commoditised problems all the way down. One sentence prompt worked first go
8 months ago
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reposted by
Mark Videon
DDD Adelaide
8 months ago
@realmarkvideon.bsky.social
at
#DDDAdelaide
2025 offers a better framework for technologists to understand their own work and future as tech rapidly evolves. A clearer way to think about what we do and explain it to anyone. Enter the digital factory đźŹâś¨
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I’m concerned by posts I’ve seen on LinkedIn remarking agents must be self-aware/conscious if they “arrive at the conclusion” that they’re an agent when there would be data about the nature of agents and how they communicate in present in training….
8 months ago
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When I started work on conceptualising the digital factory it was born from a lifetime of personal and professional experiences in a world that is not digitally literate. This post is centred around two questions every client of a software developer has:
blog.markvideon.dev/breaking-the...
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Breaking The Work Up
Contemporary software projects are managed through a set of principles and abstractions that can be helpful for discretising digital products into pieces and once discretised into pieces, creating som...
https://blog.markvideon.dev/breaking-the-work-up/
8 months ago
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