I’m calling it now, we’re taking the year off from puns in 2026.

Go a step further: Do not read the opinions of your community. It's creative poison. Often as game designers we love to make people happy. But if you index too much on making the community, or people in the community, happy, then you're ceding too much of your judgment to them.

You will only ever find me dressed for comfort on a plane, sorry.

I’m gonna be a zombie from insufficient sleep, but I’m at PAX Unplugged this weekend! Excited to see a bunch of friends and do a little early Christmas shopping. Come by the CATAN booth during the afternoons or message me if you wanna catch up!

we don't just need to be funding small studios to make one game, we need to be funding them to make the ones they can fuck up before they can make the ones they learn from.

A reminder that for every billion dollars made on PC gaming, Newell pockets $300m. He keeps out of the public eye better than some billionaires, but he is still a libertarian billionaire, and billionaires should not exist.

My incredible friend @joneaves.bsky.social is going to do superhuman things and cycle 1,000km for childhood cancer research, and he’s incredibly close to his fundraising goal. Help push him over the top? live-for-lily-foundation.grassrootz.com/act-to-mcg/j...

Even the island got a good look at the beautiful northern lights! 🥰🌌

Just fucking insane to see the absolute (intentional) collapse of full remote jobs available for AAA studios in so short a time. Why would I EVER move for a job again when I could be laid off weeks after moving my entire life across the globe??

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

My AI strategy? That’s a great question. It’s a nuanced topic that calls for a multipronged approach best outlined in this excellent ebook by thought leaders in the field of intelligence: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184

The people opposed to the Microsoft/Sony/Apple/Google walled gardens sure are falling all over themselves to support the Valve one. Call me if Valve cuts the portion of revenues they're taking from developers, then we'll talk.

Twitch Plays CATAN is live! Give it a click if you have a few minutes tonight. 🤩 www.twitch.tv/directory/co...

“individual employees asked to change behavior in response to catastrophic mistakes made by their high-level leadership over the past 3-7 years” really feels like the overarching story of the current times

capitalism rules, I love doing extensive research any time I need to replace something because roughly 94% of all products are scam garbage

We're back! Join us Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week for the first-ever Twitch Plays CATAN event.

i hate it when something is described as "inscrutable." you have no idea the types of things im able to scrute

The new @Formula1 driver obsession - Catan 👀🎴

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

You could honestly boil this down to even fewer bullets, IMO: 1. Failure to delegate (this covers all of the "approval" or "direction" issues) 2. Not prioritizing retention (turnover has *enormous* hidden costs) 3. Lack of transparency (this is where weak direction and decision-making live)

GAME ON! 😤🏀 We are THRILLED to announce our sponsorship of the Minnesota @timberwolves for the 2026 NBA season! This was a natural partnership alongside our MN headquarters and we cannot wait to start trading timber for wolves! A-wooo! 🪵🐺 #catan #nba #minnesotatimberwolves

Sometimes, we come up with partnership ideas that are a slam dunk. Trading w̶o̶o̶d̶ timber for s̶h̶e̶e̶p̶ wolves. www.nba.com/timberwolves...

INVENTOR: ive got a great new toy idea for you, it's called... the Radio Flyer TOY EXEC: oh wow, so it's like a plane that flies via... radio? INVENTOR: it's not a plane TOY EXEC: oh...Kay, so it's INVENTOR: its a little red wagon TOY EXEC: with ... a radio on it? INVENTOR: theres no radio

GET IN THE QUEUE

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Hell of a month. Canada to the US to Australia back to the US to Mexico back to the US to Germany back to Canada. Announced our Netflix deal, set a new CATAN world record for largest game… …and we’re not done yet. Excited to sleep in my own bed and give my family a month’s backlog of hugs, though.

We’ve been up to some stuff…

A note for sports: Bluesky’s engagement rate was x10 higher than X’s across a sampling of identical posts made on both platforms by @rapsheet.bsky.social (sharing with permission) Fwiw we see a similar trend across all communities, not just sports. Real people, real conversations.

We’ve been up to some stuff…

my woke take is that entirely too many people feel entitled to the benefits of a social contract while not feeling bound by the responsibilities of said contract

Saw a post on tumblr that said “Think I need a motivational poster of one of Saejima's big soft cat-looking smiles that says: "Never let an unkind world make you an unkind person".” So I drew this 🖊️🦑

Who’s in San Diego for TwitchCon this weekend? Would love to catch up if you are!

We should be asking this c o n s t a n t l y.

People treat it like there’s some kind of competition for who’s been victimized the most and not a collaboration to make sure we’re all victimized as little as possible

Trying to find a job in video games right now is like crawling through hell: aftermath.site/video-game-rec...

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

Horrifying outcome. Hoping for as few devs to be impacted as possible.

Splitsville is the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. Highly recommend.

Increasingly convinced that the reason social media exists is because people are incapable of holding two thoughts in their heads at the same time. Today, that could be about "too many games", or the Canada Post strike, or...

Are you or someone you know skipping GDC (or considering doing so) because of worries about coming to the US/San Francisco in the current environment? If so, I want to hear from you for a piece. DM me here or kyle DOT orland AT arstechnica DOT com. Please spread the word

I don't really care if the future is short videos. I like words. Words have gotten me this far and I'm gonna stick with 'em for the duration

Excited to finally be able to reveal that next week, @catan.com will be the FIRST EVER board game to be featured on Twitch Plays! A custom Board Game Arena integration will enable Twitch viewers to participate in games of CATAN with a STACKED roster of talent. www.aboutschwab.com/newsroom/sto...

If tariffs have impacted a recent purchase of yours--tabletop, figures, models, gaming accessories, gear, trading cards, miniatures, journaling, etc. I'd love to briefly hear from you about the cost/impact/experience/de minimis snafus. DMs open or: [email protected] ethangach on Discord

It's getting harder and harder to deny that AGI is a near certainty. This kind of rapid expansion, this level of investment and infrastructural shift, this amount of *risk* - it doesn't happen without astronomical reward. The other day I saw a big barn, which can only mean one thing: giant horses

I am also a hater.