On the other hand, I cannot do my job effectively if a writer isn't there to explain their reasoning for the lines and where it came from to a director, who then translates that into vocal technique to the actor. This is a very collaborative process that requires human interaction and intention.

On the narrative projects I've directed/produced, it's been pretty much unarguable that union VO is the absolute best bang-for-buck there is. A drop in the bucket of cost, but an ocean of benefit. Games are always tricky to budget, but the costs we choose to target speak volumes about our values.

This frame from today's xkcd's What If? video hits different lol

💯 Ignorance re: AI's limitations in creative workflows so often seems borne of the idea that creatives start with a perfect imagination of what's needed, and the process is in the way. Couldn't be more false. The process is how you find what you need. Friction is the only way to heat the forge. 🧵

If your game has voice acting, then working with the voice actors is half of your writing process. It's not complete until you've heard it interpreted and reimagined by a voice actor. And they always reimagine it in ways that elevate the writing, in ways you never would have imagined yourself.

RIP Baudrillard you would have loved this shit

The Mamdani political sign generator is kinda fun https://homes.luddy.indiana.edu/ccshan/for/for.html

Our industry does have peer-voted awards, the most visible being DICE, Game Developers Choice Awards, BAFTA. There are scores of smaller developer-led awards too. We do have spaces to celebrate and uplift one another, please support and watch these shows! The teams work hard for the devs!

A note about the TGAs worth remembering as this Future Class story unfolds: it’s a marketing beat, consumer-facing, and voted on by media/influencers. Developers are, by design, not included or considered in the structure. Which feels bad! www.polygon.com/explained/49...

It's cool how we keep proving over and over and over again that there's a significant market for narrative-heavy, character-driven, single-player experiences in video games and publishers just categorically refuse to believe us

Oh hell yeah youtu.be/h0-k7vW9Xek?...

Excuse me? So the company the President currently owns is teaming up with a cryptocurrency company to create a prediction market, which will take bets... on things the President himself has quite a lot of control over? Gosh, I'm sure nothing bad will happen. www.ft.com/content/4855...

I’m sorry, if someone has a birth certificate that proves they were born here but a mobile app with face recognition software disagrees, they will side with the app? What?

I always get drawn back to Al Gore telling voters that he’d only raise taxes on the top 1% and then after the election a poll showed that something like 20% of voters thought they were in the top 1% and another 20% thought they would be in the next five years. Just a total tragic disconnect.

Tolkien is not perfect but he did, in fact, hate the fucking Nazis.

This is an incredible LIE being told by the guy that manages the agency that oversees the ACA. It's obscene how easily, how frequently and how dramatically these Trump folks lie to us. ✅Fact check from the extremely reliable @kff.org (& no, KFF did not retract this.)

Why is it that every disappeared US citizen is not front page news? At the very least we should have a little box with a count of the number of citizens who have been taken away and are not locatable and a link to a story with photos & min-bios, just as we used to do with military casually figures.

I think a lot about the chance we had at the start of COVID to finally become a more compassionate, collectivist nation, and how profoundly we were failed not only by the sociopathic greed of the ruling class but by each other. It doesn’t mean we won’t get there, but the lost opportunity haunts me.

Silence is a choice. 'institutional cowardice from organizations that spout high-minded ideals as a shield to explain their refusal to make a clear decision, while ignoring that doing so is a very real choice with very real consequences.' - @mmasnick.bsky.social www.techdirt.com/2025/10/27/h...

“We hate tutorials, we hate yellow paint”. Exactly 30 seconds later in the Steam reviews: “this game sucks we got lost and it’s hard to play because we didn’t understand a core mechanic”

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything. It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in. Long thread.

Lindsey Halligan says I’m not a journalist. But if you think I am, and you value our our non-profit legal news and analysis, you can support our work here: givebutter.com/journalism/a... You can also follow me on Substack: annabower.substack.com/about

Haven't noticed this before! "it's missing accessibility features that I need" given as an option on Steam's refund reason dropdown #gamedev #indiedev #accessibility

"The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens." That small statement to set up the larger article, by itself, says so much about how little our current govt cares about *anyone*, let alone the immigrants that fulfill America's greatest ideals. None of us matter to them.

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." - Baba Dioum

You gently run your hand through the rack. You can feel it—pure cotton, rich wool, Irish linen. The plump buttonholes are handsewn; the buttons attached with a firm shank. You flip the price tag over. It's affordable You buy the jacket and go home, which is only 15 mins away. Your apt is $600/month

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat. Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

Tim Walz: "The biggest myth is that this guy understands business. He's an absolute abject failure at business ... the irony is calling Democrats socialists when I am begging for free markets here to allow capitalism to work. Donald Trump is the one with government interference."

BREAKING: Marco Rubio's State Department announces publicly that it is exercising unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in revoking people's visas based on comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.

My hot take is that none of these are structure. These are all recipes that describe structure. Structure is the Salt, Fat, Acid Heat of writing. 3-Act/Hero's Journey etc are recipes. You can make great meals without using a recipe if you understand the principles of structure.

"Do more with less."

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky. No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

The Brutal CBP Assault Tied to the Marimar Martinez Shooting www.emptywheel.net/2025/10/07/t...

Trump on pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell: Haven't heard the name in so long. I’ll take a look at it. I’ll speak to the DOJ. A lot of people have asked me for pardons. Reporter: But she’s convicted of sex trafficking Trump: I’ll have to take a look at it.

People are always shocked when I tell them it took 13 months for my husband to acquire a green card and join me in the US. People just assume it's instantaneous when you're married to a citizen. It's absolutely not.

HAPPENING NOW: Emergency hearing before Judge Karin Immergut on Trump's effort to circumvent her temporary restraining order re: Oregon national guard deployment. I plan to listen in for @lawfaremedia.org. Follow along (court remote access technology permitting...) ⬇️🧵

This chart clearly shows that what Democrats believe about the economy lines up with objective reality, whereas Republicans will believe whatever they are told to believe by the charlatans in charge of their cult. Democratic opinions acknowledged the pandemic, the recovery, *and* the current market.

Listening to new Taylor for a friend, and Actually Romantic confirms my theory of "pixinization": As all crustaceans converge towards crab, all musicians converge towards Pixies. Scientifically, it's only a matter of time before *every* artist has a song with the Where Is My Mind progression lol

pete hegseth, who you will recall has been accused of domestic abuse and sexual assault, has announced a new policy by which you cannot file anonymous complaints of mistreatment. sex criminal solidarity.

EA is an ill omen for the American game industry and AAA in general for a number of reasons but #3 is one I've been thinking about a lot when commentators talk about indies picking up the pieces. Indies fundamentally can't provide enough jobs to sustain a professional game industry of scale.

Fuckin yikes, man

Your war correspondent on the ground in battle-ravaged inner northeast Portland

Finally had the chance to front-to-back the recent cyberpunk concept album from my favorite hip-hop/rap outfit, clipping. I seriously cannot recommend it highly enough. Elegant concept, exceptional execution. tidal.com/browse/album/446285423/u open.spotify.com/album/7FtJGdO0o5nd9Tw0LiBt3a

Hell yeah, so incredibly deserved for Coach Nakase www.si.com/wnba/valkyri...

i was driving behind someone earlier and they turned without signalling and i want to know what Honda is going to do about this

A lot of video-game publishers spend hundreds of millions of dollars chasing after "realistic graphics" and "massive open-worlds" when what players really want is just a shitload of weird little guys