Woken up in the middle of a rough night by the smoke alarm going off mysteriously, inspecting said alarm, and a fucking spider crawls out of it. Hello I would like a do over on this evening please.

I've talked to friends at EA who are absolutely gutted at this nonsense. They didn't ask for this. Sure, some of them get a small payday now, but its peanuts compared to what the execs are taking away, and things will only get worse for the workers. This sucks for everyone (except billionaires).

Jason Schreier@jasonschreier.bsky.social · 22h ago

EA officially goes private tonight, meaning: - EA will no longer trade on the NASDAQ for the first time in 36 years - All stockholders of EA (including many employees) will receive $210/share - EA will take on $18 billion (!) in debt, putting it on the hook to pay ~$1.8 billion/year in interest

"saudi arabia owns EA" is going to be the headline you see basically everywhere for this one but "jared kushner is about to use EA as a vehicle for trump administration bribes" is equally relevant imo

Wario64@wario64.bsky.social · yesterday

EA Announces Completion of Acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners www.ea.com/news/ea-anno...

"Having been a minority investor in the company for more than five years, we have a deep understanding of EA's unique platform, franchises, and IP" what a statement. yes, minor investors in massive companies for less time than it takes to get a mid-level dev position just GET how to make games, man

Wario64@wario64.bsky.social · yesterday

EA Announces Completion of Acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners www.ea.com/news/ea-anno...

Luke continues to drop a bunch of truth.

Luke Dicken@luked.bsky.social · last wk.

"Studios that realize the real goal shouldn't be to squeeze the human workforce but instead to harness technology to amplify that workforce's creative reach... those are going to be the ones that define the next decade of play." Read the whole article @ 80.lv - 80.lv/articles/gam...

Louder for people in the back, "Art has throughput and quality bars. Engineering has velocity, defect rates, build health. QA has coverage and escape rates. Production has burndowns and forecasts... The decision layer has status updates." www.productionalchemist.com/p/inever-see...

I Have Never Seen a Game Fail Because the Artists Were Too Slow

AI is optimising the cheapest part of production

productionalchemist.com

The Sheep Detectives is way better than I was expecting it to be. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIrX...

Sheep Detectives - Who is God? Scene

YouTube video by The Age of Conversation: Arts and Entertainment

youtube.com

The best shit never starts with "Because it might increase engagement" or whatever.

maybe: annie rauwerda@annierau.bsky.social · last wk.

starting a collection of quotes like this

I did not have co-op typing minigame in final fantasy 14 on my 2026 bingo card, but I can't be mad.

FINAL FANTASY XIV@en.finalfantasyxiv.com · 2w ago

Introducing Keybound Brawler! 🧑‍💻 A typing game themed after the FINAL FANTASY VII Remake series scheduled to arrive at the FFXIV Manderville Gold Saucer around October 28! 😉

So the brand name you need to be wary of until the recall is complete is Taylor Farms.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3w ago

Exclusive: Investigators have linked shredded iceberg lettuce supplied to Taco Bell restaurants by Taylor Farms as a potential source of contamination in the outbreak of a parasitic illness that has sickened thousands in United States.

Me trying to fill out a medical questionnaire and struggling to find an accurate response on the form, "What is your current method of contraception?"

That feeling when you make a file called “RogueAIController”

Terminator: Who, Me? Skynet

ALT: Terminator: Who, Me? Skynet

static.klipy.com

Graffiti on a sidewalk on a lonely bridge on a cloudy night in Portland circa 2008. I still think about it.

Jodi Pickens 🏳️‍🌈🖖✨@jodipickens.bsky.social · 4w ago

Art question 🎨 What painting, photograph, sculpture, or piece of visual art has stayed with you long after you first saw it? Not necessarily your favorite. The one that lingered.

You ever have one of those days where a cashier asks if you're excited about your new garbage can purchase, then proceeds to open the lid, smell the inside, tell you it smells nice, and all you can think to say is, "Well, not for long" ...I'm having one of those days.

The ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo deserves the same fury as Renee Good and Alex Pretti

I've reviewed a lot of student portfolios too, and while many still need some guidance and refinement, there are a shocking number not just doing everything right, but going way beyond any reasonable expectation. There is some *incredible* junior talent the industry is missing out on right now :(

Robin-Yann Storm@rystorm.com · 4w ago

It's been awful to see principal level folks struggling to find a job for a year+, and this portfolio also opened my eyes to all the unknown juniors who cannot find jobs either. I knew about that issue, but someone with this level of portfolio not finding a job is genuinely nuts to me.

The last big layoff I was adjacent to, my team lost a couple person-months of productivity in the aftermath. We literally accounted for it in sprint planning, knowing people's capacity was going to be less due to the emotional stress of it all. Layoffs have *so many* negative knock-on effects.

Robin-Yann Storm@rystorm.com · 4w ago

As someone who has going through multiple big company layoffs over my career (That’s the game industry for you!), I can tell you that there isn’t much work happening at the companies that had the layoffs. For sake of velocity and quality, IC layoffs are the opposite of what you need.

It's that time of year again! If you suffer from imposter syndrome too, consider that *maybe* that thing that you've spent hundreds of hours working on that feels obvious to you *now* maybe isn't so obvious to others, and you could craft a cool talk about it! gdconf.com/call-for-sub...

Call for Submissions | GDC Festival of Gaming

Speak at GDC Festival of Gaming! Submit a presentation and share your game industry knowledge with the entire games ecosystem.

gdconf.com

This has probably been said before but it warrants being said again: In these types of layoffs, what happens to all the juniors? This industry cannot survive without cultivating the talent of our upcoming fresh developers. What cause do they have to pursue a career this volatile?

Hope is an act not a state of being. It requires talking about and sharing to grow. It is hard to hope but I'm gonna ask you for it anyway: If you're a game dev and have stories of what makes you hopeful for the future of games whatever that may be and would be willing to talk about it, get in touch

In case you’re looking for some way to help on a day like this. uvw-cwa.org/hardship-fun...

Game Worker Hardship Fund

Who is eligible to apply for this fund?This fund is for game workers in the US and Canada impacted by record layoffs & other hardships in the games industry within the timeframe of January 2024 to the...

uvw-cwa.org

if you work in the game industry, i think it's important to be able to work through the shock of maybe just now realizing all your time and labor was never valued by the people with money - and conceptualize how you can work to create the sort of space that actually does.

“There is something about being very rich and insulated from the consequences of your actions that makes you solipsistic. You cannot make billions of dollars without hurting lots of people. And you can’t hurt lots of people without, in some sense, believing that they’re not really people.”

These corporations couldn't be doing a better job encouraging people to unionize if they TRIED.

Just numb at the scale of this. It’s gut wrenching how many lovely, intelligent, passionate, and dedicated people will be discarded as a consequence for the capricious delusions of billionaires. Who still suffer no real consequence. Our colleagues deserve better.

Aftermath@aftermath.site · last mo.

Xbox will lay off 3200 workers and cut four studios loose aftermath.site/xbox-layoffs-j...

i can’t stop laughing at this

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · last mo.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Evacuation ordered for events at National Mall as storms gather near Washington ahead of Trump's July 4th speech.