If you work for any studio of any size, your loyalty should never lie with a company. Instead, your loyalty and solidarity should always be with your fellow worker! We deserve better than this! YOU deserve better than this! PLAYERS deserve better than this!

James B. Jones@jamesbjones.com · 43m ago

If you work for a AAA studio and somehow haven't had it click yet, let this be yet another reminder that you owe no loyalty to any studio - as they will absolutely not be loyal to you. This sucks. My condolences to those impacted.

new piece up for @48hills.bsky.social! talked about the @videogameworkers.bsky.social hardship fund, the @necrosoftgames.com fundraising bundle, trust, and how workers' efforts to respond to present conditions might help build the future. check it out!

As wider layoffs hit, videogame workers union launches hardship fund - 48 hills

UVH-CWA aid initiative and innovative Necrosoft bundle aim to support affected workers from indie orgs and big corps.

48hills.org

i still refuse to really use this platform but if i'm starting to share stuff, this blogpost (yeah i'm a blog guy now) might be relevant to the kind of people who follow me #onhere. it's about the economy killing the natural urge to make little arthropod models polclarissou.com/boudoir/post...

kinda insane 10k swords got a whole ass pc gamer article www.pcgamer.com/games/i-desp...

I desperately need this TTRPG to become a videogame—it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen

I am the foremost practitioner of sword dialectics.

pcgamer.com

MAKAPATAG 👺☭@makapatag.bsky.social · yesterday

10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN is a southeast asian esoteric marxist-leninist technoccultic tropical gothic science fantasy take on xianxia and spirit cultivation. play as kung fu commies, daoist grenadiers, buddhist gunwitches, digital devil wizards, all against the heavens

This is one of the best writeups I've seen of how executives often treat their own workers who are unionizing. I've experienced this myself and it is as frustrating as the author conveys.

United Tech & Allied Workers@utaw.tech · yesterday

Essential reading for those following the @wikiworkersunited.org campaign OR wanting to prepare/inoculate against union busting in their own workplace. medium.com/regarding-wi...

If you're a rich Chinese student planning to study abroad, you can pay for a private Summer camp that helps you prepare for university life in the United States. One camp offers a realistic ICE kidnapping drill based on risk evaluation reports from 110 US campuses to prepare them for daily US life.

Fake ICE raids and kidnapping drills: how Chinese teens prepare for US college

As Trump’s toughening rules spark anxiety, Chinese parents pay for camps teaching how to survive being seized by gunmen or ‘hidden dangers’.

scmp.com

2024: "All they have to do is release the hostages" 2025: "All they have to do is fully disarm" 2026: "All they have to do is allow us to keep killing them and fully colonize Gaza"

Regina John Hakmann 🏳️‍🌈@reginajohnhakmann.eurosky.social · 5d ago

" Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on Telegram, adding: "The assassinations in Gaza must continue, the encouragement of immigration must happen, Israel must win." !!! www.france24.com/en/middle-ea...

A reminder that the absolute best thing you can do if you want to see more projects like this is to get involved and JOIN UVW. Money is great but volunteer time is infinitely more valuable and in short supply, plus you’ll meet amazing people and learn new things!

United Videogame Workers-CWA@videogameworkers.bsky.social · 6d ago

🎉 IT'S LIVE 🎉 The game industry hardship fund itch bundle made in partnership with @necrosoftgames.com is HERE. Over 100 games for $10+ bucks: all funds (save for itch fees) go directly to the UVW-CWA Game Worker Hardship Fund. GOOD GAMES FOR A GOOD CAUSE👇 itch.io/b/3802/game-...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, here's another zinger from @nicolecarpenter.bsky.social! This week, she looks at how institutional knowledge is being disregarded and undervalued across major game studios to the detriment of workers.

Game Developer@gamedeveloper.bsky.social · 6d ago

If knowledge if power, why are game companies setting it alight?

No offense but this is what every evangelist in history has said about various technologies that then went on to exclusively squeeze the human workforce.

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...

"oh no, don't do socialist things! you'll play right into their hands" - the people playing right the fuck into their hands

I'm so very grateful for PeopleMakeGames giving me a platform to speak about the impact the dismissal from Rockstar has had on my family because it has been profound. We miss our dogs more than anything in the world and would do anything to have them both back. Unfortunately that cannot happen.

IWGB@iwgbunion.bsky.social · last wk.

Listen to fired Rockstar worker Will Masilane detail how losing his job meant losing the life he had built in Edinburgh, with his girlfriend and his beloved dogs Abby and Lonnie The four of them had made the move to the Scottish capital from Australia two and half years prior.

As long as you identify yourself directly and personally with the cultural objects you like you will find critique intolerable, regardless of the quality of the critique or the object

"ok emily wilson's film criticism isn't wrong but she's being pedantic and annoying" damn okay i already supported her perspective but now i'm supporting her character even more

Eurogamer@eurogamer.bsky.social · last wk.

A new petition encourages you to power down your PS5 for a week to protest Sony's all-digital future. https://bit.ly/3TCPnrm

“Bad fit”. Whoooo boy. How often has THAT meant “pointing out catastrophic problems that boss didn’t want to deal with” in my life.

Karen K. Ho@karenho.bsky.social · last wk.

I keep thinking about how often the mass layoffs in media, government and big companies, especially women and people of color, will lead to poorer outcomes for years because the people who would point out potential problems or blind spots were deemed non-essential, a "bad fit", and/or too expensive.

Nanjing Paleontological Museum has an in-house traditional Chinese artist, Li Chen, creating paintings of famous Chinese dinosaurs. These are from 2022 exhibition "From Dragon to Bird" and can be purchased in the museum as postcards or book《从龙到鸟系列 科学艺术化石复原图》

Lemme tell you about the angel of history being blown backwards into the future: The shackles these people have been put in are Hiatt brand, same company founded in 1780 to mass produce shackles for slaver ships.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 2w ago

The use of extremely online memetic aesthetics to support far-right political goals is like something out of Walter Benjamin’s nightmares.

Seems we're approaching the day where everyone will always have been against this. ("this" being Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people, obviously)

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Enten on the 67 point swing (!!!) against Israel among Americans: "We're not just talking about the Democratic base anymore. The general electorate has turned against Israel. This is not just a left issue. It's an American issue. The trend line is unbelievable."

i went there and everyone knew you

Ngl, it is crazy how much censorship of the war there is in US media right now.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2w ago

Houthi strike Aramco's Jazan refinery, Saudi Arabia's fifth largest, inflicting severe damage. (As usual, not reported in US media). www.turkiyetoday.com/region/aramc...

It is really not surprising at all to me to see the same people who were complaining about cancel culture and intellectual freedom now argue for eliminating things they disagree with or don’t like. The whole cancel culture thing was an exercise in DARVO

Laura K. Nelson@lauraknelson.bsky.social · 2w ago

I haven't read this yet but come on with that headline. The study of sociology. The study, of soci-ology.

It's not "anti-oligarchy" it's a concession the capitalist oligarchy was forced to make because labour was more organized & the USSR existed. And it was an option because capitalism was at an earlier stage of development where it could afford to without destroying itself. None of this is true today

Better Things Are Possible@internethippo.bsky.social · 2w ago

Again, what right wing Republicans and Democrats call "socialism" is the sort of regulated capitalism that was consensus for much of the 20th century. They pretend it's anti-market when really it's only anti-oligarchy

Chris Bratt@chrisbratt.bsky.social · 2w ago

Back in October, Rockstar Games fired 34 employees for alleged gross misconduct. The severity of these firings could have spelled the end for a burgeoning union effort that was underway, but it didn't. In fact, the union is now *bigger* than it's ever been before. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym4z...

I'm helping organize this jam! It starts in January, but we're putting in on your radar in advance 👀

United Videogame Workers-CWA@videogameworkers.bsky.social · 2w ago

We will be running our Union-Made Game Jam again in 2027 during the month of January! Sign ups are now open:

"The games industry will never unionize" even the gaming-related YouTubers are unionizing!

Aftermath@aftermath.site · 2w ago

Workers behind immensely popular Game Theorists YouTube channel will get their union, with or without MatPat's help aftermath.site/game-theorists...

No devs, no games. We are the ones that make the games, and we will fight for every developer hit by these layoffs.