here's a photograph of Mervyn Peake wearing a dress around the house which apparently he did regularly

I think ePhonic's Invader 2 is the best sounding small analogue synth VST I have. Always sounds good. No dead spots. Overdrives internally in a pleasing way. It's the closest experience to a hardware analogue that I've had in software. An absolute sleeper and it's PWYW.

1/3 of the game industry has been laid off. We are offering a helping hand. Grab 100+ games in the Game Industry Hardship Fund on itch.io and help support impacted devs. 🔗 itch.io/b/3802/game-... #gamedev #indiegames #costarica #gameindustry #videogames

Rod Aldi wins by default.

It's boring and expensive but infrastructure is the best way to deal with the future. Water companies should have been building reservoirs, but they've been loading up with debt and paying dividends. Nationalise, build, and prepare for this being what summer is now.

Relentless UK heatwaves turn ‘green and pleasant land’ brown

Visible impact of warming climate is impossible to ignore across landscapes that have been starved of rainfall

theguardian.com

illformed, dblue, MaDHaTTeR, Kieran Foster -- remembering the music, the spirit, and a singular part of our community. Glitch2 is free, in memorial. Plus music and other remembrances.

Remembering Kieran Foster; legendary Glitch2 effect now free - CDM Create Digital Music

You may know Kieran Foster by his other aliases -- illformed, dblue, MaDHaTTeR. That's just how omnipresent he was as a light in electronic music communities, from the music and rave scene to software...

cdm.link

Exploring the Culturelessness of Fortnite

'Games development' and 'games business' are two seperate things. The sickness lies in the business side. And it is catastrophically sick. In all meanings of the word.

In the European Middle Ages, moneyed people would grind up pearls --precious pearls, beautiful lustrous pearls, slowly formed by creatures from distress and effort-- stir them into wine, drink it and use it as a laxative. I can think of no better metaphor for LLM 'AI'.

In response to the unprecedented number of game developers laid off this year, we have created a bundle on itch to benefit a Game Industry Hardship Fund, managed by @videogameworkers.bsky.social. More than 100 games for 10+ bucks! Please share widely and donate generously! itch.io/b/3802/game-...

Funny isn’t it? You’d think that if the need for data storage and processing conflicted with the survival of human life, the survival of human life would just about edge the trade-off.

An "indie" publisher that strung us along for months and then backed out of publishing Trash Goblin last minute.. causing layoffs and almost killing the studio by doing so.. is now publishing a TG clone. Wow, just wow. 😅 Amazingly this isn't even the first time I've seen this happen first hand.

Shadows of Doubt is a procedurally generated detective noir where every city hides a different story. Explore its systemic design and visual identity in Indie Game Works, featuring developer insights and artwork. #IndieGames #GameDev #IndieDev @colepowered.bsky.social @fireshinegames.bsky.social

yeah eventually you learn to just do it anyway and not tell anyone. and/or quit big studios :) and/or you're laid off anyway so why even bother giving shit like this a second thought they don't care about you!!!!!

Chris Kerr@kerrblimey.bsky.social · last wk.

I suspect anyone who's worked at a major studio in a full-time capacity has encountered these clauses, which seem oddly self-defeating in how they prevent employees from bettering themselves outside the confines of the workplace—and subsequently sharing that knowledge with their peers.

mass layoffs at Pixar despite Toy Story 5 about to cross $1 billion at the box office. there is simply no amount of money that will make corporations happy enough to not upend people’s lives.

Pixar Bears Brunt of Disney Studio Layoffs as Company Axes Several Hundred Staffers

Pixar Animation Studios, despite riding high on the success of summer blockbuster "Toy Story 5," was hit particularly hard in a wave of corporatewide layoffs at Disney.

variety.com

insane how there isn’t a single industry where being good at your job does anything for you variety.com/2026/film/ne...

Pixar Bears Brunt of Disney Studio Layoffs as Company Axes Several Hundred Staffers

Pixar Animation Studios, despite riding high on the success of summer blockbuster "Toy Story 5," was hit particularly hard in a wave of corporatewide layoffs at Disney.

variety.com

This is how I lost my job, essentially. Major client dropped our contract because they were re-investing it in AI. Suddenly our studio couldn't afford to pay over half of its employees.

Bruno Dias@brunodias.dev · 2w ago

The main way in which AI has negatively impacted games industry jobs is not through actual automation of those jobs or even untrue claims about automation. It's by making capital unavailable because it's tied up in AI investments while also destroying the consumer base for video game hardware.

oh hi #PortfolioDay I'm an electronic musician, mastering engineer, and digital artist available for commissions currently studying 3D environment art and mixing it with my background in collage/procedural/glitch get in touch -> trashpandaqc.xyz/hire.html

the indie scene is basically always suffering the same bloodbath as AAA games, it's just nobody hears about it because it happens silently as indie devs burn out after a single release or it just never reaches a point where there's public awareness of it

Chiaki Mitama 🐾🌭@terrible.moe · 2w ago

"The indie game scene isn't suffering the bloodbath of AAA gami-" You have to understand almost every successful indie studio was bought out by Microsoft or Tencent and the people that remain are either wildly successful and secure or it's Willow, who's coding a passion project at 2 a.m. after work

Sadly, the entire audio team at ZA/UM is being made redundant as part of the layoffs. If you're looking (or expect to be looking) for Sound Designers or Tech Sound Designers, please don't hesitate in reaching out to @eliforster.bsky.social, @missgameaudio.bsky.social and @soundbear.bsky.social

ZA/UM Studio@zaumstudio.bsky.social · 3w ago

Huge change to Mobygames - you can now comment on any credits you've received. Very handy if e.g. you gave your blood, sweat and tears for years, then only got a 'thanks'... (No, you're bitter.) Only for claimed profiles, not sure if requires sub. e.g. www.mobygames.com/person/61849...

'Your feeble humanities are incompatible with the surveillance panopticon we are constructing' seems to be the subtext of each successive UK government. So that's fun.

Rachel Pope@prehistorian.bsky.social · 4w ago

“In a letter to the Office for Students, which distributes the funding, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said funding should no longer be given to support nursing, computing, history, creative arts, performing arts, archaeology, and geography courses.” removepaywalls.com/https://www....

no layoffs are an expression of the tendency toward increasing the proportion of constant to variable capital even while total capital expands

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · last mo.

Layoffs are a failure of leadership.

once a week, 1 billion players should buy an itch.io game for 99c; after a year the entire industry would be radically changed forever

My parents were low income so I often just browsed game shops as a kid. Sometimes mum let me get a game. It'd cost her whole day's wage and a chunk of our rent. Dad once told me to check under the car seat and Pokemon Red was there in a bag. Ownership isn't the only thing we lose with physical media

the dream of the games industry is to one day work somewhere prestigious enough that it makes the news when they lay you all off

This is very true, and the previous agents responsible for building those networks now won't deal with you until you have done 90% of their job and completed 90% of your job.

Josh Gondelman@joshgondelman.bsky.social · last mo.

I know this is not the biggest concern going these days, but it stresses me out that basically every artist/writer/critic is now expected to create their own tiny empire instead of getting paid by any existing entity to perform a job they've worked to get good at!!!!

There's a hidden methodology implicit in AI adoption which, I think, flows from the very top. "Don't bother with accuracy or insight or truthfulness. Speed is the one metric we care about. That's how we do our jobs, and we're the richest men in the world. QED." This is not going to end gracefully.

Nick Robinson was just asked what’s wrong with British politics when we’ve had 7 PMs in the last 10 years. What happened 10 years ago? Of course Nick wasn’t able to say.