John Hopson

That old saw about how "good times make weak men" is true in the sense that stable times with material abundance create reactionaries who want to destroy the systems that protect them because they're too sheltered and stupid to understand that things can get meaningfully worse. Jason CO @jasonc_nc. 2/8/25 I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much of their overall lifestyle and relative certainty is backstopped by a steady, boring stability of systems they don't understand or even realize exist. • 24 L7 1.8K 15K Ill 399K ... Max Dubler @maxdubler True decadence looks like people who are three generations removed from the cultural memory of polio refusing to vaccinate their children against deadly communicable diseases because they don't like needles and don't think there will be any consequences, not queer

So much of our present crisis is coddled, ignorant, and short sighted people tearing down the institutions that protect them because they don’t understand that bad things can happen.

A 2 panel sketch disgram of a 1 meter tall pod. in the second panel, an oval section pops off and a demonic little face with short tentacles flies out, crudely drawn.

My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

all producers are multipliers on the output of their team. It is very possible for that multiplier to be less than 1

Today, judging the games at the Groningen Global Game Jam location, one of the developers said "Oh, and you can press `F` to call your mom" and so I pressed it but I was a tiny green alien so then mom alien appeared on in-game voice chat and obliterated the enemies around me with an orbital cannon

Headshot of Elizabeth wearing glasses and looking happy

The winner of the MVP Award for Unsung Hero at the 2025 GAConf Accessibility Awards is.. @lissanna.bsky.social!

Info on all the finalists & winners: www.gaconf.com/gaconf-award...

“When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?”

via Minneapolis photographer Chris Juhn on Facebook

The US Administration has banned Americans from *adopting babies* from much of the African continent.

Adopting.

Babies.

What trait do those babies have that, when they grow up as fully American adults, would make them a threat to our country in any form?

The older I get, the more my politics mature from childish, naïve beliefs like "the world is complicated and leaders have to make hard decisions" to more serious, adult principles like "hurting people is bad and helping people is good."

I’d forgotten about that! No matter what movie they picked, it always turned out to be terrible.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful And since we've no place to go It doesn't show signs of stopping How I hate going out in the storm The fire is slowly dying

'Let it Snow' with all the positive lines removed

text: you have ignited a nuclear war. and no, there's no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. we do not reward failure.

balance of power, game over screen, msx (1988) mobygames.com/game/259/bal...

GamesUR Salary Survey 2025/2026

The biggest surprise in this year's GUR Speaker Summit is that we didn't have enough data for the 2025 salary survey.

Games User Researchers, please fill out the survey now! Also please share the survey link with your GUR friends/coworkers! gamesursalarysurvey.com

steam machine: kettle steam deck: the base of the kettle with the electric wire

"ooh! what if we—"
what if we stuck to the plan we originally agreed to and i mentally prepared for. what if we did that

The fastest time to die in a video game is the original Karateka. The player spawns next to a cliff and can die immediately by taking one step backwards.

I loved this talk from @rich-lem.bsky.social when I first saw it at GDC, and it inspired me to push for our own in-engine data visualizations for Destiny.

Sure, but that temporary pain has a cost in lost players. Setting up long term skill growth is great, but players won’t last long enough to get there if the learning experience is miserable. Definitely a tricky balance and one more reason why I’m always a bit in awe of the designers I work with.

Hey folks. I was impacted by the layoffs at Amazon today. If you or someone you know is in need of a UX Researcher with multiple years of experience leading or supporting research initiatives, games or otherwise, please DM me or reach out to me on LinkedIIn. www.linkedin.com/in/cdwheelock

Elvis is the rare celebrity of yesteryear that if anything would fit in even more today because he was super into self defense and being high on drugs and talking to a crooked President and dating a teenager, he’d 100000% have a crypto thing going on

Tumblr post from every-lemon Sep 8 so my spouse is part of a weirdly intense but mostly benign men's workout group that meets at like, 5:30am outside every day, even in winter. they do a lot of burpees and lugging cinder blocks up hills and stuff. they take turns leading the workouts and tomorrow is his turn. I asked what he was planning. he handed me a sheet of William Carlos William poems from a large stack he'd printed. I said "what" and he explained, helpfully, "it's a William Carlos William themed workout." I asked what inspired it and he said "l've been planning this for months."

Follow up tumblr post every-lemon Sep 9 it was a smash hit. a dozen guys showed up (more than usual). spouse brought a red wheelbarrow and they took turns bringing cinder blocks up the hill with it. then they broke up in teams and did a relay with an "icebox" (cooler filled with 40lbs of ice). at the end he opened the cooler to reveal it was full of beach plum lacroix and all the guys cheered. they drank sparkling water as he read 'approach of winter' out loud. he was home by 6:30am.

dudes rock

100% this

Whenever folks outside the industry say things like “why don’t devs just do [extra thing]?”, it translates in my head to “you’re already juggling twelve greased chainsaws while walking a tightrope. Why can’t you just light them on fire as well?”

GAconf, IGDA-GASIG. Advancing accessibility for disabled players. Hybrid online & Archer Hotel, Redmond. September 29th - 30th 2025. TIGA awards winner, CIPT awards winner, MCV Develop awards finalists, EN awards winner, Business Awards UK winner.

Speaker announcement📢

The full lineup for GAConf USA 2025 is now online, including lots of previously unannounced talks - from FC26 to the Nhuad controller, from AbleToPlay to South of Midnight!
gaconf.com/schedule

Sept 29th - 30th, registration at gaconf.com
#gamedev #indiedev

A radio that combines the design language of old American muscle cars and the spacerace. The top is forest green with tailfins, the bottom is ivory white, and the front is shining silver, on a silver stand. Up top we find a single antenna, a red power/volume dial, and you turn the 'intake" of the rocket to change the stations (the tuning display is immediately behind the engine, incoporated into the body).

The Sharp Tranket transistor radio (1960)

Even if the comment is positive, there's a chance of consequences for the dev. Players often draw conclusions from unrelated statements and think you've promised something, and then the poor comms people spend a month undoing the damage. They've already got a tough job, no need to randomize them.

The Secret Science of Games Amazon.com: The Secret Science of Games eBook : Hopson, John: Kindle Store

My book, The Secret Science of Games, is free on Kindle today!

Disclaimer: This book contains angry rants, embarrassing game dev stories I shouldn’t have included, questionable life advice, and a lot of strong opinions on how to make games.

#games #gamedev #ux #uxr

www.amazon.com/Secret-Scien...

"The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." -Paul Morphy

excited to get 'what i do' (my series interviewing individuals about their specific jobs in the games industry) back on the site and this was GREAT, @bentaels.bsky.social has some extremely interesting stuff to say about UX, as well as dispelling some myths about the field