Zenity

Freelance gameplay programmer, currently @gunjamgame. Previously Islands of Nyne, Fearless Fantasy. OOP was a mistake.

[thomasmahler @thomasmahler]

One thing I’ve always found strange is how much the conversation around games has shifted over the last 10–20 years.

It used to be about the games themselves. Which game was better? Which studio was more creative? Which ideas pushed the medium forward?

Now so much of the discussion seemingly only revolves around metrics: Daily active users, player counts, revenue, earnings reports, market share.

And I often wonder: Why do actual players care about any of that?

Most of the time, these numbers are discussed without any real understanding of the business behind them. People compare DAU numbers between live-service games and packaged products as if they’re measuring the same thing, when in reality they’re often completely different businesses with completely different goals.

What’s even stranger is that many indie developers have adopted the same mindset.

You’ll see some indie devs on their third or fourth game breaking down exactly how much money each project made, analyzing every chart and revenue graph. And when they talk about their games, it sometimes feels like they’re talking about stocks rather than things they spent years creating. Things they and their team was truly in love with.

I’ve always believed that every game you release should basically be an extension of yourself. That thing you’ve worked on is your baby, so you better make sure you treat it with the love and care it deserves.

If you do it right, that game becomes part of your legacy. Many years later, people will still associate it with you. That means releasing something shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Gamers are an incredibly demanding audience. They already have access to thousands of excellent games, many of them available at heavily discounted prices. Simply making ‘another one of those’ isn’t enough.

So shouldn’t our focus be on creating experiences that feel genuinely new? On pushing genres forward? On making something that leaves an impression on people?

The business side matters. Of course it does.

But I think too many developers start optimizing for metrics before they’ve created something actually worth measuring.

At the end of the day, the studios and creators that tend to endure are the ones that make products people genuinely love. The ones that solve problems, move the medium forward, and create experiences that stay with players long after they’ve put the controller down.

If I’m going to spend years of my life making something, I’d rather it have an impact on people than look good on a spreadsheet.

If you love what you do, the numbers ought to just be a side-effect.

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

Please don’t use this!

do not use the free bot to search over 85+M papers. Please ignore that you funded the research with your taxes, the authors paid $3,000 to publish it, and the peer reviewers worked for free. Please subscribe at $40 per article so Elsevier can keep its margins.

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[Zenity @Zenity07]

@vkrajacic It’s funny how he tells his bubble what they want to hear about how AI just tells you what you want to hear.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@ThePrimeagen Should have called it claude-4-6-opus-shit-hit-the-fan

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@nafonsopt Similar to how it shifted when people stopped using punch cards or assembly language (which is still useful knowledge to have though, like I assume programming knowledge will always be)

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@nafonsopt It's not even that I don't want or like it, it's just never been the primary motivator. I see your point, programmers working to erase programming is ironic. Personally I don't even see this as the end result of AI. More like a paradigm shift in what programming really is.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@tsoding @MickeySteamboat @marcosdanix Literally my favorite 3D look right now is intentional low res with high quality lighting and textures. The brain fills in so much detail for the pixels, it's amazing. It performs well and is easy to create. I don't understand why this style isn't more popular yet for indie games

[Synth Potato🥔 @SynthPotato]

Hideo Kojima re-wrote the story of Death Stranding 2 because too many people liked it.

"I’m going to be very honest, we have been testing the game with players and the results are too good. They like it too much. That means something is wrong; we have to change something." Kojima told Woodkid half-way through production

Kojima then "changed stuff in the script and the way some crucial stuff happens in the game", because he was afraid it wasn't "polarising enough and not triggering enough emotions".

"If everyone likes it, it means it’s mainstream. It means it’s conventional. It means it’s already pre-digested for people to like it. And I don’t want that. I want people to end up liking things they didn’t like when they first encountered it, because that’s where you really end up loving something."

Honestly I fully respect Kojima for having the courage to do something like this, we need more artists in this industry who take more risks and don't make brand-safe products meant target everyone.

A game for everyone is a game for no one.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@PlayRematch About half of the games in SEA region have consistent high packet loss and are very laggy, the other half is perfectly fine. Something very strange is going on there, please look into it.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@fistandilus12 @Pirat_Nation I will not ever pay for a social media service that is designed to steal my time as much as possible. The time I spend on it is not value, it’s the opposite. Respect my time and I will happily pay for the service.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@joshm That's cool, but Arc solved tab paralysis for me and I can't live without that anymore. With Arc(Win) becoming increasingly unusable, you force me to switch to Zen. I hope by the time you catch up again, you'll think of robust import from Zen if you want some of us to return.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@That_guy101x @fuckgrimlabs @ianzelbo @browsercompany I meant "tinker" of course, but it may have been a freudian slip.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@That_guy101x @fuckgrimlabs @ianzelbo @browsercompany One of the selling points of Arc for me is that it "just works" and doesn't require me to thinker. Eventually I might have to, but I really don't like it. Right now Zen isn't very usable for me yet because I have two screens with different DPI scales and Zen doesn't adjust to it.

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@That_guy101x @fuckgrimlabs @ianzelbo @browsercompany They do have the best name for a browser though... I hope eventually it will live up to it!

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@That_guy101x @fuckgrimlabs @ianzelbo @browsercompany I’m really trying to like it, but so far it isn’t very “zen” for me at all. So much is in the little details of design, which Arc mostly got right. Hopefully now that Arc is essentially dead, more developers will shamelessly copy the concept…

[Zenity @Zenity07]

@JamesRLandrum @slimjimmy @cmuratori Clean Code is not about writing clean code. It’s a very opinionated way of writing code that often does more harm than good. I really despise things that are deceptively named to make it difficult to criticize. “What, you want messy code?” No.

[Vjekoslav Krajačić @vkrajacic]

File Pilot, a modern and fast file explorer, is officially out in public beta!
https://t.co/v4OY47UD4h

After 3 years of development and hard work, it's finally in your hands!
A huge thank you to everyone who helped in any way throughout this journey!

[Scott Manley @DJSnM]

NVIDIA are pushing a graphics future where the GPU renders at low resolution and uses AI to interpolate more detail.

This is basically what we did as kids in the 80’s, the graphics were blocky but our own neurons imagined detail that wasn’t there.