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Scott Hartsman

@hartsman.bsky.social
4.3K followers 314 following 206 posts

Shipping talks, bullshit walks. I've worked on a ton of MMOs and other online games. Mostly helping games startups these days. Also, corgis. Specifically, one large, lazy one in particular.

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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Thankya, Emily! ❤️ Great to hear from you. Hope all's good
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Hey! Thank you! ❤️ (extra early reply courtesy of jet lag)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
As a gamification expert, I question where the leaderboards and achievements are.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Picked it up for a pet project I've been working on this year - Has some quirks for sure, but it made me a quick fan too. Really enjoying it all in all. Love to see it growing like this. 😄
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
And look I know I live here now, but... I was raised on Brewers' games, so, lol
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This seems like an important one for Gamescom folks who might be staying north of the show. FRA -> Cologne itself looks okay though?
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I'm about 99 and a half percent sure we're thinking of the same two
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Right there with you. ❤️
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Ahahahaahahha
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
By my read Steam just made Capybara Samurai mandatory content for incrementals. Weird, but I am 100% here for it
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Okay, that was really good
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Game engines are weird. "I wonder if we can add fun resource graphs" - 45 minutes "Can we pretty please make the tooltip on an object under a popup realize that it maybe *shouldn't* draw?" -
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Honestly surprised I've been having as much fun iterating on this little game day to day with an audience of a dozen friends as I did on big ones a million people were playing. Probably a lesson in there somewhere.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Happy bday, kid! 😄
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
It's at the friends-only testing stage now, so if you are a friend who happens to also *really* like incremental games, let me know!
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
(After all the MMOs, who knew single player could be this ridiculously fun to make? Someone really should've said something.)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
(I probably need a new title/logo too, but that's a problem for another day, if it makes it to any kind of public testing)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Started building an incremental just for fun a while ago...that's almost turned into an actual game? Looking for 2d/pixel art help with backgrounds & boss cards. It's a (hopefully!) charming fantasy RPG crafting themed incremental called The Last Crafter. Recommend someone great? #2dart #pixelart
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Huge congratulations to you all, Brain Jar friends! I think you've all made a real winner here. Best wishes on the rest of the journey 😀 @deadasdiscogame.bsky.social (6/6)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
So while I *may* have given Will a hard time once or twice about philosophizing too much or thinking too long about things from time to time over the MMO years, it's been amazing to see all those early-days of that very same hard thinking and philosophy pay off for them here! (5/6)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Alignment to a great *and clear* vision that everyone's on board with is a (too rare) superpower in game development. Lots of people try, but in the world of "what's actually fun" vs "what's possible," it's ridiculously hard to pull off. (4/6)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
That really crystallized the pitch, convinced the cofounders, landed the funding, built a really excited and talented team, and ended up at a game that's delivering on so much of EXACTLY what they intended from the outset. Probably more so than anything I've ever seen -- It's nuts. (3/6)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
If this one succeeds, and I think it will, it's going to be in large part to an incredible clarity of vision around the game - Exactly what its identity is, why it deserves to exist, and what it's trying to be. (2/6)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Happy Disco day to those who celebrate! Watching this game go from a rough idea pitch, through months of revisions, through building a team, then development, and now to EA launch has really been something else. (1/6) store.steampowered.com/app/3404260/...
store.steampowered.com
Save 20% on Dead as Disco on Steam
Martial arts meets music video in Dead as Disco, a neon-drenched Beat ‘Em Up where every punch, kick, and combo syncs to the music. Join Charlie Disco on a quest to confront the villainous Idols and r...
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
I stick to games on purpose, but I mean, "The Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ayatollahbooth" is gd poetry, is what it is
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
And just like that, Friday gets even better
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
😆
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
We never did get the whole growth hacking thing figured out. Turns out it doesn't mean "make everything on this one specific machine run our game." Alas.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
You know what'd be great to help balance out the RAM and storage price insanity... www.pcmag.com/news/secret-...
pcmag.com
Secret Buyer Places $300M Order for AMD GPUs Cooled With Lab-Grown Diamonds
Peter Thiel-backed Akash Systems says lab-grown diamonds can slash energy consumption in AI data centers by acting as a 'new layer in the data center cooling stack.'
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Knock it off. I categorically refuse to rewrite my GDC talk again. Even if "League of Legends, brought to you by Paramount/Oracle" would make a good slide. Nope.
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Reposted by Scott Hartsman
Mike @mcrose14.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
6’s Varsity takes the gold, 6’s JV takes the silver, and 6’s team chaplain takes the bronze.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
hahaha -- And lord help 'em if they want doors.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
If we could reopen the game awards for like five minutes, the Internet and I would like to nominate Flute Man for best orchestral performance by a singularly exuberant human being
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
I've mentioned it to three people so far and GabeCube sure does seem like it could end up the undeniable winner
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Don't see how this could possibly work without 3 different models of various capacities ensuring that developers can only make games for the lowest common denominator while reassuring fans that games actually use all the capabilities of the highest end most expensive version. I mean really.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Well, damn. Really sorry to hear, Damion
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Wow. It's not every day a game you worked on in high school shows up on PCGamer. Feels like a nostalgia bomb just blew up in here. www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/th...
pcgamer.com
The MMO granddaddy you've never heard of is celebrating its 35th anniversary, and it still pulls in 'a few thousand active players' and needs a staff of over 40 to run: 'We want to be able to survive for another 35 years'
GemStone IV feels like a glorious artefact of the internet of old, still somehow enduring.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
This is insanely hard. (4/4)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
You have to know which game they're playing and how you're going to fulfill a critical need that isn't being met, and effectively steal them by being just that compelling or unique, at the time you're conceiving of your game. Not in testing. Not at launch. (3/4)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
There are no longer huge pockets of people who just haven't discovered live games yet and would love to play them. If you want an audience today, you have to steal them from something else. Quality alone no longer beats gravity. (2/4)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Nothing against the Dreamhaven folks, who are beyond legendary. And nothing against the developers, who are ridiculously talented and truly want to entertain players. This is about where games are right now: Everyone already has access to infinite entertainment. (1/4)
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Happy bday!
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
That got a legitimate lol
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Absolutely every MMO is haunted in its own special way, and I think that's beautiful. (ff14)
FF14 patch note: In Sinus Ardorum, a player could get disconnected if they put an item up for sale between 44,442 gil and 49,087 gil
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
I love this. I use: if everything is cozy, nothing is cozy. I like Valheim invasions or night in Minecraft as examples of how I (personally) perceive cozy: You're cozy because of the warmth and safety that's relative to the decidedly non-cozy moments. Also, I'm done saying cozy now.
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
Chatted with GDC about live games the other day - Talk's up!
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
My favorite genre of non-games tech writeup is "describing innovation that MMOs & live games have been doing for 20+ years" newsletter.scalablethread.com/p/how-featur... (Not to pick on this person - I've heard this same thing recommended as new at least three other times this year)
newsletter.scalablethread.com
How Feature Flags Enable Safer, Faster, and Controlled Rollouts
Understanding Effective Rollouts Using Feature Flags in Distributed Systems
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
MAN. So proud of you all 😀
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Scott Hartsman @hartsman.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
As I clicked this, I'm thinking, "I bet Mike found a funny." No. No, Mike found something much worse
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