iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gaming peaked when some mad genius married the ball & string with a cup. It's been downhill ever since.

I'm culling my 1,000+ video game collection in order to help finance "a thing" and to de-clutter the home. While there have been a few games that were hard to put in the "to sell" box, I'm actually surprised by how easy it has been to part with so many of these games.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 10h

The San Francisco Giants committing to not commit to wearing Pride Night gear is one of the most incredible misreadings of "the room" I have ever seen in sports.

sfgate.com

Months after protest, SF Giants won't commit to wearing Pride Night hats again

Even as the baseball season ends, the questions aren't going away for the Giants.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 29/09/2026

I believe I have a visual confirmation of this "Super Intelligence" the White House keeps hallucinating.

William Shatner as arguably his most iconic character: the Big Giant Head, ruler of the galaxy, from Third Rock From the Sun.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 29/09/2026

Upon further reflection I must amend my answers:

James amended his "My 9 Games" list.

1.) Doom
2.) Doom II
3.) Doom 3
4.) Final Doom
5.) Doom 64
6.) Ultimate Doom
7.) Doom
8.) Doom Eternal
9.) Doom: The Dark Ages

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Reposted by James B. Jones

Robin LeBlanc, from work @robinfromwork.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The film is written, directed, and co-stars Hitoshi Ozawa, a legendary Yakuza actor who is a villain in Yakuza 0, who got his fellow legends involved. This was his passion project inspired by one of his best friends, a trans woman, and he worked with the community for representative casting.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 28/09/2026

Sony is soon to rebrand as a concept of an idea, a whiff of a familiar scent which sparks happy memories. They will also announce a new Spiderverse film starring Hydro-Man or somethin'.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 27/09/2026

On the one hand, Marissa Moss is being a little weird in her reaction to people who say they haven’t heard a particular song (I hadn’t even heard OF “Choosin’ Texas” until I read this piece). On the other hand, there is something to be said for the loss of the monoculture in this digital hellworld.

rollingstone.com

What Some Folks Really Mean When They Claim to Have Never Heard 'Choosin' Texas'

Claiming to have never heard Ella Langley's record-setting country song 'Choosin' Texas' is similar to saying, 'I listen to anything but country.'

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 27/09/2026

This is the second time that it's happened to me in the last year. The first was followed up shortly after by an email that basically said "hey, sorry, our system had an error and sent out a form rejection letter to literally every email in our internal database." It'd be weird to happen again.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 27/09/2026

Epic Games is (was?) apparently looking for a Principle Narrative Designer, BTW, if any of y'all are interested.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 27/09/2026

I just received a rejection for a job I never applied for. 🤨

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 26/09/2026

This is a fantastic piece nd, to echo Ryan, social media is a cancer. Case in point: the number of people in the comments of this post telling the woman “no, you’re wrong, actually, our opinions on your marriage formed by a one-minute clip we saw on social media is correct.” People exhaust me.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 26/09/2026

Primetime was phenomenal and Chris Hansen has every reason to be furious about his portrayal.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 26/09/2026

You know how sometimes you'll drop an exasperated "shut the fuck up" before swiping off of a video or changing a song? Well, anyways: so I listened to Taylor Swift's song about Cleveland.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 25/09/2026

A Sonic the Hedgehog RPG on the Nintendo DS from pre-EA BioWare (you do what you’ve gotta do to keep the lights on, yo)? It’s weird. It’s weird as hell. But it ain’t bad.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 25/09/2026

I’m pretty sure that if I said what I wanted to say about what I think should happen to Jensen Huang, it’d be a felony.

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/09/2026

Just when I think I can’t hate OpenAI and Sam Altman any more, new details come out about how ChatGPT helped a shooter plan one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history in Tumbler Ridge, BC. OpenAI made an explicit decision not to report the user to authorities.

motherjones.com

ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals

OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.

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Mikhail Klimentov @leadergrev.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

For nearly two years, I've been investigating a pattern of ominous legal letters sent to journalists by defamation counsel representing Bobby Kotick. That investigation is finally live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwp...

youtube.com

Inside Bobby Kotick's Campaign Against the Press

YouTube video by People Make Games

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 24/09/2026

Gun-wielding dinosaurs (a leather jacket-sporting T-Rex, a Triceratops in a Hawaiian shirt, and a muscle-headed Stegosaurus) from space fighting ninjas in a Contra-like sidescroller. It’s exactly what it says it is and it tries to be nothing greater than its parts. I love it. 😂

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 24/09/2026

Folks are correct to be HIGHLY skeptical of the “Wolverine cost $300M” shit. But, I’ll quote one of Firewalk’s former top-brass when the “Concord cost $400M” rumor came up on one of our last studio calls: “I wish.”

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 24/09/2026

You wanna know the unsung value of studio trust and good faith? It’s been said that the budget for Marvel’s Wolverine was $300M, and folks seem to be (rightly) questioning this. Yet, when a podcast started saying that “Concord was $400M” because of *some guy saying so*, people took it as gospel.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 23/09/2026

Hell, I could do one of these that's just the Star Trek games that influenced me...

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 23/09/2026

I decided to focus on the games I played in my youth which formed the type of games I wanted to play and, eventually, make. It is an INCOMPLETE list, to say the least. 😅 Check the image alt text for little blurbs about each game.

For "My 9 Games," I've listed the following:

- NHL 95, the first video game I ever purchased with my own money.
- Tom Mason's Dinosaurs for Hire, a 2D platforming shoot 'em up based on an obscure 80s comic that just tickled me so very much.
- Deus Ex, the first time that I realized that you could build a whole damn world inside of a video game.
- Max Payne... I mean, my online handle for fifteen years was "MaximusPaynicus," so of course I'd include this one.
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the video game that made me want to make video games.
- Caesar III, the game which ignited my love for citybuilders.
- Zeus: Master of Olympus, the OTHER game which ignited my love for citybuilders.
- Resident Evil, a game I would play over-and-over-and-over with my friend, Malcolm, to see who could grab the better time.
- Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, one of my favorite Star Trek games and my absolute favorite competitive FPS. Turns out Star Trek + Quake III Arena = great success!

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Alanah Pearce @alanahpearce.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The next screening of GODMOTHER is at Monster Fest in Melbourne, AU, on October 3rd! I’m super excited to come home to present the movie to Aussie audiences, and do a Q&A afterwards :D. Get tickets here: www.cinemanova.com.au/films/mf26-g...

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Liam Robertson @liamrobertson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The actual clip of him saying this is so awesome. Absolutely brutal and from the sounds of it, deservedly so.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

The fact that I have seen more-than-zero LinkedIn posts from developers either writing what are essentially suicide notes, or developers remembering their former colleagues who committed suicide after being laid off, over the past three years… Words fail me. I don’t even know how to process it all.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

Donald Trump is an enemy of the human race.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

1.) It lives! 2.) Awesome, dude! 🤘

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

Subtitles, because I’m trying to learn the language but I still want a frame of reference to have some kind of understanding as to what’s going on.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

The only advice I give anymore when it comes to longevity in the video game industry is “never go public, and never sell.” If you go public, the shareholders and MBAs will rot you from the inside. If you sell, they’ll throw you out with the gypsum once they’ve stripped the copper out of the walls.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

It’s barely 8am and I’m already tired.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

Pimsleur briefly made me almost-fluent in conversational French (then I stopped practicing). YMMV, as with all educational tools, but I found it to be particularly effective.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

What is there to even say at this point? Literally everything I could think to say about this is something I’ve already said a half-dozen times in the past year alone. Game devs deserve better than the video game industry.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

Plus, Duolingo’s insistence on using AI is not only morally grotesque, as they’ve sacrificed so many jobs in its name, but it is making the product actively worse. The fuckin’ thing can’t even pronounce “Lyon“ correctly.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

Something that I found helped me, both in retaining text and in keeping me engaged, was a trilogy of Steam games: “Learn Japanese to Survive!” It’s an RPG Maker game where you battle sentient Kana (and Kanji) by typing out their romanji meaning. I quite enjoyed them, honestly. And they helped!

store.steampowered.com

Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle on Steam

The ideal introductory course to the Japanese language! Learn how to read and write Japanese characters (Hiragana) at a steady pace. A full-blown RPG specifically designed to keep you engaged. By play...

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

That said, I don’t find Duolingo completely useless. It’s helped me keep my (rarely-used, as I live in Utah) French somewhat sharp. But it should never be used as a primary tool. Supplementary, at best, and more realistically just think of it as a marginally superior alternative to doomscrolling.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 22/09/2026

I use Duolingo on-and-off (which is usually a tell as to my mental health state). I use it for Japanese. For learning anything beyond base Kana, and specifically on a tablet where you can use a stylus to write the characters, I reckon it’s useless. For me: Genki to read/write. Pimsleur for speech.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 21/09/2026

A whole-ass social media platform dedicated to B2B pod people sharing "that totally happened" anecdotes to peacock to the other body snatchers that they are "results-driven paradigm shifers" or whatever buzzword they've latched onto this month.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 21/09/2026

I've been on LinkedIn more than normal these past several months as I try to help a former colleague land a job after nearly two years since being laid off. Let me tell you: the more time I spend on LinkedIn, the more I want to cash in my proverbial chips and find a thoroughly offline job.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 21/09/2026

Ain't nobody going to call it that.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 21/09/2026

Also, RE: the article's Correction: seeing what you want to see in order to reinforce the narrative you've already settled on is just plain dishonest journalism. It was clearly caught by someone else, but the fact that it made it to print to begin with is sloppy work.

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