iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Game developers enjoy job security, working conditions, and pay and benefits comparable to those enjoyed by similarly skilled professionals in other fields. I knew that this wasn't so, but until I got out of games I had no idea how not so it was.

0100 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

And that checks out. I guess I shipped something like a dozen games, and I can't think of one that wouldn't have benefited from another six weeks of polish.

0130 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

I remember one of my colleagues at Midway saying something like "No game is ever finished. At some point you just stop working and ship it."

1100 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

I'm sure there were many sources from which I could have learned this, and no doubt several of them were better. But his was the one that I found first, and it did the job.

010 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Not my thing. But not strange. There was (is?) a very popular place in Redondo that put battered fish in burritos.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

DSP, on just a couple days of play, seems like it's much more on the Factorio end of that spectrum.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Definitely. Satisfactory is a beautiful piece of work. But I found that I was spending all my time solving aesthetic problems, rather than logistics problems. That can be a great game, but it's not for me. Factorio is for engine programmers and Satisfactory is for level designers.

110 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

It's a striking sight from a plane on final to LAX. Just a big filthy brown cloud, lying low and stretching to the horizon.

030 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

I was horrified at my first visit to LA in 2000 when I saw the angry cloud of smog squatting atop the city. It was a terrible shock. "I'm going to be living in THAT?" It was plenty bad then, and I guess the 70s were far worse. I can't even imagine.

150 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

I always cite to the Hillsborough Disaster to make that point. Everything that happened there was the result of human action. Large crowd of people, most with a limited perspective, each pursuing reasonable goals in reasonable ways. The whole produced results that no individual wanted.

100 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Better pay. Better working conditions. Far less stress. More stability. Wish I'd bailed on games way earlier than I did. As bad as it looked while I was in it, it looks way worse in the rearview.

060 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Sure. That'd be great. But the fundamental problem is that there simply isn't enough money to do that because game sales doesn't rake in enough money. I did games for 20 years, and the wolf was ALWAYS at the door. Then I went to big tech. Life is just way better when your company has money.

2101 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

IIUC, Paradox is both a publisher and a developer, and self-publishes (or self-develops) most of their signature franchises. From this great distance, however, that looks like a complicated arrangement and I'm not certain I'm understanding it clearly.

130 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

And even this gets complicated. It's not unusual for a publisher to move a franchise from one studio to another. Fans often become aware of this kind of move, and often resent it.

020 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

If the game you were looking for got shipped before it was ready, that was probably the publisher. If the team that made the game you love got broken up and scattered to various other projects, publisher. If the game you were looking forward to got cancelled because the publisher took on 20B of debt

130 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Publishers are often very intimately involved in the development of the games that they eventually publish. It's seldom an arm's length transaction, especially with the expensive games. Publishers are often funding most or all of the development and exercise as much control as they want.

220 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Many times I've been surprised at the interests that catch me. But I've never had much luck willfully choosing them.

010 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Back in the early 90s when I was working on the game that became WWF WrestleMania I really tried to appreciate wrestling. The whole team did. We thought it was important. Some succeeded, or seemed to, more than others. I tried hard but never really got there.

010 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Thanks for everything, Harris Yulin, and Godspeed. He was so good in so many roles, but the one that really sticks with me is youtu.be/rVHR0UPHERQ?...

youtu.be

A Superb Case of Villainy

YouTube video by J0nTheKnight

040 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Normie lib here. He's a soulless, calculating, third-way asshole and always has been. I don't trust him and I don't trust his instincts. But he's taking it to DT, and that counts for a lot. Contrast him with, say, Adam Schiff, a serial disappointment who never delivers.

090 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Huge disappointment that @schiff.senate.gov voted for this. How hard is it to be no wronger than Rand Paul?

020 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

And then you go and vote for the bill on the floor?

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Fair play to her. She saw that prosecution through, from the first warrant to the closing argument. She deserves to take a bow.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

It'd be so nice to get out of the first inning without giving up multiple runs. Just, like, one goddamn time.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Child endangerment. Charges. Jail.

020 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

It's gotta be a cousin of the effect whereby Oscar voters don't respect comedy.

030 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

My first concert. The Dare to be Stupid tour. Tiny little venue in Merrillville, Indiana. Great show.

110 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

God damn. If that man talked half as much, he'd seem twice as smart.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

He is, and always has been, a soulless, calculating, third-way asshole. I'm looking forward to voting against him in the 2028 primary. Gonna do my bit to help him lose his home state.

010 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Fair, and well said. On the subject of Trump's corruption, well done on blocking Trump's stablecoin grift. I was disappointed when you voted to advance it out of the committee, but you got on the right side in time.

100 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

The people I know who will drink the stuff don't exactly claim to "like" it. It's complicated. They sort of enjoy how awful it is, but that's not quite the same thing as liking it? If that makes any sense?

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Feeling action-star badass because I swung the fridge door to close it and walked away not quite sure that I'd given it enough of a shove, and then it snicked closed and I didn't turn around to look.

020 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

If I hear that they've become the kind of network that makes shows like Deadwood, Rome, or Veep, I'm open to re-subscribing. But it sounds like they've still got some hard thinking to do. And I won't easily forget the fact that they ditched the HBO branding specifically _because_ I liked it.

0250 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Very disappointed to see @schiff.senate.gov among the perpetrators.

293 0

Reposted by Jason Skiles

💉Josh Rubin, MD @drsandman11.medsky.social · 07/05/2025

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but the orcas now have two F/A-18 Hornets

574190874234 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

This raises the question of what exactly it means to 'read' the assignment. When the trap prompt is between lines and in white text, it's clearly intended to be read by machines and to go unnoticed by a human reader. It may be reasonable to expect a human who discovers such text to disregard it.

150 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

A Soviet emigre explained to me that this was part of the USSR's pitch: they have more stuff, but we have more virtue. More stuff won.

000 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

That'd be a great story. I'd love to watch it. But at some point you have to recognize that one reason the James Bond people aren't making movies like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that that just isn't the kind of movie they want to make.

120 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

I probably missed it, but what was the work she did that she thought merited a Pulitzer?

110 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

ICE was established in 2003. You and I are both old enough to remember a country functioning just fine without ICE.

1191 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

"our policies have to follow the polls" always reminds me of the trap of letting the focus group design your game. They can tell you what isn't working for them, but they can't steer you to anything worthwhile and new. If you let the polls lead you, you'll make the Homermobile.

030 0

Reposted by Jason Skiles

more mr. spice guy @juniorhoncho.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

the reason i'm being so defensive, HONEY, is because that's what wins championships

012112 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Episode three: still boring. Plus a soap opera wedding ffs.

000 0

Reposted by Jason Skiles

CatWoman @catwomanresists.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

An inflatable saluting Elon Musk for a Tesla Takedown protest today in Boston, MA. 💪💪💪💪💪💪

22599179 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Also: the stuff with Tay doesn't land. This doesn't feel like we're seeing a side of him that had always been there. It lands like a clumsy, hasty retcon.

100 0

Jason Skiles @jasonskiles.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Two episodes in and it's no better. It's still a meandering bore. Wikipedia tells me it's the same writer. I don't understand. How is it that the writer who gave us that taut season one has written this?

100 0