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Justin (J. M. L.) Whittington

@jmlwhittington.com
119 followers 120 following 0 posts

PhD candidate, Texts and Technology, University of Central Florida Scholar (and lover) of games and theme parks, yapper of politics Reach me here: jmlwhittington.com Unwise views are my own; wiser ones are communal

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Reposted by Justin (J. M. L.) Whittington
Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Garrett: "This is probably the #1 question we get. [...] We have proven over the years that we [the industry] suck at preserving games." The solution: devs/publishers should listen more to what the community is doing! #GDC2026
"How can companies better collaborate with existing fan communities and cultural institutions to preserve and revitalize classic IP?"
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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Internal PlayStation tool called MetaGen for organizing game development artifact metadata, for reference within their studios without having to share 100s of GBs of files. They're exploring open-sourcing this tool! #GDC2026
A bunch of metadata fields related to Ratchet and Clank.
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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
"You will not believe how many games are not available because of a simple mistake [with rights agreements]." GOG gives an example of an unnamed game that can't get re-released because of a mistake in the publishing contract 🫠 #GDC2026
"How can the industry address legal barriers - like expired licenses or outdated contracts - that block re-releases or remasters?"
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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Heroes III is the top-selling retro game on GOG... and almost half of buyers are under the age of 25. GOG's theory: for younger generations that grew up with Minecraft and Roblox, graphical/technical fidelity *does not matter*, which is a huge market shift #GDC2026
"Why are younger players gravitating toward retro titles - and how should studios respond to this trend?"
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
"In some action games, your trigger finger is disabled if you aim your gun at your NPC allies, making it impossible to shoot your story-critical friends. In Resident Evil Requiem, you cannot shoot the Porsche."
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 13/01/2025
a reminder
a 2 nov 2015 tweet from me: I have lots of stupid opinions and often make the mistake of expressing them on the internet
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Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Anytime anyone talks about the show The Pitt I get confused because I think they are talking about the 2009 DLC for Bethesda’s Fallout 3, called The Pitt.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center: If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.
The organizer, introducing the bear on stageA tardy speaker, trying to fend off the bear as he/she leans forward patiently.
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🦇Harper 🔜 ANE 🦇 @2manystripes.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
we live in the ruins of a greater civilization
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Arvy @arvy.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
I love this analytical take on video game categorization from Antoine Mayerowitz and Julie Belzanne: hushcrasher.substack.com/p/taxonomy-o... Instead of trying to vibe-intuit the definition of an "indie" game, the authors analyzed the data from the perspective of game size and credits length
A graph titled Scope of video games according to Hushcrasher Classification System. The Y axis shows Game Size (from 10 MB to 100GB), the X axis shows Credits count (sourced from Mobygames).

The clustered dots on the graph represent 4 distinct scale categories of games - Kei, Midi, AA, AAA. The larger correlation between the size and the credits means larger category of a game.
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The PS1 startup sound as a lesbian @janus.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
i wrote something about This Place for @404media.co. please read it, and then log off. 💗
404media.co
You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism
Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose writes.
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Bill McKay @mckay4senate.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
ChatGPT: no, going “Azrael mode” can be dangerous for yourself and those around you. Me: I am the avenging angel of God. The time of purification is at hand. Few shall be chosen. ChatGPT: you’re right. Let’s look at that again with the addition context that you are the avenging angel of God.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing. "if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?" did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?
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Andrew Donaldson @four4thefire.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Social media is not prepared for the amount of false info, propaganda, and AI generated falsehoods the latest episode in India v Pakistan is going to generate. Especially folks in the west need to be really discerning & mostly avoid auto smashing send www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
India and Pakistan face conflict again - how did they de-escalate in the past?
The way events unfolded after the Pulwama bombing and Pahalgam killings is strikingly similar, says a former diplomat.
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Sebastian Deterding @codingconduct.cc · 30/04/2025
Clean, simple, important call-out by Rock Yuren Pang at #chi25 on LLM-ification of HCI research transparency & reproducibility matter! programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/pro...
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Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com · 30/03/2025
First Person Scholar, one of my favorite places to read thoughtful and engaging writing about games, is going on hiatus. Here's hoping they regroup and make a speedy return!
firstpersonscholar.com
First Person Scholar Takes a Break - First Person Scholar
Hi, everyone. First Person Scholar is going on hiatus. What you’re reading right now is the final posting until we establish its future directions. FPS will remain available as an archive for everyone...
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Sally Beaumont | BAFTA Breakthrough | Voice Actor & Writer @sallybeaumont.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
I’m seeing a lot of negative reviews on games along the lines of “this isn’t exactly what I wanted, even though it was exactly what was promised”. I can’t overstate how much more joy you will have if you allow art to unfurl in front of you, instead of demanding it be what you imagine you want.
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Nathalie Lawhead @alienmelon.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
i just published... "Why making art matters: We no longer have a type of industry where we can chase financial success. We can only sustainably fail." www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/mak... about sustainable alternatives to existing in the game industry, and the positive impact of failure. #GameDev
nathalielawhead.com
Why making art matters: We no longer have a type of industry where we can chase financial success. We can only sustainably fail. – The Candybox Blog
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
I promise you OpenAI did not "target" Ghibli because Miyazaki said something about a generic animation demo nine years ago that was completely unrelated to any AI research.
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Wolfmanning Skull 🎃 @manningkrull.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Okay you geniuses if AI isn't sentient then how the hell do the Street Fighters know to be happy when they win and sad when they lose?? 🤨🧠
Screenshot from Street Fighter 2 like after a match and Dhalsim is at the left and Blanka is at the right looking all beat up and sad, and Dhalsim's text at the bottom says, "I will meditate and then destroy you."
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
That is a wild drop in the number of people using AI for writing and narrative, even considering all the other issues aura points out here
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Nathan Grayson @nathangrayson.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
big week for saudi arabia, unfortunately
Saudi Arabia, a human rights abuse factory covered in signs that say “But wait, no, look over there,” continues to treat video games as the latest extension of a reputation-laundering strategy that also includes rampant sportswashing. This week alone, Scopely, a subsidiary of a company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, bought Pokémon Go, and Capcom struck a three-year deal with Saudi Arabia’s less-popular-than-it-wants-you-to-believe Esports World Cup. In both cases, the implications are unsettling, to say the least.

Scopely’s $3.85 billion purchase of Pokémon Go also includes Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now, and, in all likelihood, your data. Late last year, Pokémon Go creator Niantic announced that it was using the game to create an AI model that can navigate the physical world – a scheme players scarcely could have imagined back when they first opted into its terms of service back in 2016, but here we are – and now it’s spinning that project off into a separate business called Niantic Spatial. As 404 points out, Scopely is investing $50 million in that new venture, suggesting an ongoing relationship between the two.
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
www.possibilityspace.org/blog-ai-is-b...
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Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com · 02/07/2023
Remember when Microsoft created a fictional toxic gamer (Voden05) to promote the launch of Xbox Live?
An Xbox Live print advertisement: "Who is Voden05?"An Xbox Live print advertisement: "Voden05 said he wanted to meet me so he could see the face of failure."
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Nathalie Lawhead @alienmelon.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
so i really think we have to reevaluate our metric for success, because it being based solely on the financial success of a game… is short of an impossible promise for the majority of developers out there. people that survive in this space understand the precarity of that.
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Nathalie Lawhead @alienmelon.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
look i just think with the way the game industry has no job security, mass layoffs happen in AAA even if a game is a financial success, and then how indies barely scrape by… your motivation for making games has to be about *more* than money. the likeliness of financial success is abysmally low.
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Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com · 06/03/2025
Wow, I hope our Republican legislature doesn't pull the old Charlie Brown football trick and cut our funding anyway after we comply.
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Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com · 06/03/2025
My university sent out an after-hours email earlier this evening telling faculty and staff that we have two weeks to remove all safe space signage and stickers from campus.
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Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com · 15/10/2024
Sunsoft didn't really try to reference Black Panther Huey P. Newton's iconic wicker chair photo with some white kid in this 1988 print advertisement, did they?
A vintage video game advertisement for Sunsoft Games, featuring a kid sitting in a wicker chair, holding a NES Zapper light gun and a controller.This iconic black-and-white photograph features Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, sitting in a wicker chair, exuding power and defiance. He is dressed in a black leather jacket and a beret, holding a rifle in one hand and a spear in the other, symbolizing self-defense and resistance. The zebra-skin rug beneath him and traditional African shields beside him further emphasize the blending of militant activism with African heritage. The image became a powerful symbol of the Black Panther Party's stance on self-defense and their fight against racial injustice.
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
God okay I can't believe we're still doing this but I'm seeing journalists quote this for a third year running so here we go. The GDC survey that says 51% of developers are using Generative AI is a survey of all departments. The top departments using it are: Finance, Production, Comms and PR.
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