iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Casey S. Pumpkins 🎃 @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm so tired of the expectation that all trans people must be perfect advocates and ambassadors at all times, when most of us are not equipped for that whatsoever, and if any one of us slips of falters or says something in anger, it's on all of our heads as if we're collectively responsible.

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Casey S. Pumpkins 🎃 @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Some folks are stockpiling medications in case their access to healthcare is stripped from them or criminalized, or as we're seeing in the UK criminalizing just going to the god damn toilet, we're facing a multitude of ways life for us is being made worse, inch by inch, and it's only getting worse.

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Casey S. Pumpkins 🎃 @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A lot of trans people who previously had a sense of stability in their lives have found that suddenly ripped away from them, folks who've had gainful employment suddenly pushed out, facing hostile policy changes. The stress of living through this anti-trans panic is a crushing weight that piles up.

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Casey S. Pumpkins 🎃 @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Like, you know there's an internal refugee crisis facing the US with trans people fleeing their home states, right? Can you understand why trans people might be more than a little on edge, stressed, angry because of the way we're treated? Perhaps extend a little understanding and empathy.

advocate.com

Transgender Americans are fleeing hostile red states. Seattle says it’s overwhelmed

Seattle officials say anti-trans laws in red states are driving a queer migration crisis in the Pacific Northwest.

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Casey S. Pumpkins 🎃 @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

There's something extra exhausting about the expectation from cis people that trans people should be nice and acquiesce quietly, when a lot of us have lost friends in recent years, have been fleeing homes or are helping out friends fleeing or trying to keep them afloat after being ousted from work..

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Rose Willard @rosewillard.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

If you haven't seen it yet, the game I have been working just got announced at Blizzcon during the opening ceremony. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXaX...

youtube.com

World of Warcraft: Forever | New Horizons | Cinematic Trailer

YouTube video by World of Warcraft

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Rose Willard @rosewillard.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

With WoW: Forever being announced the world now knows what I have been working on

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Damned To Hellgore 🐦‍⬛ (andrew elmore) @elmore.zone · 19/12/2025

I am so deeply sorry to be in the position to have to pull this lever again, but I just watched my car get towed away and I don't really know what else to do anymore. More details in the update & description, but if you're able to help out or share, we would be grateful beyond words.

gofund.me

Donate to Help Andrew & Savannah's Family Stay Afloat, organized by Andrew Elmore

Hey there! I'm Andrew, this is my wife Savannah. We have two kids, and we're… Andrew Elmore needs your support for Help Andrew & Savannah's Family Stay Afloat

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Damned To Hellgore 🐦‍⬛ (andrew elmore) @elmore.zone · 21/11/2025

John Carmack's been openly a huge dirtbag on twitter for years and years and it drives me absolutely mad how seemingly no one ever notices. I hate John Carmack. All my homies hate John Carmack.

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Delaney King (She/Her/Whomst) @delaneyking.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

This week in generative AI being good for things: Childrens toy safety: God no. Mental health: Nope. Water supplies to towns: Nooooope. Global warming: haha fuck that. Employment: Not on your life. Medical decisions: hahaha no. Judges decisions: nope Power bills, energy consumption: fuuuuck nooooo

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Audi Sorlie [アウディ] @pc98audi.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Saddened to hear that Rebecca Heineman has passed away. She was a true legend and all my interactions with her were insightful, fun and inspiring. A true one of a kind. RIP Burger Becky.

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Ryan C. Gordon @icculus.icculus.org · 18/11/2025

Rebecca Heineman passed today. She was a unique talent, to understate things. Anyone could see that in her long list of accomplishments. But we are not just our catalogs of retail products. She was a force of nature, a light in the darkness. This is an unimaginable sadness.

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Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

If you get to a trillion dollars you should have to start the game over from the beginning at a higher difficulty like your parents not owning a bunch of emerald mines or whatever idk that’s just a random example

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TimOfLegend @timoflegend.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

RIP to a games industry pioneer and legend, Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky.bsky.social) If your unfamiliar, look her up. Her career is like the story of videogames itself.

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tami lam @cuppy.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Absolutely devastating that our industry has lost the incredible Laralyn McWilliams, Jennell Jaquays, and now Rebecca Heineman within a couple of short years. We really will never truly be the same. We forge on in the shadows of giants, y’all.

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dr. hazel 🕸️🕷️ @hazelmonforton.com · 11/11/2025

It's also the coolest and most fun part of the job, why would you want to cut it out!?

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dr. hazel 🕸️🕷️ @hazelmonforton.com · 11/11/2025

AI can't do that. It can't understand the words or the characters it's "voicing." It can't understand your intent and has no intent of its own. You need a real actor to do this.

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dr. hazel 🕸️🕷️ @hazelmonforton.com · 11/11/2025

If your game has voice acting, then working with the voice actors is half of your writing process. It's not complete until you've heard it interpreted and reimagined by a voice actor. And they always reimagine it in ways that elevate the writing, in ways you never would have imagined yourself.

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Xero now with 100% more 🎃 @artificer-ind.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

"AI is a tool." No. Empirically not. A tool empowers people; helps people. It solves an extant problem. Generative AI in creative mediums is being used as a cudgel that diminishes and eliminates people, and the only "problem" being solved is fiscal. Stop validating it, even in passing.

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Younès ★ @pyrofoux.itch.io · 11/11/2025

Just want you to know that when I asked Geoff why he gave the silent treatment to an open letter written by his own "future of games" program (& co-signed by 3000+ industry peers), he replied: "Because that's my show and nobody gets to tell me how I should use my platform". 💀💀💀

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Dianna 🇩🇴 @grlpants.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

We have this man so many opportunities to prove us wrong and he inevitably disappoints us again and again. The decision below proves that he doesn't care about people. He cares about profits. The price of tickets, the sponsorships, the amount folks pay for trailers, features and more... So yeah

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Bruno Dies @brunodias.dev · 11/11/2025

It's purely managers wanting to live in a world where ideas guys write a prompt and a fully-formed game comes out of the machine (and people buy that slop because their ideas are soooo goooood of course). I don't ascribe it serious motives. It's coming from a place of hating creatives, period.

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Bruno Dies @brunodias.dev · 11/11/2025

The thing that strikes me about replacing voice actors with AI slop is that, in the scope of a big AA/AAA production it barely saves money? These people aren't even full time. It's immizerating people because immizerating people is your goal, nothing more.

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Emmurder Killwell えま @emmakidwell.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

"geoff's a bad person? who woulda known!!" yeah well that snark doesn't help the marginalized folks who wanted to give him a chance, and who wanted to give this program the benefit of the doubt :)

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Lady Vean the UNBURNINATED @ladyvean.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

I will never use AI.

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Rebekah Valentine @duckvalentine.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

So not only is Square Enix going to try to replace 70% of its QA with AI, it's also apparently laying off at least 100 people (possibly significantly more) as it continues to consolidate its operations further and further: www.ign.com/articles/squ...

ign.com

Square Enix Announces Mass Layoffs As It Reorganizes to Consolidate Development in Japan - IGN

Square Enix has announced mass layoffs today, potentially impacting over 100 individuals, alongside a broader effort to consolidate its publishing organization and focus its development work in Japan.

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mcc @dryad.technology · 06/11/2025

Trans folks reading this: don't panic too much, the supreme court thing is about injunctions pending a larger court case Cis folks reading this: Try to understand how terrifying it is to be a minority the government openly hates, and they start fucking with your ability to *leave the country*

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Dianna 🇩🇴 @grlpants.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

That's not to say those of us in Future Class are done. If anything, they made the mistake of putting us all in the same room together because together, we're unstoppable. Love my ❤️ at Future Class. As a reminder: we are not props.

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Sean H. @sjhdoesgames.blacksky.app · 06/11/2025

It's important that we name it when we see it. That we say it so it lives in the open. Not just in the way that the Future Class has been abandoned, but the half-baked acknowledgment of the turmoil in the industry by The Game Awards. All of it. Don't claim what you don't care about. (5/5)

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Sean H. @sjhdoesgames.blacksky.app · 06/11/2025

You do not actually care about honoring developers or their sacrifices or their toil. You just want to prop up the names that stand to let you gain. You want social assets. No more and no less. And I know a lot of skeptics already knew this about award shows in general, but even so... (4/5)

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Sean H. @sjhdoesgames.blacksky.app · 06/11/2025

If you're not willing to even keep up an *archived list* of the game developers you touted as future stars in the industry, let alone a notably *underprivileged* list of developers who were supposed to get resources *from your organization*, then you're not serious about that work. (3/5)

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Sean H. @sjhdoesgames.blacksky.app · 06/11/2025

At the level that The Game Awards currently stands at, it is an *active decision* not to support the Future Class, because they have the resources to do it. And that simple fact makes anything that Geoff Keighley says about honoring game devs at TGA into a lie. (2/5)

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Sean H. @sjhdoesgames.blacksky.app · 06/11/2025

Personally, I believe that institutions that purport to support or otherwise celebrate an industry have a responsibility to pursue material action that backs that support up. Here, we have an example of the most abject failure to uphold that responsibility, and it's frankly embarrassing. (1/5)

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🎃 Sp00py Fran J. Ruiz 👻 @radioactivejawa.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

This won't totally bite them in the ass and fuck their pipeline up in a couple of years tops.

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Sam ✨🗝️ @captainsupermarket.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Unfortunately I’ve been laid off today from Square Enix, so if anyone has leads for any Community or Social positions please let me know. I’m just tired and heartbroken.

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Tom, Legally Certified Date Simmelier @iiotenki.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

You don't need me to tell you this is yet more good money being burned after bad. But as someone who's worked with that QA team, I'll say they're unsung heroes who truly play a huge role in maintaining SE's reputation for high quality locs and to attempt to replace them with AI is deeply insulting.

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Zaire @zeestermeester.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I wish I was allowed to be 1/100 as bad at my job as these people are that are in charge of massive teams and ppl’s livelihoods. Omg.

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Rose Willard @rosewillard.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Wild to see so many of these high power executive types failed upwards in life and knowing they will continue to do so. Meanwhile, how many of use work 10 times as hard of them only to be laid off and have our careers held back so we struggle?

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Andrew Carl @andrewcarl.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I legitmately cannot imagine diving into a project without ever asking what the problem you're trying to solve is. That's like the root of game development. So I guess it make sense, since the last thing an exec would ever do is ask an expert for their opinion & actually listen.

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tami lam @cuppy.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Keep in mind that the VPs who make these decisions make many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. That’s not an exaggeration at all.

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Aura/Moom @moomanibe.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

reading about this man and my scream rising to a higher and higher pitch

Ethan Evans went from being fired twice for poor soft skills to becoming a Vice President at Amazon, leading a team of over 800 engineers.

Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans revealed that a CEO he worked for seduced his wife in retaliation for professional disagreements, resulting in his divorce and departure from the company.

After the crisis
Lesson 4: Own the problem

My direct report volunteered to take the fall. The engineer who wrote some of the code did the same. My manager also sought to take overall responsibility. Ultimately, Bezos knew it was my team and code, meaning I had to own the problem.

Amazon has a process called COE (correction of errors), which involves a written investigation of a problem's root causes and a plan to prevent similar problems. I wrote this report and was asked to share it with all my peers in the organization. Publicly sharing an analysis of our mistakes was embarrassing, but doing a good job of it helped me reestablish trust in my leadership ability.

The week after the launch, I was scheduled to attend a meeting with Bezos about another project. I considered skipping it, but I decided that if I couldn't face Bezos, I should probably pack my desk and find a new place to work.

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Dominic Tarason @dominictarason.com · 29/10/2025

The royal 'we' feels like it applies here too. They probably had a thousand people telling them exactly why Steam was as popular as it is but the Very Smart Money People almost certainly refused to listen. Dude straight-up says 'We had more money so we thought we'd win automatically'.

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