✨️Whitney✨️ ➡️ GDC

For those interested in the academic research of role-playing games, we have just released our latest issue of the International Journal of Role-Playing (17!).

221 pages of work, all for advancing knowledge about this medium.

journals.uu.se/IJRP/issue/v...

Are you here this year?

The next year, or the next bottle of champagne?

This is, in fact, true.

Your are here! Yes, please. Would love to see you.

That would have been perfect.

I donno, @leighalexander.bsky.social goes pretty hard to.

And all it took was a lifetime of harrowing adventures 🫠

It has 💀💀💀 and we do 🎉🎉

I'm living my life and it's better than it's been in a long time 🩷

I'm Whitney, award winning writer and narrative designer. I've done every level of game dev, including studio head. I've got nothing to prove to anybody at this point and I do work that I like, with the people I like. Happily ensconced at CDPR.

#WhatAGameDevLooksLike

Definitely accessibility has been, and remains a huge issue. It's only getting worse with everything going on. I have no idea how the parent company is going to respond to these global shifts. I do think probably we should be more active in creating and managing conferences for ourselves.

We're doing our best 🧡

This is my 10 year GDC anniversary. Over the course of a decade I've seen a lot of change, and a lot of it good. The best part of GDC is the sense of renewal and camaraderie that comes from spending time with my peers. There's still something here. I hope it can go on.

American AAA global dominance is sunsetting. Asian mobile dominance grows. The world is going through a heightened period of political and economical instability. It's tough out there. But art survives. Even really resource-hungry commercial art that's hard to make.

Speaking only for myself, now more than ever, I want to make what matters to me. I wanna make the weird, unhinged stuff that delights me.

I think we'll find ways to continue to make games. I think it's going to look different than it looked in the past.

Developers, at the end of the day, are artists. We're weirdos. Most of the weirdos I know are queer, progressive cultural outsiders. Many are getting back to artistic basics to protect their emotional cores.

American policy, both foreign and domestic, is pushing the American scene away from revelancy. Private equity and number-must-go-up-ism continues to gut out developers and craft knowledge. Generative AI may not pan out in any significant way, but it's highly disruptive and soul-sucking. RAM is $$$$.

My sense from GDC so far is that everyone is trying to metabolize the fact that we just don't know what the fuck anything is going to look like in five years.

Brilliant Jerks: The Cost of Toxic Performance | Agenda | GDC Festival of Gaming We've all worked with them: exceptionally skilled individuals whose toxic behavior is excused because of their perceived value. But brilliance isn't worth the cost when it damages team dynamics, erode...

Fleur's talk on Brilliant Jerks is a must for studio leadership. Incredibly actionable. If you missed it, look for it in the vault.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Fleur when we were working under Prytania. Complete badass in every way imaginable.

Some people have said "fuck that" and moved part of the barrier and are sitting on the benches now.

Renesmee has made the pilgrimage to Yerba Buena. She is a game dev now, like her mom. Fences cannot bar her from self-knowledge. Creativity cannot be contained by capital.

They gated it off for the rest of the day : (

At least they're playing OoT covers now.

I honestly don't think there's malice here, just misaligned.

It's a weird way to infringe in a valued cultural space.

I'm fairly irritated. Especially since I think they maybe just played a rendition of the Disney theme song? I donno, my ear is not good, but I don't want to be listening! I've been coming to yerba for a decade to hear birdsong and notice spring as a point of renewal in a very tough industry 😕🐦

I don't know if this video captures it, but the live band that was at registration yesterday is at the park and they are EXTREMELY LOUD. Talking is very hard.

That's good at least!