Dom Ford

Fuck Israel and fuck the US for their brazen, neverending killing and warmongering.

I wrote this as part of my postdoc project at the @zemki.bsky.social about games and community, and I'm really happy to see it out!

doi.org/10.1386/jgvw...

Obviously, you want to plan for success. But it would also pay to prepare for things to go wrong. Players will pick up on panic and inconsistency and flailing around, and it will make them feel cheated out of their money - rightly or wrongly.

I hope this can help developers manage post-launch periods, especially when they go wrong. It's a perilous time for any studio: the costs of game development mean that one poor launch can sink you.

⬛ Players don't understand game development. But it's also not entirely their fault. The commercial games industry is rife with NDAs and secrecy, so most people have no chance to learn how it works. That gap of knowledge is ripe for speculation and even conspiracy thinking.

This also means that other players could also be to blame. For example, by preordering or defending and continuing to purchase the game, players 'throw away' their only leverage.

They do not see themselves as people experiencing an artwork that they do or do not like, but as consumers who make a contract with the devs and expect a certain product.

🛍️ Players see themselves as consumers and exercise their power as such. That means that their primary lever is to buy or not to buy. Their other lever is leaving a review to convince others to buy or not.

But they can't do it for free, so they need money from the suits (mainly publishers, but also the management layer at development studios, for example). Suits are, at best, a necessary evil.

Three of my main findings:

🕴‍Players see two main groups apart from themselves: suits and devs. Devs are those who work *directly* on the game (so, not including many of the workers at development studios). They care and want the game to be good.

I noticed that there was research on game launches, on 'redeemed' games like No Man's Sky, but not much on game launches gone wrong. As a fan of the series, I didn't want to let a good crisis go to waste - when Skylines II had a shaky launch, I wanted to use that to study how players respond to it.

🚨 It's publication day! 🚨

My latest article has been published in the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds!

'What went wrong with Cities: Skylines II, according to players: How players understand game development in the context of a poor digital game launch'.

I cannot wait to hear this!

Want to know more about what we owe the dead (in their roles as players), and the problematic ethics of deadpool games? I've got you covered with this new article of mine! Have fun! #gamestudies

We need Spring and Autumn Olympics. An Olympic every year. Spring Olympics would be predominantly speedrunning and other e-sports. Autumn Olympics would be mostly TTRPGs and Magic the Gathering. Both Spring and Autumn Olympics would obviously include curling.

Photo of the book Grant Us Eyes: The Art of Paradox in Bloodborne by Nathan Wainstein, published by Tune & Fairweather. #bloodborne #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Grant Us Eyes: The Art of Paradox in Bloodborne by Nathan Wainstein, published by Tune & Fairweather. #bloodborne #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Grant Us Eyes: The Art of Paradox in Bloodborne by Nathan Wainstein, published by Tune & Fairweather. #bloodborne #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Grant Us Eyes: The Art of Paradox in Bloodborne by Nathan Wainstein, published by Tune & Fairweather. #bloodborne #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Grant Us Eyes is a critique of Bloodborne in the tradition of critiquing works of other revered creators: Kafka, Hitchcock, Adorno, Lovecraft, Dali.

www.tuneandfairweather.com/products/pre...

I spent my sick day today watching Star Trek TNG and slowly ranting about web browsers.

domford.net/posts/exorci...

A couple of updates about our conference playingfutures.today

Deadline extended to February 23rd! Submit your work! playingfutures.today/call-for-pap...

If you have tried to contact us through the website and have not heard anything, try now! I have just fixed the email so it works!

I wish @zotero.org did merch. I need a Zotero T-shirt.

domford.net/posts/exorci...

... Another symptom of our contemporary, apocalyptic imagery: not only do we perceive the past as a catastrophe but, even more strikingly, we are no longer able to imagine a non-catastrophic time ahead."

I can't help but think of the real world today when he describes this, too.

Stefano's chapter in Scholar's Codex is a haunting rumination on time in the Souls games.

"In these worlds, there is no future outside of endless, cyclical re-enactments of some order, established by evil deities at the beginning of times, and shattered for some reasons later...

I mean both! Network effects for getting collaborators to all switch to the same thing, and infrastructure needed for real time, online collaboration.

I think collaborative working has similar issues to things like social media and choice of messaging app, etc. Network effects and also economies of scale (due to the infrastructure needed to run these things) make FOSS much more difficult for those things.

I've been bad at posting on Bluesky, but I've been blogging recently about my (futile) attempt to gradually exorcise big tech out of my workflow. The latest is about office suites, and the previous is about operating systems. More to come!

domford.net/posts/exorci...

En spesiell episode fikk alarmen til å gå. Nå vil SV ha Microsoft ut av staten. Flere steder i Danmark skal offentlig sektor teste om de kan klare seg uten Windows og Microsoft. – Vi har hatt veldig naive regjeringer, mener SV, som krever at Norge gjør det samme.

Vi trenger en exit-strategi for amerikansk teknologi, slik Danmark nå utforsker alternativer. www.aftenposten.no/norge/politi...

All of @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social books are works of art, and I'm so thrilled we could contribute to their library, and to the library of digital game books in general.

There is an actual argument that this curse actually worked.

Person: say, i am alive. Computer: I am alive. Person: oh my god.

The Scholar’s Codex is available for pre-purchase, published by @tuneandfairweather.bsky.social ! I’m so amazed to be part of such a well-crafted collection (the illustrations are gorgeous) edited by @domford.bsky.social, @gua-le-ni.com, @nelevdm.bsky.social and @danielvella.bsky.social.

Photo of the book Scholar's Codex published by Tune & Fairweather. #eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne #sekiro #demonssouls #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Scholar's Codex published by Tune & Fairweather. #eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne #sekiro #demonssouls #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Scholar's Codex published by Tune & Fairweather. #eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne #sekiro #demonssouls #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Photo of the book Scholar's Codex published by Tune & Fairweather. #eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne #sekiro #demonssouls #fromsoftware #booksky 💙📚

Scholar's Codex features a laser die-cut circular hole on the front cover, allowing a keyhole glimpse into the scholar's study.

Pre-order now via our store and download a free sampler. Delivery estimate Q2 2026.

#eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne 💙📚

www.tuneandfairweather.com/products/sch...