Many years ago when I was a tiny baby making InFlux (of which there is now a Redux), I had no idea what I wanted to do with it narratively, if anything. Because, from a young age, he had humoured me, I emailed Gabe Newell about it, knowing he was in the habit of either replying or forwarding to someone he thought might reply. I got some good thoughts back from David Speyrer, who’s been at Valve since ’99, which I shall publish here now because at a party last night someone was interested.
'Who’s Deciding The Fate Of This Game?' The Secretive Process Of Getting A Game With Sexual Content On Steam
'You work six years on a game, you line up press and events for the launch, and then some guy at Valve clicks on a checkbox and blocks everything.'
Integrating Narrative into Game Design: A Portal Post-Mortem
The Press Release Is Dead — Use This Instead – Mike Butcher
I’m QUITE TIRED of dealing with MILLIONS of tech entrepreneurs (these days there are a HELL of a lot of you) and (some) PR people who have ZERO clue how to pitch me/TechCrunch/the media. Their pitches are long-winded and rambling. They ask if they could ‘send some more information’. Listen, I have no idea if it’s interesting or not until you send it! Many just ask me out to lunch or coffee. (Thanks, but I prefer hanging out with my *actual friends*). Even worse, they haven’t read this post or seen my presentation on how to deal with tech media. [2021 update: This is a basic outline for super-early startups. If you want something for Post Series A / later stage startups go here].
Pipe Dreams: The life and times of Yahoo Pipes
In 2007, a small team at Yahoo! briefly changed how we program the internet. This is their story.
What Valve got right and wrong with the Steam Machine
Valve's developers and Polygon's editors share thoughts on the potentially revolutionary new hardware
Blogs recent news | Game Developer
Explore the latest news and expert commentary on Blogs, brought to you by the editors of Game Developer
Blogs recent news | Game Developer
Explore the latest news and expert commentary on Blogs, brought to you by the editors of Game Developer
Blogs recent news | Game Developer
Explore the latest news and expert commentary on Blogs, brought to you by the editors of Game Developer
How to (and how not to) talk about videogames online
Middleware for Feed Recommendation in Practice: How Feed Creators Build, Maintain, and Sustain Custom Feeds on Bluesky
Scholars have long proposed third-party middleware as an alternative to centralized algorithmic feeds: feeds built and distributed by independent feed creators. This vision saw no large-scale instantiation until Bluesky, a decentralized microblogging platform, introduced custom feeds in 2023. Although central to the middleware ecosystem, we know little about how feed creators understand their role, build feeds, and sustain them. Through interviews with n = 26 feed creators and third-party developers of feed-building tools, and analysis of n = 88,302 custom feeds, we identify two creator orientations---utility-providing and community-building. Additionally, creators struggle to maintain feeds that fully realize middleware ideals: they lack granular interaction data, receive little feedback, and lack technical expertise to act on either. Finally, creators sustain their feeds as unpaid hobbyists with little platform support and are divided on whether to monetize beyond covering costs. We conclude with design and policy implications for strengthening the middleware feed ecosystem.
How Google and AI Nearly Made a Seasoned Reporter Spiral — ProPublica
I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users.
Lauren Wilford on Twitter / X
I work at a restaurant that does events and we received some challenging last-minute requests from a client. We scrambled to fill them. I realized later that these requests were likely made by an AI agent, and that the human client might not have personally cared. This felt bad! https://t.co/AJWlxDGIA5— Lauren Wilford (@lauren_wilford) September 23, 2026
Substack's CEO now trying to scare people into *only* distributing their content through their proprietary app, not email. (The link he posted warns users away from email.) It's not enough that Substack's locking in publishers & readers with "notes" and comments, now they're escalating tactics.
1. Recently I’ve received lots of emails from people I don’t know personally, asking for my feedback on their books or papers. They explain the connection between my work and theirs and ask me to take a look. The catch, of course, is that the emails are transparently, obviously, written by AI.
one of the most radical actions the @npmx.dev community took was talking with every single human being who joined our chat server. more than 500 people were welcomed, encouraged to join our open conversations, ask for guidance, share their own ideas, and jump into action when they see opportunities
Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵
