The smoke on the horizon was the burning promised land

Rather than me pontificate about broader themes - for once I'll cut to the chase, starting with three examples of "I hope you know your audience!"

GDC crosses people off its holiday list
Christopher Dring’s interviewing technique must be studied - I can’t think of any reason beyond searingly expert interrogation technique as to why GDC’s executive director of innovation and growth Mark DeLoura would be so scathing on the topic of teams who have scaled back their GDC commitments:

“You’ve decided you don’t want to meet new people, I guess. I can’t understand that. There’s more to it than that, of course. There are costs, etcetera. But developers get the vibe. If you’re not there, or appear not to be there, are they sure that you care about them? That’s what I don’t understand.”

No offence to Mark, but I think this is a poorly timed comment that obviously doesn’t represent how partners think. Even the most successful teams right now are likely scrutinizing every discretionary dollar they can (just ask Krafton). This is pre-pandemic expectations and commentary in an extremely post pandemic world: record levels of loss in terms of studios and jobs.

If teams could justify sending people or funds to GDC they would and I doubt being judged as unfriendly to developers is going to make them want to hop back on board. Make me understand.

There’s plenty of tone deaf here - but there are further quotes relating to why San Francisco remains GDC’s home and if you go ahead and find them and read them, you’ll only have yourself to blame for getting mad. And I can only assume that GDC’s program will not be proliferated with blockchain and AI programming if we’re all about “the vibe” with longtime loyal games industry devs.

Krafton thumbs nose at specter of AI bubble
Krafton saw fit to tell the world (Google translate friendly) it’s an “AI first “ company, which was the justification for dropping a claimed KRW100bn/USD70m on a GPU cluster.

Translated from the release - the salient claim is AI will placed foremost among problem solving, which is something they are going to need help with if the AI bubble bursts any time soon and leaves them holding a fast devaluing supply of flash silicon. 

The reasoning provided in the release goes deeper than just “humans bad, agentic AI good” - so it is comprehensible that people saw brand value in Krafton being aggressive here (vs my beloved old home Square Enix arriving late to the block (chain) party). But even with my professional empathy on maximum setting… I still can only assume the needs of the business are so dire that these extravagantly high risk, polarizing moves get contemplated let alone announced. The medium to long term risk is reputational damage and loss of trust with many of your players who likely identify more with supporting studios who extol their human touch.

'artless Razer
What’s old is …not new, it just remains old. Here is a solid summary of why a recent Razer ad is copping heat. I don’t know what is more depressing - the likelihood multiple people thought this direction was the right one to help the company’s fortunes, or the possibility this gets picked up as a cause celebre by the nutjob contingent. Or both. 

The spot isn’t even offensive on purpose, it’s just played out and lazy. Guy uses noise cancellation to tune out his girlfriend. Apple’s 1984 it’s not. Many of us likely have worked in environments where there would be plenty “just asking questions” debate on slack et al with colleagues about this stuff. That’s giving it too much credit IMO: let your razor (ha!) be “does this effectively serve the market and product?” and the answer is apparent. 

Phoenix retroed
Brian Crecente ran a deeper-than-you’ll-usually-get dive and sift through the ashes of Phoenix Labs.

This is a topic I’m somewhat informed about having been there for at least the opening acts of their final crypto drama, and part of that role involved having to interact with the CEO and his team. It's a very interesting read.

Executive succession and the dangers of gerontocracy
Not gaming related per se, but I found this commentary by Prof Scott Galloway on the podcast he and Kara Swisher team up on, Pivot, as singularly compelling and appropriate for our industry.

Here, the context is Tim Cook’s decision to step down from Apple - but I can’t help but feel Galloway’s reasoning is so on point and applicable to leaders at every level within our industry. The benefits of your labors have to accrue to the constituents you support - players and colleagues alike. If you aren’t delivering that, who are you listening to?