korrents

video games

Games as software and as storytelling: how they are made, by how few, and what the medium does better than film.

FilterEveryone, all time71 from 20 people
Group All Technologists 8Founders & executives 1Artists & entertainers 3Designers 1Writers & journalists 2
Who Everyone JKJeff Kaplan 13 DHDan Houser 10 TSTim Sweeney 8 DYDerek Yu 7 RKRaph Koster 6 FLFrank Lantz 5 ACAndrew Chen 3 RVRahul Vohra 3 TSTynan Sylvester 3 CMCasey Muratori 2 DHDavid Heinemeier Hansson 2 ASAnthony Sculimbrene 1 EMElon Musk 1 GBGibson Biddle 1 HTHelen Toner 1 JCJosh Collinsworth 1 KKKevin Kelly 1 NRNaval Ravikant 1 TCTerry Cavanagh 1 TLTobias Lütke 1
When All time Past 1 yearPast 3 yearsPast 5 years
  1. DH

    David Heinemeier Hansson quoted

    Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals

    Our readingPlaying video games is great for cognitive development, reflex training, and strategic thinking.

    Their wordsOf course playing video games are great for cognitive development, reflex training, and strategic thinking.

    ↗@dhh on Xx.com

  2. 6 days earlier
  3. AS

    Anthony Sculimbrene quoted

    Lawyer and everyday-carry gear reviewer who publishes scored knife

    Our readingHigh-end knife steel upgrades have hit diminishing returns, needing far more resources for gains that aren't noticeable based on specs alone.

    Their wordsWe are at a point metallurgically where video games were at the start of the last console generation-upgrades aren't necessarily noticeable based on specs alone. And noticeable improvements require a huge increase in resources.

    ↗Spyderco SpyNano Revieweverydaycommentary.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  4. 1 day earlier
  5. TL

    Tobias Lütke quoted

    Co-founder and CEO of Shopify

    Our readingVideo game graphics pipelines will shift to visually prompting neural renderers.

    Their wordsYea video game gfx pipelines will now just visually prompt neural renderers.

    ↗@tobi on Xx.com

  6. 3 days earlier
  7. KK

    Kevin Kelly quoted

    Founding executive editor of Wired and author of What…

    Our readingReal-time AI video generation can be used to create games and worlds generated on demand instead of pre-built.

    Their wordsRight now it is infinite slop, but it can be used to make a video game / world that is generated on demand instead of pre-built.

    ↗Weekly Links, 09/04/2026kk.org

  8. 9 days earlier
  9. CM

    Casey Muratori quoted

    Game and engine programmer

    Our readingOnce the barrier to making a game collapsed, making a good game stopped being enough: no game gets noticed organically any more, so shipping without a marketing plan is unwise.

    Their wordsIt's it's so massive that there is no way that your game will be organically noticed anymore pretty much period.

    ↗Why performant code matters (but gets widely ignored), with Casey Muratoriyoutube.com 17th of 26 in this recording

  11. CM

    Casey Muratori quoted

    Our readingGraphics have stopped selling games: most of the market by revenue no longer cares how a game looks, so new games now compete with the entire back catalogue.

    Their wordsBut a large portion of the gaming market by revenue doesn't really care what the game looked like all that much uh in a sense that whatever we're doing today is good enough. So 10 years from now if the games look much better for some reason no one will really think of that as a huge differentiation differentiator in terms of sales.

    ↗Why performant code matters (but gets widely ignored), with Casey Muratoriyoutube.com 18th of 26 in this recording

  12. 6 days earlier
  13. EM

    Elon Musk quoted

    Founded SpaceX in 2002

    Our readingMost people do not reason about politics at all — they adopt whatever their tribe hands them.

    politics

    Their wordsThe reality is that most people unthinkingly believe whatever their political tribe tells them to believe. Like an NPC in a video game.

    ↗@elonmusk on Xx.com

  14. 5 months earlier
  15. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    American game designer and director

    Our readingNot knowing what they were doing is why the World of Warcraft team succeeded, and being full of experts is why the Titan team failed.

    Their wordsAnd we failed horribly, and we had the best of the best on that team. And it’s because everybody was too much of an expert on how to make a groundbreaking phenomenon MMO.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 6th of 29 in this recording

  17. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingCrunch is wrong when it is imposed — an executive on a forty-hour week has no business telling anyone to stay late — but a person choosing long hours on their own life's work is not the same thing.

    Their wordsI don’t think executives who take off and work 40-hour weeks should be telling anybody to stay late. I think that’s wrong and immoral. But to me as an individual, as long as I’m not telling other people to do it, my life’s work is my passion and I want to do it as much as possible.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 7th of 29 in this recording

  19. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingOther players must be present in an online world but never compulsory: forcing interaction is what kept MMOs small, and letting people play alone is what made World of Warcraft enormous.

    Their wordsAnd what makes an MMO, massively multiplayer online game, massive is having the other people there. And they’re so important or else the world feels kind of wrong and dead. But the concept that we have to force you to interact with them to do anything is very off-putting to a lot of people.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 9th of 29 in this recording

  21. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingA live game has to be architected so it can be hotfixed on a dime; waiting for a client patch to fix what is broken is already too slow.

    Their wordsYou know, obviously, we patch our games and that’s where we fix a lot of bugs, but if you really wanna run a game like Overwatch or World of Warcraft successfully, you need master level engineers who have architected the client and server in such a way that you can hotfix the game on a dime.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 14th of 29 in this recording

  23. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingA game is at its best on the day it is pitched, and every day of development moves the real thing further from the imagined one.

    Their wordsWhen you come up with the idea and you start pitching it to people, that’s the best the game is ever gonna be, and then you work on it.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 15th of 29 in this recording

  25. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingA game must be incubated by the smallest possible group with whatever technology is to hand, and the team expanded only once the idea is proved.

    Their wordsThe right way to incubate a video game is you have the smallest group possible and you try to get the idea across with whatever technology you can get your hands on, using other engines, using art from whatever. You prove out that idea, and once you know what you’re doing, then you expand the team.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 19th of 29 in this recording

  27. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingThe best feature you can add for the player is shipping.

    Their wordsThe best feature we can add for the player is shipping.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 20th of 29 in this recording

  29. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingScope is a creative decision, not a production one: the game, art and tech directors have to do the cutting themselves.

    Their wordsThe mistake I see on a lot of game teams is scope becomes a production problem.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 21st of 29 in this recording

  31. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingPlayers say they want a fair match, but what they actually want is to be slightly better than the other side — and no matchmaker can deliver that.

    Their wordsAnd the reality of what they want is they want a match where they’re slightly better than the other guy.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 22nd of 29 in this recording

  33. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingOverwatch put too much weight on whether the team won; a hero shooter built today should foreground individual contribution, because that is how people actually play.

    Their wordsSo I would, if I was to redo it today, or for any aspiring hero shooter makers out there, I would actually downplay the team factor, and try to put more focus on individual contribution.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 23rd of 29 in this recording

  35. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingAlmost no game ever catches the wave, so a game that has caught one should be ridden to the end rather than paused to build its sequel.

    Their wordsThere’s this phrase of catch the wave, ride the wave. Most games fall off the back of the wave. They don’t catch the wave. No one plays it or plays it for two weeks.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 24th of 29 in this recording

  37. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingBreath of the Wild is the greatest game ever made: most games become best in their genre for getting one thing right, and it gets all of them right.

    Their wordsThere’s so many things that that game gets right that other games are lucky if they get one of those things right, and are… become best in their genre just for getting that one thing right. And Breath of the Wild does them all right and the best.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 26th of 29 in this recording

  39. JK

    Jeff Kaplan quoted

    Our readingSmall studios are the future of gaming: the genuinely new ideas come out of them, and the big studios acquire rather than generate them.

    Their wordsSmall studios are the future of gaming. The big studios basically acquire the small studios for new IP and ideas, and the small studios grow in. The really compelling, new, innovative ideas are gonna come out of small studios.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 29th of 29 in this recording

  40. 2 months earlier
  41. JC

    Josh Collinsworth quoted

    Front-end developer and writer on Svelte, Vue

    Our readingAdding more content to a sequel does not automatically improve the experience.

    Their wordsadding more to a game is not the same as adding more to the experience

    ↗2025 Year in Reviewjoshcollinsworth.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  42. 8 weeks earlier
  43. RK

    Raph Koster quoted

    Game designer and theorist

    Our readingA game is a machine built around uncertainty.

    Their wordsGames are machines built around uncertainty.

    ↗Game design is simple, actuallyraphkoster.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  44. 3 days earlier
  45. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Co-founder of Rockstar Games

    Our readingA comedy world cannot run on jokes alone: forty hours of humour needs story, heart and drama underneath it or it stops working.

    Their wordsI hope it’s got comedy, cynicism, heart, drama, and some amusing life lessons. Otherwise, you can’t just have jokes for 40 hours, it won’t work.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 1st of 22 in this recording

  47. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingWhat makes an open world captivating is the illusion that it was already running before you arrived and would carry on if you did nothing.

    Their wordsYou know, you were in, you were in these worlds, and you went there as a visitor, and they existed almost independent of you. It felt like when you turned up, the world was running. It didn’t feel like you’d started it.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording

  49. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingA game is an equation between two personalities, the world's and the protagonist's, and the friction between them is where the experience comes from.

    Their wordsBecause I always thought that the games were kind of a mathematical equation. They were the personality of the world, you know, multiplied or divided by the personality of the protagonist.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

  51. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingA video game character has no inner life, so what they say is the only thing that can make a player know who they are.

    Their wordsAnd then how do they speak? You know, because fundamentally, it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in their head; they haven’t actually got one, but what they say is what’s going to make you realize who they are.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 4th of 22 in this recording

  53. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingAnticipation, not quality, is what drives a game's early sales.

    Their wordsI would assume it will because it’s so anticipated, and anticipation is the best driver of early sales, as we saw with GTA4 versus Red Dead Redemption one.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 11th of 22 in this recording

  55. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingGames and film are better at different kinds of story: a long discursive adventure belongs in a game, a short tight experience in a film.

    Their wordsYou know, I think, I think if you want a long, discursive adventure, a video game is better. If you want a short, tight experience, a film is better.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 12th of 22 in this recording

  57. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingNew intellectual property needs single-player games, because launching a multiplayer game on a world nobody knows yet is extremely hard.

    Their wordsLuckily, if you want to do what we’re forced to do and also what I want to do, which is make new IP, you need single-player games. You can launch a multiplayer game with new IP. It’s just extremely hard.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

  59. DH

    Dan Houser quoted

    Our readingA good open-world spy game may not be possible, because a spy story has to run against the clock and an open world needs the player free to wander.

    Their wordsBut as a spy, that doesn’t really work because you have to be against the clock. So I think for me, I’m, I question if you can even make a good open world spy game.

    ↗Dan Houser: GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Absurd & Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #484youtube.com 14th of 22 in this recording