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Christophe De bont

@cdebont.bsky.social

390 followers 350 following 500 posts

Kindness above all else ~ building the future of sustainable Belgian #gamedev at Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds ~ raising videogame literacy everywhere else ~ EN/NL ~ he/him christophedebont.be

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · Dec 8

Between today’s arrival of @youriloedts.bsky.social and @naominelan.bsky.social joining a few weeks back, this space now features 100% of VAF/Gamefonds.

Grateful to work with these wonderful people every day!

The games team of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund at the Belgian Game Awards 2023.
From left to right: Naomi Neman, Youri Loedts and Christophe De bont.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 1d

If you still need testers at that point, sure thing!

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 1d

Hi Jon,

If you still need folks to test, I’m always interested in what inkle’s up to!

PC isn’t in the best shape anymore, is Steam Deck a good fit?

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 2d

Live footage of Ubisoft management.

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 2d

Ah yes, I remember E3 doing this.

Then dying a couple of years later.

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 3d

Stellar work from René and team!

Use this to get a better understanding of key legal subjects before heading into a pitch or negotiation, but please ALWAYS consult an actual lawyer before signing an actual contract.

René Otto @aceottorney.bsky.social · 3d

Proud to announce Deviant Legal’s Game Developer’s Guide to Publishing Agreements: a free resource for developers wanting to learn about publishing deals. Publicly accessible, without requiring to provide your data: deviantlegal.com/guide/game-d...

An image about the game developer's guide to publishing agreements feauturing otto the otter

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 3d

Amazing work René and team!

Even during a simple pitch, there's so many negotiation power you might've already given up without even realising it, so this will be super helpful.

Gonna share this with all of our supported teams. Keep up the good work!

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 3d

These funds are often staffed by people with passion understanding of the medium, and projects are being judged by a panel of devs from various disciplines currently active in the field.

If anything, game funds celebrate the variety of video games that private investors shy away from now.

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 3d

There seems to be this idea among devs that game funds within media funds will gravitate towards narrative heavy or cinematic experiences, because that's what they supposedly know.

And it's just not true.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 3d

Belgian game fund (integrated into a larger media fund) person chiming in here!

I would largely agree with your first two points, even though I doubt games need to be Large to become legendary these days, but the third one is a bias that so many of our peers have been fighting against forever.

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Reposted by Christophe De bont

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3d

Our Inevitable Future keeps racking up wins

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d

“The Big Four accountancy and consultancy firm will repay the final instalment of its government contract after conceding that some footnotes and references it contained were incorrect, Australia’s Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said on Monday.”

Deloitte issues refund for error-ridden Australian government report that used AI

Big Four firm will repay final instalment after incorrect references and citations found in document

www.ft.com

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Reposted by Christophe De bont

good hyuck, babe! @markpopham.bsky.social · 4d

OPENAI LAWYER: so how does this sound. 'user x' pays us $3 to generate a video of elsa suffocating him with her ass. from that, you will receive a princely 50¢

DISNEY LAWYER: i am going to shoot you with a gun

bort @crushbort.bsky.social · 4d

i think we are going to find out at some point these guys invented cocaine 2 and have been on it all along

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Reposted by Christophe De bont

Dominic Tarason @dominictarason.com · 5d

There have been so many great games over the past ten years that nobody can fully comprehend it, and most of the older ones have only aged into better versions.

Everyone is struggling. Even my freelance writing gigs have dried up badly, and I'm figuring out new options. But the games? They're good.

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Reposted by Christophe De bont

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 6d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 7d

I dislike it for the same reason I disliked Balatro (and probably will dislike Raccoin).

It does weird things to your brain.

Reposted by Christophe De bont

Chris Bratt @chrisbratt.bsky.social · 8d

Pushing my kid in his stroller as we head to a swimming lesson and just been hit in the gut by this memorial to the children of Palestine.

Just a bus ride away from here, there’s a factory pumping out parts for the same F-35 jets used to kill these same kids. I am so full of rage.

Hundreds of children’s shoes commemorating the children who’ve been murdered by the Israeli military in Gaza. They’re displayed in a public square outside a library in Brighton, UK.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 9d

Send it to Kojima

Reposted by Christophe De bont

Brandon Sheffield @brandon.insertcredit.com · 9d

Folks who create videos about games on the internet: I have questions for you if you'd be so kind. I'm trying to determine the relationship between traditional media and those who create videos about games and have never worked for the games press. Sharing is appreciated!

forms.gle/cG3BEkGqwuoh...

Games influencer press relationship query

I'm trying to determine to what extend people who create videos about games engage with "traditional" press as a source for what games to cover. Please only answer these questions if you are someone w...

forms.gle

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 9d

Still think it’s a wasted opportunity as the audience to present those new and interesting games that broaden the understanding of the medium is *right there*

This may or may not have been inspired by many frustrating years of me trying to get this off the ground in my own country.

Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 9d

At one point there was the hope of specialised verticals in mainstream press taking up that discoverability role, but unfortunately we all know how that ended up.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 10d

I think I just saw the social media link that triggered this thought and I was feeling exactly the same.

EG used to do the "but" bit all the time with popular franchises having a new (also to be fair, mostly rubbish) mobile game coming out and it seems like they've expanded that to VR now.

Reposted by Christophe De bont

Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo.bsky.social · 10d

A rundown of Saudi government-funded investment in the video game industry since 2022

I figured it'd be impactful to see all of this in one list

From yesterday's Game File: www.gamefile.news/p/ea-saudi-a...

The PIF already owned nearly 10% of EA, which will be rolled over into the new ownership structure.

The Saudi government’s investment in gaming largely via the PIF, has been in overdrive for the past four years.

In January 2022, the PIF announced the $1.5 billion purchase of esports organizations ESL and FaceIt as well as the creation of the Savvy Games Group, a would-be gaming conglomerate. Savvy’s chairman is Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).

In May 2022, MBS’ Misk Foundation upped its ownership of long-running Japanese game maker SNK to 96%.

In September 2022, Savvy said it would invest $38 billion into gaming. Among its goals: $13 billion earmarked “for the acquisition and development of a leading game publisher to become a strategic development partner.”

In July 2023, Savvy completed a $4.9 billion purchase of Scopely, the mobile gaming company behind the hugely successful Monopoly Go. In the spend-money-to-make-money world of mobile gaming, Scopely has found itself with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on the game’s marketing, to rake in billions in revenue.

In summer 2024, the Saudi government-funded eSports World Cup kicked off, offering a “life-changing” $60 million prize pool, which was an esports record (The EWC topped themselves the year). The Cup lists Sony as a strategic partner and has featured games from Capcom, Riot, Epic, Activision Blizzard, and more.

In September 2024, Savvy CEO Brian Ward was elected as one of the board of directors for The Embracer Group, the Swedish gaming conglomerate that owns the rights to Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider franchises. Savvy is the second-largest shareholder of Embracer.

In May 2025, Savvy-owned Scopely completed its $3.5 billion purchase of most of the game portion of Niantic, including its popular mobile game Pokémon Go

Also in 2025, SNK’s newest fighting game, Fatal Fury: City of Wolves, had “one of the most aggressive [marketing campaigns] we’ve seen for a fighting game,” per Fighters Generation. City of Wolves’ promotional campaign included an unusually large $2.5 million tournament prize pool, the branding of one of the year’s biggest—and Saudi-backed—boxing matches as “Fatal Fury,” and multiple and a musical number in the middle of Wrestlemania 41, the biggest event of the year from Saudi government financial partner WWE. (Despite all that hype, poor sales led to the resignation of SNK’s CEO.)

In summer 2025, the eSports World Cup featured a spin-off New Global Sport Conference, which included a talk with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. During that talk, Guillemot confirmed a free-to-consumers mini-expansion to 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. The add-on will be set in 9th century AlUla, which is located in what is now Saudi Arabia. (Ubisoft has declined to confirm that the Saudis are financing the 2025 expansion, but Game File sources familiar with the project are under the impression it is. A Ubisoft rep told me earlier this month that the game update “was made possible thanks to the support of local and international organizations…”)

Over the past several years, the Public Investment Fund has purchased large stakes of publicly traded gaming companies, holding 6.5% of EA rival and Grand Theft Auto maker Take Two, 6.6% of Capcom and 4.2% of Nintendo, among others

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Reposted by Christophe De bont

Kitty Crawford @kittycrawford.com · 12d

Bluesky I need YOU for our indie game project 😂 I'm working on my own project atm and it's set in the 90s, you're a computer tech, and you're a naughty sleuth who looks through peoples stuff 😂So I'm looking for photos in around the 80s and 90s that we could use on peoples computers as found stuff.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 12d

Would update "men" to "people", but apart from that: zero notes.

eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 12d

Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in “The Great Dictator” is full of immensely quotable phrases, but perhaps none that I love as much as his description of fascists as “machine men with machine minds and machine hearts”

Reposted by Christophe De bont

Raphael van Lierop 🇨🇦 @raphlife.bsky.social · 13d

If your only joy in life is exploiting people, and your only measure of self-worth is how well you can extract profit from exploitative systems, you have twisted the tools of engineering and computing power to something evil and destructive. You should consider recalibrating your values.

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Christophe De bont @cdebont.bsky.social · 14d

You know, for a peacemaker, he does an awfully lot of warcrime.