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Bryant Francis
@bryantfrancis.me
3.8K followers 570 following 5.3K posts
Writer: Zephon, Endless Space 2 ([email protected])
Senior Editor: Game Developer ([email protected])
Otherwise: There’s a better world out there. Still looking for it.
Portfolio: www.bryantfrancis.me
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bryantfrancis.me
Bryant Francis @bryantfrancis.me · Oct 17
Hi new followers!!! You might know that I'm senior editor at Game Developer, but did you also know I'm writing for Proxy Studios' 4X strategy game Zephon?

It's out on November 8, and you can wishlist it now to buy on day one!

store.steampowered.com/news/app/148...
ZEPHON - Steam News Hub
Updates, events, and news from the developers of ZEPHON.
store.steampowered.com
Reposted by Bryant Francis
kchironis.bsky.social
😈 Maleficent, the evil queen, had her goblins searching for Sleeping Beauty for 16 years.

🛑 BUT…. they were looking for a baby the whole time. Acceptance criteria fail!

🧠 This is why it’s so important for villains to leverage AGILE practices. Don’t let this become your team. My new ecourse will
November 25, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
quinnae.com
Hey gang, guess what my next Liberal Currents essay is going to tackle?

Yes, the supposed genius and success of the "they/them" ad has been wildly overstated in one of the most degrading exercises in elite confirmation bias I've seen in a while. And it was worse than I thought. Stay tuned!
sky.skymarchini.net Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 12h
Just apropos of some ongoing discourse, I think the political class is describing way more salient to the “Kamala is for they them” ad then is actually warranted
November 25, 2025 at 4:34 AM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
andreapitzer.bsky.social
He's also confusing what historians do with journalism. You don't get to cancel actual day-to-day reporting just because the guy will probably be around a long time.
iansociologo.bsky.social Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 14h
Really is an awful article. A total PR piece.

www.semafor.com/article/11/2...
November 25, 2025 at 2:52 AM
bryantfrancis.me
Yeah good list, feels earnest for someone who grew up with the original films.
danlehner.bsky.social paul khruangbin (Dan Lehner) @danlehner.bsky.social · 23h
haven’t seen ROS or Solo but this seems like a pretty ball-knowing list from Pritzker, particularly if he volunteered the name “Star Wars” rather than “A New Hope”
So, we asked Pritzker to weigh in on the go-to debate for every "Star Wars" nerd: Which movies are the best? Here's his ranking of the 11 major films in the series: 1. "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) 2. "Star Wars" (1977) 3. "Return of the Jedi" (1983) 4. "Rogue One" (2016) 5. "The Last Jedi" (2017) 6. "Revenge of the Sith" (2005) 7. "The Force Awakens" (2015) 8. "Solo" (2018) 9. "The Phantom Menace" (1999) 10. "Attack of the Clones" (2002) 11. "The Rise of Skywalker" (2019)
November 24, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
sarahthebeef.bsky.social
Attention PR pros and video game friends! I'll be in downtown LA attending Game Awards festivities next month. Got a cool event happening? I wanna be there! Want to hang out/hug/high five? Please let me know!
November 24, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
rcmacleod.bsky.social
For Aftermath, @alyssamerc.bsky.social spoke with the Sucker Punch dev fired over Charlie Kirk comments and others, who highlighted the unique way the backlash played out in games
“If we as an industry got better about realizing when harassment is happening and standing up as a block, maybe this wouldn’t stop harassment, but there would be much more hesitation to do it,” the anonymous Sucker Punch employee said. “I know within our studio there’s this mentality of ‘don’t feed the trolls, there’s going to be harassment, there’s going to be people on the fringes trying to nibble at you…just ignore them,” they continued. “But that comes from an era of the internet where everyone was on forums in these siloed communities that were moderated, and you would have a lone actor enter a community and try to agitate people, and everyone would starve them of attention, or the moderators would put them in their little bubble. But that’s not how the internet works anymore, it’s people with global reach, an agitator that has millions of followers, and they use coded language and dog whistles and speak in a way that lets them shirk accountability and responsibility.”
November 24, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
carlivelocci.com
After years of a fiction creative block so deep that I'm working on it in therapy, I hand wrote 3 1/2 pages of a story and did some worldbuilding please clap
November 24, 2025 at 8:26 PM
bryantfrancis.me
Roblox and Discord face civil lawsuits for exposing children to predators, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act may protect them.

Talked to the plaintiffs’ lawyers and @eff.org about the legal theories at play—and what implications they have for online games.
November 24, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
carlivelocci.com
Help me out my family is starving
qtlibrary.org QT Library @qtlibrary.org · 22h
Are there queer and trans books that are strictly "Thanksgiving" in the way that "Addams Family Values" is a Thanksgiving movie? We have 3,000+ books but don't catalog them by holiday
November 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
edzitron.com
oh you GOD DAMN THINK?
Any of these things could get a business into trouble. If many companies are making the same mistake at the same time, it could set off a larger reckoning. What if the entire AI industry is less profitable than it appears, holding loans that are riskier than they seem, and facing bigger future capital costs than it’s acknowledging?
November 24, 2025 at 6:09 PM
bryantfrancis.me
Got fired from an office PA gig on Mad Men and things got out of hand 🤷
recursecenter.bsky.social Recurse Center @recursecenter.bsky.social · 13d
What’s the lore behind choosing your career path ?
November 23, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
marioprime.bsky.social
Reality is that TGA is designed to honor AAA games and there aren’t AAA puzzle games. It’s kind of like how there’s an “action adventure” category that is designed to keep out indie adventure games that don’t rely on combat.
November 22, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
jortsthecat.bsky.social
It’s ok you can say it
trump, labeled “cats” is smiling up at mamdani, labeled “eating tape”
November 22, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
officialgdc.bsky.social
🚨 SESSION ALERT 🚨
'Pacific Drive' Under the Hood: Survival Fundamentals, Systems Design, and Speeding Past Tropes

Join Seth Rosen and learn how his team used sound fundamentals to break formulas, avoid tropes, and create broad appeal through theme & setting.

Register today! https://bit.ly/47D3uBA
November 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
bryantfrancis.me
I was raking leaves for one hour wtf do you mean Trump loves Mamdani
November 21, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
unburntwitch.com
I wonder if tech creeps are gonna do what the automotive industry did when they invented the crime of jaywalking to shift the blame for safety issues onto the public
themountaingoats.bsky.social the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 3d
re: roblox dude's interview crashout. the thing he wants to say but can't is "at scale, kids are gonna get hurt. that is the price for scale." the thing nobody wants to say out loud is "maybe scaling to a level where harm isn't manageable is bad, and scale should be contained"
November 21, 2025 at 8:14 PM
bryantfrancis.me
If you think gambling odds that can be manipulated are the best way to predict the future then I think your brain might be literally cooked.
austinwalker.bsky.social austin_walker @austinwalker.bsky.social · 3d
There's a lot to say about the Roblox CEO interview, and the right place to start is definitely his answers on children's safety, because that's kind of the fire that is hottest and closest.

However, I have to also say, the polymarket stuff is real 'summation of our neoliberal dumpster fire' shit.
Newton: Wait, where are you on Polymarket? Baszucki: So I assume you are both big fans. Newton: We’ve talked a lot about prediction markets on the show. Roose: Yup. Baszucki: So, I don’t know if you had the experience, independent of political party or anything, just a real-time science experiment. On election night, I had four screens, like journalists of all journalists, and like, how do I quickly go from journalist to journalist? And then with my family, we were watching Polymarket as well, and we were comparing Polymarket to the comments of all the journalists. And I do think Polymarket was coming through, like, 30 to 45 minutes ahead of them. And, like, it was an interesting thought experiment to see, like, OK, we’re at 86 percent here, whether you like or dislike the way it was going, and then see various journalists, like, say different things. Newton: Yeah, so you think this is becoming a really interesting signal to understanding what’s happening in the world right now? Baszucki: I think, mathematically, there’s the notion that prediction markets, if they’re liquid and transparent, capture, in a way, all of the world’s information and every signal. And if there is one election counter way out in the corner in some weird county that knows it’s going to go this way, if they could go bet $10,000, like, that’s gonna nudge the thing and make the information more perfect. So, I’m a huge fan of that.
November 21, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
austinwalker.bsky.social
There's a lot to say about the Roblox CEO interview, and the right place to start is definitely his answers on children's safety, because that's kind of the fire that is hottest and closest.

However, I have to also say, the polymarket stuff is real 'summation of our neoliberal dumpster fire' shit.
Newton: Wait, where are you on Polymarket? Baszucki: So I assume you are both big fans. Newton: We’ve talked a lot about prediction markets on the show. Roose: Yup. Baszucki: So, I don’t know if you had the experience, independent of political party or anything, just a real-time science experiment. On election night, I had four screens, like journalists of all journalists, and like, how do I quickly go from journalist to journalist? And then with my family, we were watching Polymarket as well, and we were comparing Polymarket to the comments of all the journalists. And I do think Polymarket was coming through, like, 30 to 45 minutes ahead of them. And, like, it was an interesting thought experiment to see, like, OK, we’re at 86 percent here, whether you like or dislike the way it was going, and then see various journalists, like, say different things. Newton: Yeah, so you think this is becoming a really interesting signal to understanding what’s happening in the world right now? Baszucki: I think, mathematically, there’s the notion that prediction markets, if they’re liquid and transparent, capture, in a way, all of the world’s information and every signal. And if there is one election counter way out in the corner in some weird county that knows it’s going to go this way, if they could go bet $10,000, like, that’s gonna nudge the thing and make the information more perfect. So, I’m a huge fan of that.
November 21, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
gamedeveloper.bsky.social
Bekah Saltsman breaks down indie marketing essentials - GDC Side Quest
Bekah Saltsman breaks down indie marketing essentials - GDC Side Quest
In this premiere episode Elderkin quizzes Finji CEO Bekah Saltsman not just about what indies need to know to survive the modern marketing landscape—but why they need to pay attention to it.
www.gamedeveloper.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:47 PM
bryantfrancis.me
This is a BIZARRE interview
November 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
hannahrkeyser.bsky.social
For CNN I'm looking to talk to young men (feel free to interpret "young" broadly) who are actively sports betting sober—as in, you made a conscious decision to abstain for your wellbeing or you quit gambling—but are still sports fans. If that's you: Hannah[dot]keyser[at]cnn[dot]com
November 21, 2025 at 3:46 PM
bryantfrancis.me
Top comment in this Reddit thread is “Adding the three fifths compromise to stellaris is crazy work ngl.” 😆🫠
From the Stellaris community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Stellaris community
www.reddit.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:30 PM
bryantfrancis.me
Holy fuck The Diplomat season 3 is so so so good this show has TEETH
Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell in The Diplomat.
November 21, 2025 at 3:12 AM
bryantfrancis.me
damn
Olivia Nuzzi's Nine Lives
How many sins can one career survive?
www.discourseblog.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Reposted by Bryant Francis
officialgdc.bsky.social
Almost two thirds (64%) of respondents said they support the unionization of game industry workers. Check out these insights and more in the complete report!

Download now: https://bit.ly/49lxpzI

#GameDev #SalaryReport #GDC2025 #GameIndustry #PayEquity
November 20, 2025 at 11:00 PM