Chacko Sonny

I am the worst networker in the world. I have no idea why anyone enjoys making small talk with strangers. On the other hand, I love talking to people about my favorite things and I’m here at GDC all week. Here's what I really want to talk to you about: - 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆. Even after two decades working in games user research, I’m still fascinated by the ways players find to fix or ruin their own game experiences. Please tell me all the weird things your players are doing and let’s brainstorm about what they mean. - 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗽 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵. I don’t think it’s an overstatement that GenAI is an existential threat to my entire profession. We’re in an adapt-or-die moment, and I want to hear about how your research is changing, what’s working, and what problems still need solutions. - 𝟭𝟳𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴. Look, it’s a big conference, there’s got to be one person who’d like to nerd out about Lorenz de Rada and Figueyredo with me. If any of these sound like your kind of thing, I'd genuinely love to talk to you — ping me here or on the GDC app and let's make it happen. #GDC #gamesUX #UXR #gamesUR #Games #Fencing

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90 sec of bridges snapping and skyscrapers folding - Battlefield 6 just shouted “destruction is back.” (Great timing: not long since my last post asking where the big physics went, EA drops this trailer! 🔥🔥🔥) The new cinematic teaser (dropped 10 hours ago) shows Manhattan under fire, the Brooklyn Bridge collapsing, and tower interiors peeling apart - then flashes an October launch. We haven’t seen raw gameplay, but three signals suggest full-map destruction is more than trailer flair: 1. No last-gen consoles: Press text lists only PS5, XS X/S, and PC → fewer hardware shackles, bigger physics budget. 2. Four studios, one brief: DICE ▸ Criterion ▸ Motive ▸ Ripple Effect are co-developing; leaks say a “BF Labs” unit has rebuilt destruction tech for 18 months. 3. Marketing leads with rubble: Headlines and social cuts push toppled buildings over flashy gun skins - EA clearly wants “blow it up” top of mind. If October hits and the physics match the hype, this could be the franchise’s first true everything-breaks moment since Bad Company 2. What are your thoughts? #Battlefield6 #DestructibleEnvironments #FPS

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Sometimes smaller scope makes better games I read a great interview about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 where the director said something that really stuck with me: if the team had a AAA-sized budget or scope, the game might have been worse. The reason was simple. Restraint shaped the experience. They didn’t pad out the runtime just to make it feel “bigger,” and because of that, the game found its focus. As a producer, I think about that a lot. Scope, budget, and scale can all become distractions if they aren’t aligned to intent. Bigger teams don’t always mean clearer vision. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a project is protect its boundaries so the team can actually breathe and create. There’s a lot of pressure in games to always be “more.” More features, more content, more hours. But sometimes the best outcomes come from less. From being selective. From letting the work stay small enough to stay honest. The real challenge isn’t expansion. It’s knowing when to stop. #GameDevelopment #ProductionLeadership #CreativeDiscipline #DesignPhilosophy #IndieDev #AAA #ScopeManagement #ClarityOverScale https://lnkd.in/gqTibUsz

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For those of you who might be interested, I am giving 3/4 of a talk at GDC this year along with Brad Hendricks, the CEO of Blind Squirrel. Our talk is about "building a global development team" and my part of the exercise details some of the production practices we use to manage our different teams in different locales around the world in a consistent manner. In particular, I'll be deep diving into how we capture and utilize KPI's from our teams to try and avoid issues in advance of them occurring. The date and time of this extravaganza is: Thursday, March 12 | 11:50am - 12:50pm. Location: Room 3002, West Hall. I hope to see you there!

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20% faster texture encoding on Metal? Leverage heap aliasing to emulate resource casting and skip the blit. https://lnkd.in/gQSDffWU What I initially dismissed as a console hardware trick turns out to be quite practical on Apple silicon. Unlike Vulkan and D3D12, Metal has no resource casting. The only way to write to a compressed texture is through a buffer and a blit. In this post I reverse-engineer Apple silicon's tiling format to work around that, writing directly to the swizzled buffer layout the GPU expects. The upcoming Spark SDK will ship an example demonstrating this, with full support for non-power-of-two textures and all modern Apple GPUs.

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This week the GDC Festival of Gaming announced the first wave of scheduled programming. Panels, roundtables, summits, lectures—all taught by an incredible cohort of developers. Having given talks at the Project Management Institute's conference, Game Devs of Color Expo, Student Game Developers' Alliance Summit I figured I'd share a few tips for anyone interested in finding ways to present their knowledge of the craft. First: identify your audience. Look at social media, take into consideration the demographics that attend these events. Second: focus on a topic that only you can talk about. It can be something specific about your trajectory in games, maybe knowledge from a different industry helps you in your day-to-day. In my particular case, I focus on creating talks about game design, narrative, production and occasionally Latinidad. For events that focus on post-mortems, retrospectives and production I prepare content that is more high-level and focused around processes rather than showcasing how I developed a specific character. Other events that are attended by early graduates, I enjoy presenting about Small Loan Studio. How were we able to create games as a group for years? What trainings and skills did participants in these games learned that assisted them in landing jobs in companies such as Electronic Arts (EA), Cave Bear Games, Schell Games among others? The third step is running the idea through a trusted colleague. I encourage receiving feedback from friends who have a different perspective/experience, to see what angles the subject matter can cover. Lastly, pitch the talk! The wonderful thing about the online world is that there are a ton of brilliant events with hybrid and remote modalities. Some of the events I recommend pitching to are NarraScope, Gamedevs of Color Expo and the SGDA Festival due to their accessibility and accommodations. But, if you have the means to attend PAX East, Future Fest Connect or Game Your Future and Games for Change consider bringing your knowledge to these events and support the growth of the East Coast. 👀 If you're looking for a keynote speaker in your next event, I'm available in 2026! #GameDevelopment #PublicSpeaking #GDC #Panel #Roundtable #Summits #KnowledgeSharing

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🎮 Nexon CEO claims "every game company now uses AI" after publishing Arc Raiders. Independent studio Strange Scaffold fired back: "We put out 3 games a year, not touching the stuff. Skill issue." The Arc Raiders controversy: 🔹 Game uses AI-generated voices instead of traditional voice actors 🔹 Studio claims no generative AI used, but critics call that a technicality 🔹 Eurogamer and Inverse say AI voices compromise the game's quality and ethics 🔹 Sparked debate: is AI really necessary for game development? Strange Scaffold context: 🔹 Small indie studio (Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist) 🔹 Ships 3 games annually without using any AI tools 🔹 CEO Xalavier Nelson Jr. called Nexon's "everyone uses AI" claim a "skill issue" "We're being told that AI is the only way to make games cheaper and faster. We put out roughly 3 motherf*cking games a year, not touching the stuff. Skill issue." A major publisher's CEO said everyone does it. A productive indie studio said that's a skill problem, not an AI problem. That matters because the "AI is inevitable" pitch only works if there's no alternative. Strange Scaffold's output proves otherwise and undercuts the cost-saving justification, although we can't really compare AAA GOTY contender like Arc, and indie games #Gaming #AI #ArcRaiders #GameDevelopment #AIForGaming Links in first comment 👇

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We Need To Be Careful With Layoff Numbers Right Now A widely shared GDC survey stat today, echoed by major press as a larger scale finding, suggested that one third of those surveyed, working in games in the United States, were laid off over the past two years. You all know I, of all people on planet earth, would never downplay the human cost behind games layoffs. Every job lost is a person, a family, and a life disrupted. But there is a very large gap between that figure and what I am seeing in the most comprehensive tracked datasets available, and I think that deserves a closer look. Based on the layoff tracking I maintain by region, North America saw 11,723 games layoffs two years ago and 5,638 last year. That is 17,361 total layoffs across two years. Now we have to pair that with workforce size. The most rigorous attempt I have seen to measure the games workforce comes from Game Industry Coffee Chat, which estimates a median North America games workforce of about 230,000 people: https://lnkd.in/eb_kK9BV Even if we assume every one of those 17,361 layoffs impacted a completely different person, which is unlikely since some individuals were laid off more than once, that equals roughly 8 percent of the workforce over two years. That is still deeply serious. But it is very different from one third. For one third of the workforce to have been laid off in the United States over the past two years, we would be talking about roughly 66,000 people, not 17,361. That is a difference of nearly 49,000 roles. And even if we narrow from North America to the United States only, where GICC estimates about 200,000 games workers, the percentage still lands in the same range, about 8 percent, nowhere near a third. So how do numbers get that far apart? Survey data around layoffs can skew high for many reasons. People who were directly impacted are far more likely to respond. Surveys often circulate most heavily in communities already affected. Definitions of “games industry” vary widely between respondents. Some surveys are global but get interpreted as U.S. only. Others may include contract endings, short term roles, or adjacent tech roles differently. Without tight sampling controls, surveys can end up reflecting who feels the pain most strongly rather than the full workforce picture. None of this makes the last two years any less painful. They have been among the hardest periods our industry has faced. But if we want to advocate effectively for workers, studios, and long term stability, our numbers have to be as rigorous as our empathy. Clear data helps us understand the true scale of the challenge and push for solutions that actually match reality. This is why I have always relied on direct measurement of all figures rather than anything polling or survey related, although those can also be used to calibrate if and when they align with hard data.

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Such a great insight 👊 Joseph Kim. With the rise of Ai... the human connection and relationships will matter more than ever.

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Some of the numbers in this year's GDC State of the Industry report really hit me hard. 28% of all respondents have been laid off in the last two years. 33% in the US. Two thirds of them came from AAA studios. And half of those happened in just the last 12 months. When I see numbers like that, I don't just see numbers. I see mortgages. I see families. I see people who moved across the country for a dream job and now have to move back. A few things I think we need to talk about after sitting with this for a few hours: AAA is still amazing and it will always be amazing. But I don't think it should be the only goal anymore. Funny enough, quite a few of the younger animators I'm meeting through REKiNDLED Studios , our codev studio, actually don't want to work at AAA. They want flexibility. Multiple projects. A safety net if one project blows up. The AI fear is much much bigger than the reality. 81% of devs use AI for research and brainstorming. Only 19% for asset generation. Students are the ones I worry about most. 74% feel their future in this industry is at risk. Senior level animators are taking mid level jobs just to pay the rent, which means juniors are competing against people with 10x their experience for the same seats. The path is harder but It is not closed. The opportunities are still out there for anybody willing to specialise, ship something, and put their work in front of the world. I broke the whole report down on YouTube with my honest take after 20 plus years in this industry. Link in the comments. If you got laid off recently or can relate with this drop a line below.

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What a phenomenal RDC 2025!🔥 This year’s Roblox Developers Conference (held Sept 5–6 in San Jose) was packed with major announcements, and I couldn’t be more excited by the direction the platform is heading: • Roblox Moments: A built-in short-form video feed for capturing highlights and instantly sharing them across the platform, think a TikTok-style discovery tool tailor-made for Roblox. • Creator earnings boost: DevEx rates increased by 8.5%, putting more cash back into creators’ pockets. • Huge growth metrics: Over $1 billion paid out to creators in the past year, with daily active users climbing toward 112 million. • Emerging tech & safety upgrades: From acoustic simulation and hydrodynamic enhancements to emissive mapping, CSG on meshes, and server authority for anti-cheat measures • Infrastructure & community support: A new data center in São Paulo is now live, improving latency for Brazilian users, and the platform is reinforcing its commitment to safety with over 100 updates and better age-based moderation. This year, Lootbloc turned up with some unforgettable moments: • Partner Dinner: We hosted a special dinner for our 60+ partners, an opportunity to connect, eat great food, and relax after a long RDC weekend. • Claw Machine: We partnered with the Roblox Commerce team to have our Lootbloc-branded claw machine featured at their booth, where attendees could win merch • Luau Plushie Launch: We unveiled an exclusive Luau whale plushie with Roblox, themed after the Luau logo that attendees could earn by completing a scavenger hunt at the Luau booth • Co-hosting Quataun party Friday night at RDC where we gave away thousands of plushies, shirts, hats and more to fellow developers. Lootbloc is only continuing to grow by bringing on new partners this year like Piggy, Pls Donate, Murderers vs. Sheriff Duels, Twin Atlas and more! Bottom line: RDC 2025 wasn’t just about big tech announcements, it was a celebration of community and all of the successes this past year. I’m so excited by the possibilities ahead, and inspired by how platforms like Roblox and partners like Lootbloc continue to grow together. Here’s to next year, bigger, bolder, and even more connected.

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GDC 2026 Wrapup (2 of 2): A Shift in the Craft In Part 1 I covered what I learned at GDC this year. This one's more personal. I've spent 30+ years working professionally on traditional game AI. Behavior trees, GOAP, utility AI, finite state machines, genetic programming, neural networks, battle pattern matching and tactics, etc. That was my craft. GDC used to include a two-day AI Summit with multiple overlapping sessions to choose from throughout. This year you could count the traditional game AI sessions on one hand and still have fingers to spare. In the Game AI Roundtable, one of the few surviving AI sessions, people kept steering toward ML and LLMs while the host kept pulling it back to traditional game AI. It felt like watching our community process the loss in real time. I know I was. The Fireside Chat with Damian Isla and Jeff Orkin hit the same note. Veterans reminiscing about what felt like the golden age of traditional game AI. I knew some of those people from previous GDCs. Worked at some of the same companies. Bittersweet is the right word. But the PUBG Ally session I mentioned in Part 1? An AI buddy that learns your play style, remembers your favorite weapons, talks to you in combat through two-way voice? That's where it's all heading. And honestly, it's exciting even for someone who grew up in the old school. What I'm Taking Home Between the two posts, here's what I'm bringing back to the studio for The Realm: Return Home: - AI companions and villagers you can actually talk to and who learn from you - Adaptive music that matches gameplay, layering tracks and crossfading between themes so the soundtrack reacts to what's happening in real time - Polish and marketing fundamentals so our players can actually find us on Steam - VR gesture-based interactions that skip the controller entirely - Steam localization to reach a wider audience - And a personal favorite throwaway: texture-trained neural network shaders that dramatically improve both compression and fidelity at the same time 25 sessions. 20-30 pages of notes. A head full of ideas and a craft that's changing under our feet. It's a strange place to be, but exciting at the same time. What sessions stood out to you? #GDC2026 #GameDev #GameAI #IndieGame #VR

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Slay the Spire 2 has SOLD over 3 million copies in 1 week, and that figure in that span for a deckbuilder is superstar numbers...all while in Early Access. It also makes sense. Slay the Spire is one of the most replayable games ever, and people have been waiting for a real sequel for years. Gaming is one of the few mediums where true market competition still exists. Why would I buy a $70 game when I could get a fantastic game that runs flawlessly on my Steam Deck for $25? I bought Mewgenics AND Slay the Spire 2 for $50. I will easily get 300+ hours out of that. I can realistically go the rest of this year without buying another game because of those games. Amazing value, and that is the part of the conversation the industry sometimes struggles to confront. Players are constantly doing the math. Not just in dollars, but in hours, replayability, and long-term value. When a game costs $25 and delivers hundreds of hours of meaningful gameplay, it completely reframes how people think about spending money on games. Slay the Spire has always been one of those rare eternal games, the kind you install once and never really uninstall. You come back to it between bigger releases, years later you are still discovering new strategies, new deck combinations, and new ways to break the systems. That kind of design creates something extremely powerful: infinite replayability through systems rather than content. Instead of needing dozens of handcrafted missions or cinematic set pieces, the game builds depth through interactions between mechanics. Cards, relics, enemies, and randomness collide in ways that make every run feel different. The result is the most valuable resource in gaming: players saying “just one more game.” Once a game earns that reputation, the sequel becomes almost inevitable success, as players know exactly what they are getting. The other interesting part is how this reflects a broader shift in the market. A decade ago, the assumption was that bigger budgets meant bigger success, but increasingly we are seeing the opposite dynamic emerge. Smaller teams building tightly focused games with incredible replayability are capturing enormous audiences, because ultimately players do not measure value by production budget. They measure it by how much they want to keep playing. When a $25 strategy roguelike can comfortably sit alongside (or even replace) a $70 blockbuster in someone’s library for months, that tells you something important about where the real competition in the market actually lives. The competition is not just between studios. It is between games fighting for the same limited hours of a player’s life, and when a game wins that battle, the price almost stops mattering. Note: I would say over 1 million of those sales come from China alone...

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I'm late to the party but if you missed this podcast with Adam Boyes you should take some time today and listen/watch. The video game industry is at an inflexion point and things need to be done!! Gaming Decoded, Vivrato's new podcast hosted by Andrea Rene, just dropped its first episode featuring Adam Boyes. ThinkMasterclass meets Diary of a CEO, but built for the games business. Real conversations with the operators and leaders shaping the industry. Come take a listen!   vivrato.com/podcast

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85% of game studios have ditched degree requirements. So why is it still so hard to find the right talent? 🎓 The gap isn't in the credentials; it's in the vetting. Without a degree to lean on, studios are struggling to accurately measure technical depth and cultural fit through traditional interviews. This is where having a recruiter who has actually *shipped* games makes the difference. We don't just check boxes; we verify the craft. Skills-based hiring only works if you know how to test the skills. #SkillsBasedHiring #GameDev #Recruitment #GameRecruiter

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85% of game studios have dropped degree requirements, yet the struggle to find the 'right' talent is harder than ever. Why the gap? 🧩🎓 It’s one thing to remove a barrier; it’s another to find the specific skills that a studio needs to survive in a post-layoff, lean environment. We’re seeing a paradox where candidates are abundant, but 'surgical' fits are scarce. At Game Recruiter, we don't just look for degrees or titles. We vet for the specific technical and creative DNA required for launch. Because when you’re hiring for a critical role, you don't need a diploma; you need a winner. #HiringTrends #GameDev #SkillsBasedHiring #TalentAcquisition #SurgicalRecruitment #GameRecruiter

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"AI fluency = critical use + applied use" A.I. can be both intimidating and misunderstood (in what one should and should not expect from it). One example is that LLMs cannot be 100% reliable and safe *by design* , which means we should know when to use them, how, and more importantly in which context. I've been trying to formalize the steps it takes from AI litteracy to AI leadership, and I stumbled on this publication that summarizes it way better than I would (with our without an LLM btw :-) ) "A Five-Step Progression to AI Fluency (For Adults and for Students)" (link in the first comment) 👇

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The pulse from GDC is clear. The industry is settling into a new baseline. Studios are rethinking scale. Growth by headcount is no longer the default solution. The teams that survive this cycle will be the ones built on production systems, not just hiring momentum. Pipelines, documentation, and technical discipline matter more than ever. When those systems are weak, adding people only increases friction and burn. Recent layoffs are also removing a lot of institutional knowledge. The people who knew how to actually close the tickets are often the ones leaving. Sustainable studios will be the ones built around the work itself. Scale only works when the system can support it. #GDC #GameDev #GameProduction #GameIndustry

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