Gamejoy!

Hobby drifter between composing & streaming || Any/All || twitch.tv/gamejoypod || machinelifeform.bandcamp.com || ko-fi.com/gamejoy ||

[gamejoypod]

Other Places to find me

I'm not leaving the platform yet, but now feels like a good time to branch out and pin the links here

Blusky

Twitch

Gamejoy Discord

Bandcamp & Music Youtube channel

Tumblr felt like one of the last places where I could count on real, cool people being. I hope to see some of you out there!

[gamejoypod]

Shinjiro Aragaki is so funny to me. guy who wants to be seen as the devil-may-care bad boy idgafer with a deathwish but he's also easily the most fashionable/fashion minded of the group. Pay no mind to my designer studded maroon pea coat, black turtlenecks, flared trousers or chunky heel boots. I live on the fringe of society.

[gamejoypod]

Finishing Vol. 1 of Misericorde got a new reaction out of me.

Normally when I really love a game I get a little sad knowing eventually it will end & my first experience will be over. Misericorde had me feeling like, a mild sense of betrayal that the game didn't literally go on forever

[pmamtraveller]

“Pause at the Edge” by Tomás Sánchez

[gamejoypod]

I really really hope Fromsoftware's sound & music team gets to cook as hard as they did for Nightreign from now on. Big "epic" orchestral OSTs sound kind of bland and samey a lot of the time, but Nightreign's music takes the same general soundscapes and manages to have extremely strong melodies & motifs anyway. It's some of my favorite music I've ever heard from the studio.

[storm-of-feathers]

EVERYONE STOP TELLING ME HOW OLD YOU WERE IN 2008 I DONT WANNA HEAR THAT SHIT

[storm-of-feathers]

SOME OF YOU SHOULD BE AT THE OPRHANGE

[storm-of-feathers]

preschool. I meant preschool.

[outsidewolves]

[onthegreatsea]

the removal of physical media is not the inevitable progression of improving tech, its like the removal of the 3.5mm jack: purely a result of profit physical games still account for about 1/5th of all sales of video games

but by only selling digital games sony can be the ultimate arbiter of their price. they can stop you lending games and force another sale instead. they can stop the sale of second hand games and keep prices artificially high. they can set any price they want and that will be your only option.

[miquellah]

harada (tekken & more) has given a VERY lengthy, very heartfelt praise of his experiences with miyazaki, as well as some additional words about masahiro sakurai (copy-pasted below cut)

From my perspective, Miyazaki is a rather unique, yet extremely serious game developer.

His career did not begin in the game industry. In fact, he didn’t become a game developer until he was almost thirty years old.

Even among developers of my generation (those of us born in the 1970s), I think it’s remarkable that someone who wasn’t even a game developer during the dawn of the polygon era eventually became one of Japan’s most representative game creators. (In other words, compared to the rest of us from the same generation—including myself—his career path is exceptionally unusual. Most notably, unlike many of us, he was not working at one of the major development studios that held a significant technological advantage during the early polygon era. That, more than anything else, is what makes his path so unique.)

Next, regarding my impression of Dark Souls.

People often focus on its difficulty as a game, but I believe Miyazaki’s true creativity shines through in the world he created. (By the way, I personally think Dark Souls has fairly simple action mechanics, and I don’t actually consider it to be an especially difficult game.)

If you look into my own career, you’ll see that I was personally involved with the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring as the General Manager overseeing both production and marketing (Just to clarify, I wasn't part of the development team itself. My involvement was simply as the General Manager of the publisher-side department overseeing production and marketing). From that perspective, I can say that Dark Souls didn’t suddenly become a massive success overnight. It was the result of everything Miyazaki and his team had built up through their previous titles.

Today, he receives offers from all over the world, but when I think back to the days when he and his team were struggling the most, many of those offers seem like they’re coming from people who only know who they are today. Some of them almost feel like complete reversals in attitude. Well, that’s just my personal perspective.

Personally, I had grown tired of people who would simply compare games by saying things like, “That title cost X billion yen to make and sold Y million copies,” and then use nothing but those numbers to judge them against other games. There were so many people who couldn’t appreciate the journey or the growth of the developers themselves. Anyone can look at the current numbers—they’re available to everyone. Whenever I heard those kinds of opinions, I always thought, “That’s exactly what you’d expect from someone who’s never actually developed games.”

What surprised me even more was that, even if people couldn’t properly evaluate that journey, almost nobody even seemed interested in trying to understand the process of how those developers gradually reached where they are today.

(I'm NOT talking about the fan community).

Now, going back to Miyazaki, there are two things about him that have always stayed with me.

The first was back when I was developing Summer Lesson for VR, around the time it was generating a lot of buzz.

One day, he came to try an early build of Summer Lesson along with people from several other game companies.

While everyone else was laughing, chatting, and having fun with it, Miyazaki alone played it with incredible seriousness. Then, after everyone had finished and started discussing their impressions, he remained completely silent, staring intently at the preview monitor, deep in thought.

Everyone became curious and finally asked him, “Miyazaki, what are you thinking about?”

He suddenly smiled and said,

“Oh… I got completely absorbed in thinking about what I would do if I were making this, and what kind of game I’d create.”

What he talked about after that was, in the best possible sense, completely insane.

It was one of those rare moments when I caught a glimpse of what I’d call his “mad scientist” side—his deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity.

The other thing that left a strong impression on me was that he generally dislikes video interviews (including live streaming).

I once asked him about it by email, and he replied with quite a long explanation. After reading it, I completely understood where he was coming from.

Simply put, he doesn’t like watching himself moving around on video. (Psychologically speaking, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that.)

But there was another reason.

According to him, there are naturally many people in this industry who know games far better than he does. Whenever he listens to those people speak, he realizes that his own understanding is still shallow, and it makes him feel that he’s not yet in a position to be the one talking about games.

I mean… it’s common for well-known developers to say, “I still have a long way to go.”

But whenever someone like him says that, my reaction is always,

“Come on… if you say you’re still not there yet, then the rest of us won’t feel qualified to talk about games at all.” (laugh)

Anyway, that’s one of the reasons why video interviews with Miyazaki are extremely rare. And conversations with him on camera—especially long-form discussions with another developer—are even rarer. They almost don’t exist at all.

By the way, the other game developer in that photo is Masahiro Sakurai.

If you ask me, he’s basically:

“A Saiyan who genuinely believes he’s just another ordinary human.”

Every now and then, when the rest of us are struggling with some problem, he’ll say something that sounds exactly like Goku saying,

“Well… why don’t you just fly?”

And I’ll reply,

“Because we humans can’t use Flight Technique.”

Then he just stares at me with a completely puzzled look.

To put it in terms of Demon Slayer, I’d describe him as:

"Like Muzan Kibutsuji casually showing up at a drinking party where all the Hashira have gathered, genuinely believing he's just another ordinary guest".

That’s the kind of person he is.

[redsixwing]

Notes on the Bandcamp post:

Someone pointed out that article's from 2023, and that's my mistake! Here is one that describes better where we are today.

Bandcamp Engineering Layoffs Raise New Concerns For Independent Artists

Bandcamp engineering layoffs renew fears over Songtradr ownership, artist support and the future of direct-to-fan music.

So.

Downloads are still available as of time of writing. If you have music you want to keep, maybe go download it.

If your favorites sell music directly, go buy it there.

Do NOT go yell at musicians for being on Bandcamp. Where, one day after this broke, do you expect them to go? Where else can we get DRM-free files?

If the new owners keep Bandcamp Friday and DRM-free downloads, I will keep buying music from them.

Think of it this way: who are we trying to help? Musicians, right?

It won't help musicians to boycott Bandcamp and I have not (as of this writing) seen a call for it that's actually from a musician.

It really won't help musicians to yell at them about being on Bandcamp.

Next Bandcamp Friday I'm going to go buy albums I'd miss if they disappeared.

(And no. I am not a fan of the new ownership. I don't have a better alternative either.)

[redsixwing]

Hey, Bandcamp users. You have probably already heard, but Bandcamp was bought by a music licensing firm, and laid off half its staff "as a cost cutting measure."

I will be downloading everything I purchased from Bandcamp and keeping an eye on it.

Bandcamp Undergoes Ownership Transition with Layoffs and Industry Concerns | Enterprise Wired

In a significant shift of ownership, Bandcamp, the renowned digital music marketplace, has officially transitioned from its previous owner,

[multibugorganism]

there's like a part in Scatman's World where he sounds like he's charging up an attack

[occulteggplant]

it's so funny to hear liam obriens voice coming from an ac

like, i know the guy does loads of other stuff but the thought of caleb getting into transcend and jumpscaring ickythongs soul right out of his filthy fucking noggin is tickling me

[amiya-shirou]

(Guy who has only read the manga of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and hasn't really watched Miyazaki's other movies) yeah I love the #ghibli aesthetic

[samusblewupmyplanet]

#aesthetic #comfy vibes

[lugidog]

Day 806 - July 1, 2026

Art Fight attack for user Makachu~

[fur-bies-deactivated20180106]

i let the furby skins soak in fabric softener after i washed them and my sis found them and sent me:

and i have never laughed so hard x’D

[sometiktoksarevalid]