charlesjpratt
@charlesjpratt.bsky.social
Associate Art Professor at the NYU Game Center
Reposted by charlesjpratt
Remember, artists: when people say, “I’d buy a print of this,” they don’t mean it. That sentence itself is just a weird compliment that rarely converts to an actual print sale. It’s like if someone ate a very good hot dog and then said, “I could eat 10,000 of these right now.”
November 6, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Remember, artists: when people say, “I’d buy a print of this,” they don’t mean it. That sentence itself is just a weird compliment that rarely converts to an actual print sale. It’s like if someone ate a very good hot dog and then said, “I could eat 10,000 of these right now.”
Reposted by charlesjpratt
we keep on asking ourselves "why are people so bad at doing basic content analysis," and one of the unpleasant answers is "we don't have classes that people are afraid of failing"
November 5, 2025 at 6:26 PM
we keep on asking ourselves "why are people so bad at doing basic content analysis," and one of the unpleasant answers is "we don't have classes that people are afraid of failing"
Reposted by charlesjpratt
No Quarter is back!
On Saturday November 22nd No Quarter will be returning for its 2025 edition!
No Quarter is an annual playable exhibition where four newly commissioned works from outstanding artists working across games are debuted. Tickets here noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
On Saturday November 22nd No Quarter will be returning for its 2025 edition!
No Quarter is an annual playable exhibition where four newly commissioned works from outstanding artists working across games are debuted. Tickets here noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
October 28, 2025 at 3:09 PM
No Quarter is back!
On Saturday November 22nd No Quarter will be returning for its 2025 edition!
No Quarter is an annual playable exhibition where four newly commissioned works from outstanding artists working across games are debuted. Tickets here noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
On Saturday November 22nd No Quarter will be returning for its 2025 edition!
No Quarter is an annual playable exhibition where four newly commissioned works from outstanding artists working across games are debuted. Tickets here noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
Not sure why my officemate has a dozen copies of Magical Athlete, but I'm sure the purpose can only be nefarious.
October 28, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Not sure why my officemate has a dozen copies of Magical Athlete, but I'm sure the purpose can only be nefarious.
Reposted by charlesjpratt
cool to see this article in print in Glaive!
October 27, 2025 at 10:21 PM
cool to see this article in print in Glaive!
On a more serious note about Silksong: it is very strange that if you hit attack and jump on almost the same frame in the air it seems to prefer your float move, which means the attack doesn't come out. Even though I think most of the time it's what you would prefer.
September 22, 2025 at 6:50 PM
On a more serious note about Silksong: it is very strange that if you hit attack and jump on almost the same frame in the air it seems to prefer your float move, which means the attack doesn't come out. Even though I think most of the time it's what you would prefer.
Seems to me like the problem is that people kept saying they wanted -more- Hollow Knight, and now that they have it they've realized that what they really wanted was Hollow Knight -again-.
September 22, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Seems to me like the problem is that people kept saying they wanted -more- Hollow Knight, and now that they have it they've realized that what they really wanted was Hollow Knight -again-.
It's strange to present early text adventures as being concerned primarily with people finishing the story.
Some of the most notable adventure games have puzzles so difficult that players will, to this day, still complain bitterly about how obscure the solutions were.
kotaku.com/game-difficu...
Some of the most notable adventure games have puzzles so difficult that players will, to this day, still complain bitterly about how obscure the solutions were.
kotaku.com/game-difficu...
The Debate Over Silksong Points To A Growing Divide In Gaming
Hollow Knight: Silksong once again raises the debate about whether it's OK not to be able to finish a game
kotaku.com
September 15, 2025 at 4:06 AM
It's strange to present early text adventures as being concerned primarily with people finishing the story.
Some of the most notable adventure games have puzzles so difficult that players will, to this day, still complain bitterly about how obscure the solutions were.
kotaku.com/game-difficu...
Some of the most notable adventure games have puzzles so difficult that players will, to this day, still complain bitterly about how obscure the solutions were.
kotaku.com/game-difficu...
Reposted by charlesjpratt
Let's not forget that this seat was vacant because Islamaphobic Democrats wouldn't let Biden's appointee be confirmed. And Schumer let the clock run out.
Bove himself is a literal criminal. A man whose short time in the public eye is defined by his open contempt for the law and those responsible for enforcing it. And the only reason he was nominated is because of his slavish devotion to the president’s most lawless impulses.
July 30, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Let's not forget that this seat was vacant because Islamaphobic Democrats wouldn't let Biden's appointee be confirmed. And Schumer let the clock run out.
As someone who is much more open to AI being the basis of some very useful tools (once the 'AI industry' crashes out), Naomi is 100% correct about this.
We have had the technology to do emergent game narrative/dialogue and what we've learned is that most people prefer human-written stuff
We have had the technology to do emergent game narrative/dialogue and what we've learned is that most people prefer human-written stuff
"A.I.-fueled games" are not "accelerating quickly" because nobody has yet answered the most fundamental question raised a few years ago, which is "why would anyone want to do random, unmoored text roleplay with a chatbot inside of a game engine, anyway?"
July 29, 2025 at 4:25 PM
As someone who is much more open to AI being the basis of some very useful tools (once the 'AI industry' crashes out), Naomi is 100% correct about this.
We have had the technology to do emergent game narrative/dialogue and what we've learned is that most people prefer human-written stuff
We have had the technology to do emergent game narrative/dialogue and what we've learned is that most people prefer human-written stuff
The thing that both the NYTimes and Apple have in common is that they are huge, influential organizations that are, in large part, funded by games, and are filled with people that are deeply embarrassed by that fact.
July 29, 2025 at 5:51 AM
The thing that both the NYTimes and Apple have in common is that they are huge, influential organizations that are, in large part, funded by games, and are filled with people that are deeply embarrassed by that fact.
Not to stir the pot, but it's a little funny that this whole thing with Steam and itch and NSFW games is very close to the reason that crypto currencies were originally developed.
Maybe the solution is that itch and Valve and Epic should all start accepting ETH?
Maybe the solution is that itch and Valve and Epic should all start accepting ETH?
July 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Not to stir the pot, but it's a little funny that this whole thing with Steam and itch and NSFW games is very close to the reason that crypto currencies were originally developed.
Maybe the solution is that itch and Valve and Epic should all start accepting ETH?
Maybe the solution is that itch and Valve and Epic should all start accepting ETH?
Reposted by charlesjpratt
So I did some noodling around in itch.io. I added "NSFW" and "adult" tags to a decidedly non-porn game (though there are adult themes, like drug use and guns) and the game was immediately deindexed. When I removed those tags, the game was back.
July 24, 2025 at 5:48 PM
So I did some noodling around in itch.io. I added "NSFW" and "adult" tags to a decidedly non-porn game (though there are adult themes, like drug use and guns) and the game was immediately deindexed. When I removed those tags, the game was back.
My impression after using a lot these AI tools for a bit has definitely been that smaller, more specifically trained models are going to be better at most things. This means that it might quickly become a pretty cheap commodity, and the big AI companies are just grabbing cash while they can
we're getting close to a point where consumer-priced computers can run models nearly as large as deepseek. cheap. not "guzzling water" or "powering a whole home every time u run a query".
increasingly convinced 95% of you all are just mad about AI because of the proprietary nature of the biggest players (and the fact that all the biggest players are...not that great). and that's fine, you should be. its a travesty. but AI itself is not the problem, i think you might find.
July 23, 2025 at 5:04 PM
My impression after using a lot these AI tools for a bit has definitely been that smaller, more specifically trained models are going to be better at most things. This means that it might quickly become a pretty cheap commodity, and the big AI companies are just grabbing cash while they can
Remembering again that the worst two Presidents of my life, Bush and Trump, were both elected in an environment where the prevailing sentiment among younger voters was that there was no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans
Trump now at -40 approval with young people, down from roughly even at the start of his term, per YouGov. The buyers remorse with Gen Z is real
July 23, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Remembering again that the worst two Presidents of my life, Bush and Trump, were both elected in an environment where the prevailing sentiment among younger voters was that there was no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans
Reposted by charlesjpratt
Ana Valens' exposé on Collective Shout, the group responsible for the Steam purge, has been taken down from its outlet VICE by managerial fiat. This is a really obvious case of the powers that be intervening to protect their power, and yet everyone will ignore it.
VICE's owner Savage Ventures has requested the removal of my Collective Shout articles. This is due to concerns about the controversial subject matter—not journalistic complaints
Effective immediately, I will no longer contribute to Waypoint. I suggest letting VICE's owner know if this upsets you
Effective immediately, I will no longer contribute to Waypoint. I suggest letting VICE's owner know if this upsets you
July 20, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Ana Valens' exposé on Collective Shout, the group responsible for the Steam purge, has been taken down from its outlet VICE by managerial fiat. This is a really obvious case of the powers that be intervening to protect their power, and yet everyone will ignore it.
Circumstances are slowly driving me back to my position in my 20s, which is that fiction is actually bad for people on some level, and we should limit our intake like we would other pleasurable but basically unhealthy substances.
I'm not exactly a comics lore expert but I'm pretty sure the most important facet of the character of Superman is that he is fictional
July 20, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Circumstances are slowly driving me back to my position in my 20s, which is that fiction is actually bad for people on some level, and we should limit our intake like we would other pleasurable but basically unhealthy substances.
Was talking to a former student, and they were commenting about how cool it must have been for me to be around for the early DIY game scene in NYC, and how there wasn't anything that big anymore in the city.
They were a little shocked when I said "Really there were a few dozen of us. Consistently."
They were a little shocked when I said "Really there were a few dozen of us. Consistently."
Ah but if you were listening to the radio in the 70s, you weren’t getting hot funk jams, you were getting Tony Orlando and Dawn or a pop rock version of the Lord’s Prayer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lor...
July 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Was talking to a former student, and they were commenting about how cool it must have been for me to be around for the early DIY game scene in NYC, and how there wasn't anything that big anymore in the city.
They were a little shocked when I said "Really there were a few dozen of us. Consistently."
They were a little shocked when I said "Really there were a few dozen of us. Consistently."
Really enjoyed working with this team when their game was a Capstone project at @nyugamecenter.bsky.social!
They're very talented and deserve their early success!
They're very talented and deserve their early success!
need a place to run around in while having deep discord conversations with friends?
our hub is a huge open space with lots of fun interactables and secrets 🚀✨
#IndieGameDev #indiedev #indiegames
our hub is a huge open space with lots of fun interactables and secrets 🚀✨
#IndieGameDev #indiedev #indiegames
July 14, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Really enjoyed working with this team when their game was a Capstone project at @nyugamecenter.bsky.social!
They're very talented and deserve their early success!
They're very talented and deserve their early success!
Arcade games!?
Glad I was in a long term, stable relationship before I started playing Killer Queen for 6 hours every Friday
Glad I was in a long term, stable relationship before I started playing Killer Queen for 6 hours every Friday
July 13, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Arcade games!?
Glad I was in a long term, stable relationship before I started playing Killer Queen for 6 hours every Friday
Glad I was in a long term, stable relationship before I started playing Killer Queen for 6 hours every Friday
I'm a broken record, but I keep being reminded that Johan Huizinga pointed out in *1936* that race science was obviously a con because the supposed 'scientists' somehow never ended up discovering -their- race was the one that was inferior on any measure.
For once, I'd like "provocative ideas about race" to mean "thinks Galapagos penguins are racially superior to humans" or "believes there is an invisible polka-dot colored race of Ibero-Atlanteans" and not "hates Black ppl and thinks they should be slaves".
July 10, 2025 at 6:51 PM
I'm a broken record, but I keep being reminded that Johan Huizinga pointed out in *1936* that race science was obviously a con because the supposed 'scientists' somehow never ended up discovering -their- race was the one that was inferior on any measure.
Reposted by charlesjpratt
With the updated RCV totals just released by the Board of Elections, our campaign has officially earned the most total votes in a primary in New York City history.
July 8, 2025 at 6:32 PM
With the updated RCV totals just released by the Board of Elections, our campaign has officially earned the most total votes in a primary in New York City history.
Reposted by charlesjpratt
apparently japan calls vampire survivors and the like 'mowing games' and they kinda nailed it with that one
July 7, 2025 at 11:44 PM
apparently japan calls vampire survivors and the like 'mowing games' and they kinda nailed it with that one
Playing around with a lot of AI tools I've also found this to be the case. I think it has something to do with visual/musical art mostly being about the creation of a 'gestalt', while writing requires sustained tone and sequenced ideas. AI still loses track of its arguments very easily, right now.
I've seen AI-generated art, video, and even music that's indistinguishable for me from human-generated counterparts. But it's easy for me to spot AI writing, esp if it's about menswear. Curious if this is bc I know that domain better. Can videographers spot AI videos? Or is writing more AI-proof?
July 6, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Playing around with a lot of AI tools I've also found this to be the case. I think it has something to do with visual/musical art mostly being about the creation of a 'gestalt', while writing requires sustained tone and sequenced ideas. AI still loses track of its arguments very easily, right now.
Thought I'd repost this since people seem to be coming around on the need for canon making in games
NYU Game Center Faculty in 2012: *sweating* Is making a list of old games that students should play as part of their education just reproducing the patriarchal conception of a 'canon'?
YouTubers in 2025: There are only a dozen games worth talking about, and none of them came out before 2010.
YouTubers in 2025: There are only a dozen games worth talking about, and none of them came out before 2010.
June 26, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Thought I'd repost this since people seem to be coming around on the need for canon making in games