Data Analyst | Game Designer | Founder and CEO of @LostWarriorGame | Proud #StarCitizen
Seattle, WA
Joined October 2009
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You will like my game if you have enjoyed these games:
Shadowgate
Riven
Myst 3
#WishlistWednesday #GameDev #IndieDev #MadeInUnity #PointandClick #AdventureGame
Announcing Vintergard! The first title from Lost Warrior Games is a first person point and click adventure game inspired by the classics.
#GameDev #IndieDev #MadeInUnity #PointandClick #AdventureGame
Dustin Guarino retweeted
Ball knowledge 💯
Read more » shwks.com/h52mauff
ALT John Schneider's Midseason Trades from 2010 to present.
Dustin Guarino retweeted
I see a lot of people expressing shock and sadness over BioWare shutting down. And I get it.
But here's the uncomfortable truth:
The BioWare that made Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Dragon Age: Origins and the original Mass Effect trilogy had largely ceased to exist long before yesterday's announcement.
BioWare's decline began around the time the doctors left and much like what happened at Blizzard, most of the original talent responsible for building those legendary franchises had moved on years ago.
What remained was the brand. The IP. Basically just the name on the building.
But a studio's name doesn't make great games. Insanely talented people do.
And that's the lesson our industry somehow keeps refusing to learn.
The people who built those studios, who poured their blood, sweat and tears into establishing their creative identities were the actual assets. Their experience, their taste, their leadership, their ability to recognize what made a game special in the first place was always the thing that mattered, not the brand.
You can't simply replace those people, keep the logo on the door and expect the magic to continue.
Yet, that's precisely what publishers have been doing for the past 10-20 years.
They've spent billions acquiring studios and IPs, seemingly under the assumption that the creative output would continue regardless of who was actually making the games.
And when the original talent inevitably left, the remaining teams were expected to fill shoes that were often impossibly large, without necessarily having the experience, leadership or creative vision required to do so.
And... the results speak for themselves.
I think we'll eventually look back at the COVID-era acquisition frenzy as one of the most destructive periods in the history of our industry.
Publishers were buying studios left and right, paying absurd valuations mostly just to secure IPs... and developers were often all too happy to cash out.
At Moon Studios, we got quite a bit of crap for refusing to sell when seemingly everyone else was getting acquired.
I remember telling our team back then that I'd seen this movie before.
The exact same thing happened in the 90s, when EA went on its acquisition spree.
Studios were bought, their founders and creative leaders gradually lost the freedom to make the games they believed in, the original talent became frustrated and left and eventually the studios all became a Ship of Theseus.
History doesn't repeat itself perfectly, but it sure as hell rhymes, and that's exactly why I never wanted Moon to end up in that position.
And I don't think we're even halfway through the ultimate fallout of the latest acquisition frenzy.
There's going to be a very rude awakening for quite a few publishers when they discover that the studios they acquired for billions are worth a fraction of what they paid. And that shoving ideology down peoples throats ultimately came at a cost that they didn't quite grasp.
They didn't actually buy the creative vision, the institutional knowledge or the culture responsible for making those studios successful.
They bought the names, the buildings, the IPs and whatever teams happened to be there at the time.
But those things don't matter at all.
You can buy a studio. You can buy its IP. You can even buy its entire back catalogue.
But you can't buy the magic that made those games special in the first place.
And the sooner our industry understands that, the better.
Dustin Guarino retweeted
The double standard around AAA game development is wild. Especially when it comes to Squadron 42 and Star Citizen
Why is it "let them cook" when Rockstar spends 12+ years and over $1.5B behind closed doors, but "it's a scam" when Cloud Imperium Games builds two massive games, one in wide open development?
Let's look at the starting lines for both companies.
1. Rockstar: 25+ years of infrastructure, thousands of veteran developers, dedicated mocap stages, and that development team with their own proprietary RAGE engine with years upon years of prior experience
2. CIG in 2012: Zero employees, zero studios, and an off-the-shelf CryEngine branch that was never built for space.
3. Rockstar tried the multi-project model at peak AAA fidelity and literally couldn't do it.
To ship RDR2 and GTA VI, they:
• Shelved Bully 2
• Canceled Agent
• Scrapped all GTA V single-player DLC
• Consolidated ALL global studios to focus on ONE game at a time.
Meanwhile, @CloudImperium took the insane (probably irresponsible at the time) route, simultaneously building the Persistent Universe (Star Citizen/MMO) AND a 40–60 hour cinematic single-player campaign (Squadron 42).
All while engineering brand-new tech from scratch: 64-bit coordinate positioning, nested physics grids, and Server Meshing.
Now let's look at the cost & timeline comparison:
• GTA VI: 12+ years of R&D, estimated $1B–$2B total budget.
• Star Citizen + SQ42: ~13 years, ~. $1 billion + crowdfunded across BOTH titles combined.
One gets praised for perfectionism. The other gets called vaporware.
Let's call the difference..
"The Black Box vs. Open Dev"
figured it was a good analogy...
Rockstar hides their scrapped code, engine rewrites, and pipeline crises, internal strife behind professional death sentence NDAs until a polished trailer drops.
CIG lets players play the alpha live (all bugs included) .
So You experience every bug and server crash in real time as the tech gets solved and. Continues To Grow and change .
CIG Is Now a studio with 1,000+ developers, custom server architecture, and a live universe played by hundreds of thousands every week that isn't a "scam."
Rockstar proves scale takes massive time and money. CIG just refused to hide the mess behind PR silence. Has the project been perfect?. Hell no.. But this doesn't change the principle of the comparison.
That's the price of crowd funding I guess.
#StarCitizen #Squadron42
Interesting GTA 6 details shared by Jason Schreier:
- Rockstar top staff had to visit stripclubs and other areas in Miami for research in 2015 to create the world of the game
- Rockstar now has 4,711 employees compared to 2,441 when RDR2 released
- Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar’s head of publishing didn’t disclose the budget of the game, but she debunked rumors that the game surpassed the $1.5 billion it cost to build Burj Khalifa
- Rob Nelson described the two previous delays as a dark period
- The studio has more than one head of development to make decisions faster: Phil Hooker, Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson
- Schreier saw the office full of developers working to squash bugs before release
- By the end of 2019, the team finally figured out the skeleton of the story
- At one point, the studio heads wanted to make the game so realistic that you had to go to the store’s refrigerator, grab the beer, bring it to the counter and manually pay. Or go to the grocery store and buy the ingredients to make a sandwich
- The studio had a hard time during the pandemic trying to keep the team together: “We’re going to get through it.” Nelson said, just like Jason and Lucia
- Schreier saw Jason and Lucia walking in a park, holding hands and reminiscing about the time Lucia’s mother got mad at him
- Jason and Lucia will be flirting and bantering during activities, which adds a whole new layer to the immersive systems carried over from Rockstar’s previous titles
- Aaron Garbut talked about the 2022 leaks: “It feels like somebody’s wading through your dirty washing. It’s like they’re inside your head. You see your early work out there. Nobody’s ever supposed to see that. It’s really weirdly invasive. And so it’s quite hard to deal with on an emotional level.”
- Rockstar says they did their best to avoid crunch with this title: “Anytime I say we haven’t crunched, someone is going to say, ‘I did.’ And I don’t want to get into arguments with individual teams or individual people. But I think we did things differently, and I’m proud of that.” Said Kolbe
- Trailer 1 worked as a huge guiding light for the team: “You’d think it would be done through documentation or communication, but nothing aligns us like a trailer.” Said VP of tech Jonathon Ashcroft
- Strauss Zelnick was flabbergasted when Kolbe called him to ask for a second delay to November: “I think he said, ‘You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,’” she recalls
- She says they’re lucky that Strauss is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would rush it and say “You’d just better figure out how to ship it”
- Zelnick says the delays were a “wise investment in time and financial resources to reach the level of perfection it has the ability to reach”
- Rockstar says they didn’t face development hell that caused the delays and the game just never completed settled: “We never have an exact blueprint. Even within the last few months, we’ve changed things”
- They also said that some areas in the game weren’t going to make it if they haven’t delayed the game: “We could hit that schedule, but it won’t be the game we want to make.” Hooker said
- Phil Hooker recalls that he was supposed to go to a story mission, but then he got lost for two hours in the game’s world: “I remember the sheer fun of it. And everyone coming out of the review buoyed by the experience and despite all the concerns and doubts that plague you at that time thinking, if we stick to our guns on this, we have something really special.” He said
- Garbut says this game is the culmination of lessons they’ve been learning for a lifetime and that the last 30 years have been practice for where they got to here
- Lastly, Rockstar vows that the next game won’t take another 8 years: “The engine, the tools and the team we’ve built during this project will allow us to do things more quickly, I feel confident that we can build on top of this and go more sideways than upwards to build more compelling content.” Said co-studio head Phil Hooker
(Source: bloomberg.com/features/2026-…)
We finally have a proper trailer and steam page!
Wishlist Squadron 42 Now: bit.ly/47KwKpb
The United Empire of Earth stands on the brink of collapse as threats both human and alien emerge from the darkest reaches of space.
Enlist as a rookie pilot and fight for humanity's future in a cinematic, single-player space adventure.
Launches Q2 2027.
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Dustin Guarino retweeted
We interviewed the StarCraft team at BlizzCon 2026 and asked our biggest questions about the upcoming open-world shooter.
WATCH: gameinformer.com/blizzcon-20…
ALT StarCraft at BlizzCon - developer interview
Dustin Guarino retweeted
It's been a few weeks since videogamescritic.com went live, so here's what it actually does now, and why I think it's a better tool than what we've had:
Metacritic and OpenCritic do one thing well: They tell you what critics thought in launch week.
That doesn't really make a to of sense in modern times anymore. Games change, so the score should too.
So VideoGamesCritic treats a rating as a living thing:
• The VGC Score updates as the game does. 120k+ patches classified, and reviews written after a real patch count the most. No Man's Sky launched at 48 with players. It sits at 82 today. Cyberpunk went from 72 to 85. Meaning, you see how good a game is now, not how the game at launch was that you can't even play anymore.
• Players hold at least two thirds of the verdict, by rule. Press informs the score, it can't outvote the people who bought the game. Nearly 2.5 million player reviews weighed, and not equally: Refund-Window Drive-Bys and Review Bombs count less.
• Every game shows the gap between critics and players, and which outlets called it right. Launch vs now, critics vs players, and a month-by-month timeline with every patch marked.
• The reviewers get reviewed too. 1,070 outlets and creators rated on how well their scores track what players ended up thinking, across 465,000+ press reviews.
• Best Deals across Steam, PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop and Xbox Store sorted by the games rating
• Developer and publisher boards and a luminaries section that features everyone who shaped gaming
• Estimated Steam sales for every game
• Everything is a published formula over public data. No editorial thumb on the scale, no numbers and /methodology shows the whole recipe.
• There's a public JSON API, and a living VGC Seal of Quality developers can put on their store page that updates with the number.
14,628 games tracked so far, and counting.
If that sounds useful, have a look, and tell me what's missing! 👍❤️
videogamescritic.com
Dustin Guarino retweeted
This isn't the first year devs have been robbed at gamescom, and their response is unacceptable.
My full statement:
We are aware of stolen hardware and take these reports very seriously and understand the frustration of affected exhibitors.
Since many requests reached us, we would like to inform about general security regulations at the event:
Uniformed guards provide general security across the venue. Individual stand security can be booked separately, and exhibitors are advised to insure equipment against theft.
This is noted in the terms and conditions of participation and the technical guidelines.
All cases have been reported to us and to the police, and investigations are already underway.
We also want to ensure that the reported cases are individual cases, which we are very sorry to read.
Because security has one of the highest priorities to us as an event and to see that indie developers are affected makes us very sad. At an event of this size, however, there will always be individuals attempting to take advantage of the situation.
Our security measures are designed to minimize such risks as effectively as possible.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
While Gamescom frames these thefts as isolated incidents, investigations into the event's security providers have revealed significant vulnerabilities. A WDR investigation found that one-third of the security guards checked had violations, including missing IDs. www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rh…
Dustin Guarino retweeted
We're going back to our roots and pulling back the curtain to show you what goes into making our games in our new series: Inside CIG. 🚀
In this first episode, we dig into the challenges of bringing Alpha 4.10: Siege of Orison to life.
Watch Now: play.sc/4xpxgo0
Dustin Guarino retweeted
Multiple indie devs had hardware and builds stolen from locked booths at @gamescom.
The total silence from gamescom is unacceptable.
Exhibitors pay thousands to showcase in secure halls. You owe these teams an explanation and support.
Dustin Guarino retweeted
The GTA VI discourse tells you absolutely everything you need to know about gaming. We're shown a game that is the absolute all time pinnacle of the medium - a generation ahead of everything else which will be the biggest moment in the history of entertainment - and we're still flooded with takes about how garbage it is. You miserable cunts deserve nothing. #gtavı #cancer
Dustin Guarino retweeted
Brand new look at GTA 6 by Dazed Magazine showing off new screenshots and a ton of new information on the game:
- Rockstar is aiming to combine the chaos and freedom of GTA V with the realism, immersion, and emotional depth of Red Dead Redemption 2.
- Confirmed that eating affects weight and exercise changes muscle size and tone, both back from GTA San Andreas
- The world is designed to be more reactive to the player. Actions that once attracted little attention may now produce believable reactions for example, walking around publicly with a rifle will have NPCs comment on that
- Jason is an ex-military drug runner and Lucia is a fighter recently released from prison.
- There are three options: Play as Jason and Lucia together, or Just Lucia or Just Jason in the open world
- One example given involves driving as Jason, switching to Lucia in the passenger seat to use the in-game phone, and then switching roles during a chase so one character drives while the other shoots. All in the open world outside of missions
- In-game social media feeds are confirmed
- Jason and Lucia’s relationship is described as a “Bonnie and Clyde-type narrative.” Their romance is intended to be much more important than relationships in previous GTA games.
- Rockstar suggests that player decisions may affect the relationship and characters in more emotionally meaningful ways, they said its more in-depth than just an honor system.
- Rockstar considers player freedom and self-expression central to GTA. The idea is to provide lots of freedom without making Jason and Lucia feel like completely empty avatars.
- Spending long periods without sleeping or fleeing police can visibly affect the characters' appearance.
- NPCs are far more diverse in appearances than previous Rockstar games, this was already noticeable in the previous trailers
- Rockstar developed new tools and production pipelines specifically to create what it calls its most detailed and varied NPC population
- Rockstar's development operation has more than doubled in size since Red Dead Redemption 2.
- A branch of Rockstar in LA is dedicated almost solely to the world of in-game pedestrians
- More than 50 real street artists were brought in to design murals in the game
- The team that deals with vehicle handling is made up of real racing cars drivers
- Rockstar views GTA VI as something players could potentially spend a decade or more playing, which contributes to the enormous pressure surrounding the project
Right in-between RDR2 and GTA 5 design is quite literally the best possible scenario for this game, it sounds utterly wonderful and I cannot wait to see how it looks tomorrow with the official gameplay reveal!
An update on the development of Vintergard (thread)...
Hey all, Dustin here, I just wanted to post an update on the development of Vintergard. Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to buy a house with my fiance. As a consequence, development on Vintergard was paused for several months as we have been getting settled.
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This is gonna be insanely disruptive to the diesel truck industry
Updated Tesla Semi page now live
– Cheaper to run than diesel: with lower energy cost & far fewer parts to maintain, Semi can pay for itself within typical truck ownership period
– Megacharger at up to 1.2 MW recovers ~60% of range in 30 minutes
– Up to 500 miles of range fully loaded
– Comes with fleet software for live status, Trip Planner, plus remote support and OTA updates
tesla.com/semi
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This is good but we need this for image and video gen. I want the ability to filter images and video from my feeds that are generated by AI
🚨 HUGE NEWS: Claude now embeds an invisible watermark into every piece of text it generates.
Anthropic just documented how it works. Two marks, both machine-readable:
> Text: an imperceptible watermark woven into the words themselves. You can’t see it, and it doesn’t change meaning, quality, or readability.
> Files (.svg, .png, .jpg): signed provenance metadata on the C2PA open standard, so you can tell if a file’s been tampered with.
The watermark is applied at the model level.
That means it shows up no matter where the text comes from: the API, Claude, Claude Code, Cowork, Claude Tag, and even when a supported model runs through AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Foundry.
Models launched on or after August 2, 2026 mark from day one. Older models are getting it during a transition period.
Every sentence Claude writes for you now carries a signature you’ll never see.
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Best pilots in the world!
Honored to welcome the U.S. Navy Blue Angels to Virginia Mason Athletic Center. They joined us for walkthrough practice before sharing their experiences and leadership insights with the team. Thank you for your service and for spending part of your day with us.
ALT U.S. Navy Blue Angels to Virginia Mason Athletic Center
ALT U.S. Navy Blue Angels to Virginia Mason Athletic Center
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Dustin Guarino retweeted
there are loads of reasons why the death of physical is bad news, but I think there are downstream effects that the industry is already suffering from today - that are only going to get worse
youtu.be/jGtv_lyaNww
Dustin Guarino retweeted
I hear Grand Theft Auto 6 preorders started.
Honestly, who preorders a digital game in 2026? What? You think they're going to run out of electrons?
