Author: Myles Blasonato

Myles Blasonato is a passionate lead game designer with over 15 years experience working with some of the most talented people in gaming, involved with crafting experiences such as God of War, Heavy Rain, and Destroy All Humans. Currently, Myles is the Lead Game Designer at Blowfish studios working on the next generation of AAA Web3 games – https://www.blowfishstudios.com

The Avatar Isn’t The Character. Identity Comes From Action

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

Games spend enormous amounts of time establishing who the player character is. There are biographies, costumes, cinematic introductions, tragic childhoods, complicated family trees, heroic musical themes, and enough lore to explain why somebody has worn one particular shoulder pad for the last three hundred years. All of that can help define a character, but it can't make the player feel like that character. A detective doesn't become believable because they wear a trench coat. A survivor doesn't become vulnerable because their clothes are dirty...

Nova Games Foundation Shows Game Graduates Need A Bridge, Not Just A Degree

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Mark Cerny and Geoff Keighley have launched a university-affiliated fellowship program intended to support emerging game designers. Nova plans to select 20 fellows each year and provide each of them with $100,000 to develop an original game. Around a quarter may qualify for up to an additional $500,000 if their projects show particular promise. The money matters, but the structure surrounding it may be even more important...

Good Friction Makes The Fantasy Stronger

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

A lot of games are designed around removing friction. Movement becomes faster. Failure becomes softer. Resources become plentiful. Objectives become impossible to miss. Characters automatically grab ledges, recover health, identify important objects, and politely solve half the problem before the player has finished working out what the problem was. These decisions can improve accessibility, pacing, and usability. That doesn’t make them bad. The problem begins when removing friction also removes the behaviour that makes the fantasy meaningful...

Nexus Mods Acquiring SteamDB Shows Community Tools Have Become Critical Infrastructure

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Some of the most important infrastructure in PC gaming wasn’t created by platform holders, publishers, or enormous technology companies. It was created by people who noticed that something useful was missing and decided to build it themselves. SteamDB began as an independent way to understand what was happening across Steam. Nexus Mods grew from a community modding site into a platform supporting an enormous ecosystem of players, creators, tools, and games. Neither started as a piece of critical industry infrastructure, but both eventually became services that millions of people rely on...

Games Shouldn’t Aim For Realism. They Should Aim For Believability

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

A lot of games are trying very hard to look real. Skin stretches over simulated muscles. Rain collects on individually modelled surfaces. Characters have pores, eyelashes, fabric fibres, dental records, and enough facial detail to make you wonder whether the art team has accidentally created a second human being. None of that automatically makes the experience believable. A game can reproduce reality with extraordinary accuracy and still feel artificial the moment a character slides across the floor, an enormous creature changes direction without transferring its weight, or an object that appears physically important refuses to react to anything around it. The image looks real, but the behaviour underneath it breaks the illusion...

GTA 6 Propping Up Console Growth Shows The Industry Has A Concentration Problem

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Grand Theft Auto 6 has become more than the biggest game release of 2026. It has become one of the assumptions holding up the console market’s growth forecast. As GamesIndustry.biz reports, Newzoo’s director of market intelligence, Emmanuel Rosier, believes console revenue would be flat or declining this year without Rockstar’s latest release. Newzoo currently forecasts console revenue reaching $46.9 billion in 2026, representing growth of 5.1% year-on-year. Switch 2 is contributing to that performance, but GTA 6 is the decisive commercial event. Newzoo expects full-game console spending to rise by 17.5%, with the release providing the strongest growth across any business model it tracks. That’s obviously impressive. It’s also slightly terrifying...

Warren Spector Retiring Shows Game Development Must Outgrow Its Legends

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Warren Spector is retiring after nearly 44 years in game development. His farewell is a reminder that creative legacies matter most when knowledge, opportunity, and authorship pass to the next generation...

When Everything Affects Everything: The Overconnection Problem

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

A strong systemic game isn’t one where everything connects to everything else. It’s one where the right systems connect in ways players can understand, predict, and use. When too many consequences propagate at once, depth becomes noise...

Epic Selling ArtStation And Sketchfab Shows Creative Platforms Are Built On Trust

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Epic’s sale of ArtStation and Sketchfab to KitBash isn’t just a business deal. It tests whether creative platforms can change ownership without disrupting the portfolios, libraries, licences, workflows, and trust that artists have built their careers around...