I'm bummed Cohost is closing, but I'm glad it existed because this place was wonderful and I'll always cherish it.
If you want to follow me, the only place I'm still active is on Bsky. I'll likely take all the writing I did here and repurpose some of it for my personal website or I might actually start posting it on Game Worker Solidarity.
But instead of waiting for me to do that, you can check out my favorite posts here right now! I've included links and my favorite quotes from the posts below.
Austin's Favorite Cohost Posts
Why Games are Often Delayed - "There's a huge flaw in the way we plan for work, though. We're not a manufacturing business, we're a creative and research business."
Dream Big - "I want to help games industry workers learn and internalize that they can help end capitalism. I really mean it, we can absolutely end capitalism."
Unions and Layoffs - "Preventative measures are incredibly effective. After all, the best layoff is one that never happens."
Awards and Accolades - "I'm also hyper aware that award shows like the Academy Awards were literally created as a way to bust unionization efforts. So when I see awards and award ceremonies, I ask myself - who benefits from them? Who is excluded?"
1½ Things - "When some of the projects I want to work on could take a year or longer, asking myself whether I'm willing to dedicate either my 1 or my ½ things to it can help me get real with myself and admit that I won't do it because I'd rather do something else."
Organizing Community/Union Events - "This isn't pestering people to say yes, this is helping them show up when they want to."
25 of My Favorite Games - "It's something I thought I'd write off and forget but after playing it, it became my zen game."
Doing Everything and Nothing - "I've come a long way in these past five years because I now understand a lot about what it takes to organize and unionize an industry, but it's also not just about me and the UK games industry is quite large."
Yelling at the Sky - "Who do you want to help, the person who yells at everything wrong or the person who is actively trying to fix and address one area and invites people in?"
Understanding Power in Organizations - "The forms of power people use, even unintentionally, dictate how people feel in meetings and how easy it is for them to participate and make collective decisions."
Reaching Out and Connecting With People is a Super Power - "I have even messaged some strangers who over time turned into incredibly good friends. I just went to one of their weddings a couple of weeks ago."
Why is Being Productive a Good Thing? - "So company owners value productivity, that they set the targets for, because it makes them more profit. They enforce that productivity with a threat of starvation, houselessness, and loss of healthcare (in the US) if someone does not comply."
I Have No Chill - "Even when I'm outwardly calm, my brain is going a million miles an hour telling me all the things that could go wrong and all the reasons why my ideas are better and I have to silence that part of my brain and ignore it."