Punk Provocations
"Punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that." — Malcolm McLaren
Warning: If you want a silver bullet for efficient game making or a step-by-step guide to receiving game dev hero worship, you're in the wrong place.
Close this tab. This series has zero respect for boundaries between mediums, industries, sectors, specialisms or disciplines. It challenges you to expand your cultural capital, think laterally and make new connections.
Punk Provocations is not for everyone. But it might be for you.
What This Is
In 2017, we (Chris Lowthorpe and Sean Taylor) wrote Punk Playthings: Provocations for 21st Century Game Makers. It was an antidote to the complacency and orthodoxy we saw calcifying around independent game development — the cargo cult processes, the hero worship, the premature incorporation, the relentless pursuit of efficiency over meaning.
We argued for playthings over products. Culture over commodity. Entrepreneurship over ennui. In that moment, we were too far ahead of our time wrong.
On the cusp of 2026, the timing fits.
- Empires are dying
- Industry is deprofessionalising
- Tools, techniques and technologies are democratising
- Lofi, DIY playthings are creating culture and collateral
Punk Playthings was prescient. Many of its probes and provocations feel right for the hard times the games industry finds itself in now. But you can't map the future in the rearview mirror. There are newer, better ways to dream, think and do the work of play in the age of amusement. So we're remixing the thesis for a post-industrial reality.
