State of the Blog #00: Blog Introduction

S.J. Hoffiz

S.J. Hoffiz

— 15 min read
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State of the Blog #00: Blog Introduction

Hello, World! My name is S.J.Hoffiz and this is Artifacts of Play, a blog focused on exploring the intersection of games, human free will, and design.

Welcome!

In this first article, I wanted to explain what this blog is going to be about, my intentions and the goals I am aiming to achieve through it. It is a bit lengthy, maybe, but I prefer to be honest and thorough rather than anything else.

Transition of Mediums

First, a bit of history to set the scene. Why start a blog in this day and age? A moment where content is dominated by short-form format and rapid attention-grabbing tactics? Well, for that same reason. I wanted to do something different, something where the incentive structure was aligned with what and how I want to do things and not find myself having to fight the medium to achieve my goals.

For those of you who do not know, I have a very small YouTube channel I started back in 2023 that had the goal of exploring the areas of design I enjoy, like game design, product design, architecture, among others. But that project has been dormant since 2025 due to me prioritizing other areas of my life, like my growing young family. But I still feel the need to create content. I wanted the challenge of taking a topic and having to explore it and structure my ideas to then share them with others and start a conversation to fine-tune them.

But I found myself operating in an environment that was not incentivizing what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do things. Video content these days is all about, at its core, how do I make the viewer watch my video so I can capitalize and monetize their attention. Ignoring if the content is what that viewer actually needed or even wanted to spend their limited time on. The incentive is to trick and capture with a false veil of value offering. Not saying that all videos are like this, but this is the dominant trend. The focus of video content creation becomes the strategy of capturing views instead of focusing on refining the content itself, that which people will give you their attention for, and more importantly, their time, their most valuable resource.

After thinking on it, I found that writing was the solution to my pain points. First, its production workflow is lower, simpler, and shorter than video production. That meant I could more easily fit it in my current pace of life. I could dedicate more of that limited time I had actually exploring, studying and refining the ideas of the topic I was interested in, instead of spending a lot of time trying to make it as appealing as possible, with flashy animations, an exhausting but alluring constant scene shifts and over the top thumbnails so I could capture viewers. Secondly, it offers the value to my readers before monetization can become a possibility. The incentive is correctly aligned in my estimation. Readers first consume the content and then decide to tip the author, and later on, if the author has proven himself, they are willing to pay a membership for his content and support him in other meaningful ways. It is counter-intuitive for this day and age. Why do it this way? Why do it the hard way? Because it is the right way, and I do believe in such things as truth and doing what is right. Otherwise, I just keep feeding the social media black-hole and slop content creation that I detest being a victim of. It adds no value, just extracts, and that has its limits before the cracks start to show - as we can clearly see in our state of culture.

Do not get me wrong. I like doing videos. They are fun, you get to express and articulate emotions better than in the written form because you have so many more communication tools at your disposal, like facial expression, tone of voice, visuals and animations, etc. But all those things are what also take away from the focus on the idea that is being explored. It is a tension that needs to be managed. They are both useful tools. And I would like to keep doing videos once I have enough time in my hands and when I have established my blog as my primary means of content creation. I would like to treat videos as an extension of this blog and as a useful tool to keep exploring and communicating ideas, but keeping the written form as the primary form. There is something different about reading and writing. The active participation of your brain in consuming and understanding each word to stitch together and comprehend the idea the author is trying to communication is more productive than passively receiving visual and auditory stimuli that is hard to actually remember afterwards. There is also something about being able to revisit and re-read something interesting or hard to initially grasp to be able to comprehend it better. That is very valuable and unique in the written form that is just not practiced when consuming content in video from.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to explore and write down my understanding and opinions of subjects of my interest. The written form permits a cleaner format for this exercise. Evaluation of a written idea is easier because of its visual component, you can see the structure of the idea flowing, you can see the arguments and you can more easily and accurately pin points specific memes that you agree or disagree with. Without facilitating a clear and easy dissection of my ideas or content, how can I expect an honest and thorough conversation with my reader? With video content all this is harder to achieve.

What is the blog about?

This blog will focus on exploring the intersection of games, human free will, and design. What does that mean exactly? That means that I plan to touch on a lot of game design topics, from game theory, mechanic deep dives, to game reviews, among others. I also plan to explore how games and play intersect with other design fields like architecture (play spaces like eSports), product design (consoles and game peripherals, board games, etc.) among other fields like UX & ergonomics (physical and cognitive). Lastly, the human free will component, where we will explore it from the philosophical, psychological and even theological perspectives and how they affect our understanding of games and how we interact with them to establish their true, and often misunderstood, unique value in the human experience.

Below some examples of articles and series I am planning to write, albeit not in any particular order or schedule.

  • Ongoing explorations and pillars of this blog
    • What is Design?- as one of the pillars of the blog, this has to be one of the first series I dive into. Do you know how to clearly define design?
    • What is a Game? - here we will explore the different definitions of games, from mechanical to philosophical, to understand the different perspectives on it.
    • What is Human Free Will? - another pillar of the blog, this series intends to explore what is free will and if humans have such a thing?
  • More content:
    • Book Reviews - planning on doing specific book reviews pertaining to the main topics of this blog.
    • Cultural Elements - will select and explore cultural events that pertain to this blog's topics to further our understanding and comment on our current culture.
    • Among others - I have many other ideas for content that I am excited to put to the test when the time is right for them.

With all of this, I am also wanting to help elevate the field of game design and the importance of games for human beings. I have noticed that game design, even though it is a growing market share and academic field of knowledge (due to it exploding thanks to developments in technology that made video games possible) it is treated with modern sensibilities. It is treated in a very silo manner and with a level of superficiality that bothers me. Yes, GDC has good content, more and more universities have game design degrees, but for me there is something missing. And that is the gravitas that the other fields of knowledge seem to posses, the ones that have been around for some time now. And I do not think that it is because of the time factor, but rather how knowledge was treated in that time. Everything had a certain underlying importance for the existence of human beings, to help explore the existential questions of the human mind.

Due to the current societal incentive structure, everything is very transactional and short-sighted. There is no real and deep pondering on how the phenomenon of games plays a crucial role in the human experience. There is a lot of isolated analysis on individual mechanics and gameplay structures, on psychological underpinnings and societal dynamics, market incentives and economical drivers. All that is important, but it is still missing the mark as to its fundamental importance. Part of being a human being is... to be. It is to enjoy being, and in today's productivity grind mindset and the rat race, there is simply no space left for that important human fact. Understanding that games have a deeper and fundamental role in human existence is, in my opinion, what is missing that other disciplines have understood well. They developed in a time where that statement was at the root of every human pursuit of knowledge. In contrast, game design, as a recognized field of knowledge, has been developed in a very different cultural mindset. By no means am I saying that the content and knowledge that has been developed is without merit. On the contrary. I am just saying that the field as a whole is missing a grounding perspective, one that I am setting out to explore and attempt to define on this blog's journey.

I hope you join me for the journey.

The Name, Artifacts of Play

When looking for a name for this blog, I wanted something that encapsulated and reflected the intersection that this blog will focus on exploring: games, human free will, and design. That is where the word "artifacts" comes into play, pun not intended. The definition of an artifact is that it is not natural, it is artificial, it is made. In my head, aside from being a cool looking and sounding word, this word captured the "design" aspect of the blog. As things designed are human made, they are above the natural state of the world. It could also capture the "game" aspect but it wasn't as obvious, it was too open ended to facilitate the understanding of "game" as a sub-category of design that I will be focusing on. So I added "of Play". "Artifacts of Play"

Something interesting here starts to happen with this "play" of words from my vantage point. "Artifacts of Play" can be understood as objects that we use to play, which fits perfectly in the blog, as I will be focusing and analyzing the objects we use for play but it also captures a layered meaning. This phrase of "Artifacts of Play" is used in the gaming community to describe the objects that result from the act of playing. For example, character stat sheets from a tabletop RPG. This phrase of "Artifacts of Play" also captured the consequences of playing. So in this sense, it goes both ways. The artifacts that are use to enable play, like dice or game controllers, and the unique artifacts that result from play, character stat sheets and procedural generated maps.

So far I think I have captured the "design" and "game" components in the blog's name. But there is the third one still, human free will. Why is this important? You might be asking. Well without free will how can you make choices? And without the ability to make choices there is no true game or play. So the phrase "Artifacts of Play" gets another layered meaning. We, as humans, are made objects, artifacts ourselves. We are made to make choices, to exercise our most precious gift, our free will. And games are the only medium in which we actively explore and operate our free will in contained modules that not only let us act on our free will but also explore slices of reality in a focused and creatively combined ways.

And so, we are meant to be Artifacts of Play.

Publishing Timeline

At the time being, I am publishing an article once every two weeks on Mondays. This will give me the breathing room to get in the cadence of researching and writing. Once I feel I have a well established rhythm to my writing process, my goal is to take the next step, which may be to publish an article weekly or explore other aspects of this blog.

Every other Monday, readers can expect a new article in this blog site for them to read and start a conversation with me about. For those of you who deem my content worthy of being in your inbox by signing up below, you will receive the article in newsletter form.

Monetization

Following the logic set above on the topic of operating within the correct incentive structure and working within my current life constraints for this blog, there are two monetization models I will follow in the beginning.

First, the blog will start out free for all who decide to sign up. Every article will have the option for the reader to tip me whatever amount they wish, if they find value in my content and wish to show me their support. Every article will have a "Buy me a coffee" button at the bottom for readers to send me a tip, while also presenting two QR codes and respective addresses for bitcoin lightning network or on-chain tips.

Secondly, whenever pertinent, I will share an affiliate link for readers to use if deciding to buy the item in question and help me in the process. These might be books I have referenced or influenced the contents of the article you are reading, as well as games or products being reviewed.

In the future, I will establish a membership with exclusive new content but that is not necessarily well thought out at the moment. Trying to take one step at a time.

Reach

As far as getting my blog out there, it is a real conundrum for me. Seems like the only real option, without paying for adds, is to be active in social media. But I personally have years since I have retracted from social media for the most of it. Touching back on the incentive structure, all the major platforms are just trying to get you to be glued to your phone on their platform to monetize your most precious resource: time. I do not want to fall victim to it again nor do I want to help victimize others in this regard. I want to interact in a healthy manner with other people through the internet.

But how, then, do I let the world know that my blog exists? Word of mouth and readers sharing my articles and blog would be the ideal model, but very unlikely when starting out to get the necessary momentum to establish a hefty reader base.

At the moment, I am exploring a social media called Nostr. I am not being sponsored or paid for what I am about to share with you. I am just sharing with you what I am currently using and exploring. Nostr has no natural algorithms and it is a decentralized protocol, meaning that there are various clients/apps that let you view the content of Nostr. No single app controls the content, so you are not a prisoner of any one single app like what happens with Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, etc. Nostr is still a nascent protocol with developing clients, so it is a bit messy and not as polished, but I prefer the authenticity of the interactions there (chronological feed) rather than the algorithmic slop-bait in other platforms. It also has a very cool feature: you can "zap" notes (a "note" is what a post is called in Nostr). Zapping is where you can pay the author of that note however many sats ("sats" are the smallest denomination of bitcoin) you want for that specific note. This seems like a more healthy incentive structure. People post and readers can signal directly to the content creator the value they perceive from that piece of content via bitcoin tipping.

My plan is to start here. I will interact and post content here in Nostr to see how the blog spreads and to see if I can have authentic conversations on the topics I care to write about. If you are interested in following me and already have Nostr, scan the QR code and follow me and let me know.

Follow me on Nostr!

If this is the first time hearing about Nostr and are interested in it, follow this link to learn a little more about it and set up your app. If you do, make sure to follow me and let me know so I can welcome you. I would recommend the Primal app as a beginning starting point as it is very polished in my opinion. If you have any questions on this, let me know in the comment section below and I will try to help you as much as I can.

This does not mean that I will never join any other social media to be able to expand the reach of my goal, but it will be very slowly and with great hesitation. Please, feel free to share any of my content with any friends and family in any platform you already navigate. That will be a huge help to get me on my feet and running as a blog.

Conclusion

I plan to do one of these articles, calling them "State of the Blog", every time I have an update on the blog's mechanism of operation or enough development in the content itself has come to fruition. This is my way of feeling that I am being honest and open in this endeavor with my readers. Here I will discuss content goals, content form, big updates, and monetization strategies so you know how you can support me, and so on.

I know this article is way too long for this type of very personal and functional type of content but I wanted to set the tone and share with you from where I am starting this project and in what direction I want to navigate this journey. Most importantly, I want to share with you all how. Hope you will join me.

Outro

If you are excited by what this blog is about, please sign up below and make sure you share the article and blog with your friends and family.

If you are interested in supporting my work, please feel free to tip me using the button below. Any contribution is more than welcome and a giant dopamine hit. Contributions and affiliate links are the only monetization strategies I have decided to run on.

If you would rather tip me using Bitcoin, the dopamine hit is even greater! You can send me some Sats via Lightning or On-chain. Let me know in the comment section below if you do so I can thank you!

Lightning Network (QR Code)
Bitcoin On-chain (QR Code)

Follow me on Nostr! by clicking on the link or by scanning the QR code below.

I very much look forward to any comments you might have about this article, especially being the introduction to the blog. I am always looking for new ideas and perspectives on the topics I write about. If you haven't already, sign up to be able to comment and let's start a conversation.

Thanks for reading!