Sat.Aug 24, 2024 - Fri.Aug 30, 2024

article thumbnail

'A rising tide floats all boats': Xbox on the universal benefits of accessible design

Game Developer

Xbox senior accessibility product manager Kaitlyn Jones and principal designer Chris Kujawski explain how the company is working to make video games accessible to all.

Games 349
article thumbnail

Matt Marshall went solo to escape corporate culture and scored a hit with Dystopika

PreMortem.Games

Canadian solo dev Matt Marshall is the creator of the Cyberpunk-themed city builder Dystopika. It’s a no-goals, no-management sandbox that allows players to build dark cities that would make Deckard proud to hunt replicants in. Marshall created the game while drastically resetting his professional life. He quit his job and traveled through Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Sandbox 138
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Remedy and Annapurna sign deal to fund Control 2 and bring the series, plus Alan Wake, to TV and film

GamesIndustry.biz

Annapurna and Remedy have signed a deal that will see the former finance 50% of the upcoming Control 2. The deal also sees Annapurna secure the movie and TV rights to both Control and its sister series Alan Wake. It is part of Remedy's move towards self-publishing some of its own titles.

Film 145
article thumbnail

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Live Service Design

Game Wisdom

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Live Service Design Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com In a recent piece I talked about the problems with covering gacha design, and while there are people who vehemently oppose it, you still need to understand that these games make serious money — 40-50 million dollars a month on … The post What Everyone Gets Wrong About Live Service Design appeared first on Game Wisdom.

Games 111
article thumbnail

Atari CEO wants Infogrames to become the ultimate preservationist publisher

Game Developer

'There's not a really strong moat around this space, so competition can increase rapidly and decrease rapidly. The ones that survive have a strong brand.

346
346
article thumbnail

Skyrim-dev Nate Purkeypile goes solo and makes heavy metal horror game The Axis Unseen

PreMortem.Games

After 18 years in the games industry, including 14 years at Bethesda, Nate Purkeypile decided it was time for a change. He had been building giant open-world games like Fallout and Skyrim in large teams for years. So, as a first time solo developer in order to keep things simple he decided to make his first project a… giant open world game. The Axis Unseen is a heavy-metal open-world horror game.

Horror 104
article thumbnail

Xbox’s European charm offensive might just work this time | Opinion

GamesIndustry.biz

Make no mistake, Xbox was the star of Gamescom 2024. Well, that and Monster Hunter Wilds. But in terms of companies, there was no booth bigger or more involved than what Xbox had in Cologne. Of course, it helps that Xbox's historical rivals – Sony and Nintendo – were entirely absent from the event. It was a surprise, to me at least, considering both console giants have pretty large games arriving on shelves in early September, and there is playable event code for both.

Console 144

More Trending

article thumbnail

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard accused of 'bad faith bargaining' by Raven Software union workers

Game Developer

Raven employees successfully unionised in 2022 but have now filed an NLRB complaint against their employer after struggling to secure their first collective bargaining agreement.

Software 359
article thumbnail

Plaion and Retro Games launching The Spectrum this November with 48 licensed games

Game Development News

Fresh from showing off the rubber-keyed wonder behind closed doors at this year’s gamescom, Plaion and Retro Games Ltd has announced the November launch of The Spectrum, a near-as-damnit recreation of the original Sinclair home computer from 1982 that arguably did more than any other piece of hardware to kickstart the UK games industry.

Games 98
article thumbnail

Spiders workers to strike as open letter calls out mismanagement

GamesIndustry.biz

Workers at French studio Spiders have announced a strike planned for the week starting September 2. A committee representing employees has published an open letter via union STJV , going through the alleged issues at the Nacon-owned studio, spanning several years. 44 workers out of Spiders' 95 staff signed the Spiders Action Committee letter as of August 27, with the strike to take place on September 2 and 3 in front of Spiders' offices and online on a Minecraft server set up for the occasion.

Studios 140
article thumbnail

Top 10 Best Digital Accessibility Testing Companies in USA

Rocket Brush Studio

The blog post provides a rundown of the top 10 software testing QA outsourcing companies in the USA for 2024, highlighting their services, experience, and industry expertise.

article thumbnail

Spiders devs to strike after alleging mismanagement, 'growing instability'

Game Developer

The Greedfall studio workers claim management refused to hear calls to improve its culture and alleviate working conditions that've caused burnouts and departures.

Dev 352
article thumbnail

Anima Flux New Trailer

Indie DB

We are happy to announce that the pre-release trailer of Anima Flux is live. The new trailer showcases stunning hand-drawn story, gameplay features, unique locations, and cooperative adventure, further immersing players in the dystopian universe of Anima.

Feature 89
article thumbnail

Games Done Quick officially under new ownership

GamesIndustry.biz

Ownership of speed running organisation Games Done Quick has been transferred to director of operations Matt Merkle, following founder Mike Uyama's decision to step away from the company last year. Merkle is now the majority owner and managing director of GDQ, and will continue to work as the firm's director of operations. He will lead a team consisting of director of technology Jason Deng and business director Ashley Farkas, who also have part ownership of the company.

article thumbnail

NVIDIA Launches NIM Agent Blueprints for Generative AI

Nvidia

Now available—NIM Agent Blueprints for digital humans, multimodal PDF data extraction, and drug discovery. Now available—NIM Agent Blueprints for digital humans, multimodal PDF data extraction, and drug discovery.

Agent 83
article thumbnail

Book Excerpt: Animal Crossing tracks the rise of the original cozy life sim

Game Developer

Video game preservationist and historian Kelsey Lewin tells the story of how a mundane-sounding game full of bug-catching, letter-writing, and furniture-collecting became one of Nintendo's best-loved franchises.

Animation 329
article thumbnail

Trapped Souls major update

Indie DB

Over the past 3 months, I've reworked and polished most of the game, fixed critical bugs, replaced some textures, improved gameplay, improved sounds, and added a lot of new content.

Texture 88
article thumbnail

Argonaut Games returns as publisher after 20 year hiatus

GamesIndustry.biz

Argonaut Games has returned after two decades as a boutique publisher with a console and PC remaster of Croc Legend of the Gobbos. The game, which launched in 1997, is the first of a "planned slate of classic Argonaut IP and exciting titles for both current and retro gaming platforms." Founded by Jez San in 1982, Argonaut is known for developing the Starglider series and Star Fox for the SNES in 1993.

Console 121
article thumbnail

Mono is Dead. Love Live Wine

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Mono is Dead. Love Live Wine First spotted over on Gaming on Linux Microsoft have just announced the donation of the Mono project to Wine HQ, the open source community around the popular Windows -> Linux compatibility layer WINE. Details from the Mono Project homepage: The Mono Project (mono/mono) (‘original mono’) has been an important part of the […] The post Mono is Dead.

Games 84
article thumbnail

Getting under the hood of racing games

Game Developer

Franchise development director at Sumo Sheffield Steve Lycett dissects the history of racing games and how developers can steer their games to success.

Racing 303
article thumbnail

The Deck of Many Things: Peak Game Design

The Bottom Feeder

How many other magic items get an official expansion all their very own? Though the prices for these things are so eye-watering. The Deck of Many Things is one of the greatest designs in all of gaming. Created by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax and published in 1975 , it dates back to the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons. It was created back when everything was new and nobody knew how to do anything and all writers just had to navigate by dead reckoning.

article thumbnail

Unionised Raven workers file complaint against studio, Activision, and Microsoft

GamesIndustry.biz

Unionised workers at Wisconsin-based Raven Software have filed a complaint against the studio and its parent companies, Activision and Microsoft, for allegedly refusing to bargain. According to Game File , the complaint was filed last Friday with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming a "Refusal to Bargain/Bad Faith Bargaining" as workers have been trying to reach an agreement with the studio since unionising via the Communication Workers of America in 2022.

Studios 132
article thumbnail

Safe House - Release on Windows

Indie DB

I am happy to announce the release of "Safe House" on Windows! You can now download the game for free and play it for yourself. What is "Safe House"? "Safe House" is an immersive experience that puts players to the ultimate test of survival during the.

Games 82
article thumbnail

Classic studio Argonaut Games revived as 'boutique publisher'

Game Developer

The new iteration of the once-defunct developer will bring its old works and make new projects, starting with a remaster of the cult classic Croc: Legend of the Gobbos.

Studios 267
article thumbnail

Unigine 2.19 Released

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Unigine 2.19 Released The Unigine game engine just released Unigine 2.19. This is the first major release of the C++/C# game engine of 2024, with Unigine 2.18 being released in December of 2023. Unigine is packed with new features, many of which are under the hood changes including much better CPU utilization, improved […] The post Unigine 2.19 Released appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

article thumbnail

Mental health charity Take This at risk of shutting down

GamesIndustry.biz

Mental health charity Take This is in danger of closing, clinical director Raffael Boccamazzo has announced. In a blog post , Boccamazzo explained that the games-focused charity needs to raise $80,000 by the end of September or it will cease to exist by the end of 2024. Take This executive director Eve Crevoshay had already shared the charity's financial difficulties earlier this year, saying in February that the organisation needed to fill a $200,000 funding gap by June.

Games 116
article thumbnail

Pennon and Battle Enters Early Access!

Indie DB

"Pennon and Battle" is a turn-based strategy war game. As a lord, you will play a crucial role in the revival of the kingdom! Lead heroes and armies to expand territory in Ruachland, utilize tactics and magic to eliminate enemy forces, and create your.

Games 80
article thumbnail

Capcom's close communication culture is key to sustainability, say Monster Hunter Wilds devs

Game Developer

Conversations among peers and strong support for RE Engine, make five-year-long dev cycles for games like Monster Hunter Wilds seem sustainable.

article thumbnail

Designer Notes #84: Zach Barth – Part 1

Designer Notes

In this episode, Soren interviews independent game developer Zach Barth, best known for his puzzle games, including SpaceChem , Infinifactory , Shenzhen I/O , and Opus Magnum. They discuss why he never originally wanted to make money on his games, why puzzle games are terrible, and whether he has ever played Minecraft. This episode was recorded on September 11, 2023.

Puzzle 71
article thumbnail

Report: NetEase to shut down Ouka Studios

GamesIndustry.biz

NetEase Games is reportedly planning to close Ouka Studios, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Sources told the outlet that "all but a handful of jobs" had been cut at the Visions of Mana developer, and that those remaining will "oversee the rollout of its final games" before it shuts down. Reporter Takashi Mochizuki later added on social media that NetEase had reportedly been cutting staff "since this spring at least.

Studios 123
article thumbnail

Darkchaser: Battletide Early Access

Indie DB

Darkchaser: Battletide is a survivor-like game where you play as a hero in a monster-infested world, using various skills and relics to arm yourself and battle countless enemies. You can also join online battles, challenge other players, and grow stronger.

Games 80
article thumbnail

Iterative narrative design for video games - an indie approach

Game Developer

Game narratives change all the time during the production. In this article we describe the methods we use to quickly iterate on our narrative content.

Indy 306
article thumbnail

Google GameNGen – Recreating Doom Entirely with AI

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Google GameNGen – Recreating Doom Entirely with AI Google Research and Tel Aviv University have just announced a very interesting project, GameNGen. This is a technology using a neural network, machine learning and a modified implementation of Stable Diffusion to create a playable version of 1993’s DOOM. This project sets out to answer the question Can a neural […] The post Google GameNGen – Recreating Doom Entirely with AI appeared first on GameFromSc

AI 61
article thumbnail

Finding ways to better understand your players

GamesIndustry.biz

You know the games you love – but do you know why you love them? Can you explain why something is cool, but something else just doesn't do it for you? Most people can't, and it is a tricky challenge even for game developers. While players can often identify elements they like – such as colors, puzzles, or characters – they rarely can elaborate why the elements appeal to them.

article thumbnail

Mercatorio - Season 1 nearing end

Indie DB

Season 1 officially ends on September 1st, and is now free to play. Take the opportunity to try out the game before joining the competition for real in the upcoming season. Direct deals have been added to give a taste of the more complex contract features.

Feature 77
article thumbnail

Report: Bungie fired veteran director after misconduct allegations

Game Developer

Former Marathon director Chris Barrett was allegedly jettisoned from the studio after reports of inappropriate behaviour surfaced.

Studios 291
article thumbnail

Launching Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord – How nDreams scale tested with AWS Fargate

AWS Games

This blog was co-authored by Tim Edmunds, Technical Director, nDreams; Jamie Holding, Senior Principal Programmer, nDreams; and Nick Robinson, Technical Director, Near Light. Leading up to the launch of the multiplayer VR game Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord , the talented team at nDreams knew they needed to put the game through its paces at scale.