Netflix closes its only AAA game studio
Game Developer
OCTOBER 22, 2024
The Southern Californian developer was around for less than two years.
AAA Game Developer Studios 
5 things to learn from AAA studios
Game Developer
SEPTEMBER 9, 2024
This article covers five key aspects—production, community, development, storytelling, and updates—valuable for both indie and AAA game developers.
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New AAA studio Muddy Robot launches
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 18, 2024
A new AAA studio has launched, composed of industry veterans from EA, Sony, Blizzard, Disney, Apple, and Google. Founded in October 2023, Muddy Robot Games is led by former International Game Developers Association president Chris Hood.
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Godot for AA/AAA game development - What's missing?
Mircosoft Game Dev
JANUARY 15, 2023
The features offered are also a lot more reminiscent of AAA games, such as far more material options and advanced visual effects (including circle DOF , volumetric fog, AMD FSR, etc.). Is solving these problems enough for Godot to become a top AA / AAA game engine? Rendering is significantly more efficient in Godot 4.0,
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Developer cohort unveils Fun Dog Studios
GamesIndustry.biz
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox A team of game developers who have worked on various AAA titles such as Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Doom Eternal have unveiled Fun Dog Studios. The studio is a minority-led and completely employee-owned game developer.
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Firewall studio First Contact shuts down
GamesIndustry.biz
DECEMBER 22, 2023
The Los Angeles-based studio shared a statement on social media , citing a "lack of support for VR within the industry" as the main reason for closing its doors. "As As an AAA VR game developer, we are just not able to justify the expense needed going forward," the studio said. "[We]
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Playground Games leaders form new AAA studio Maverick Games
GamesIndustry.biz
JANUARY 10, 2023
Some of the leaders behind the Forza Horizon series have formed a new AAA games studio in Leamington Spa called Maverick Games. The team is led by studio head and creative director Mike Brown, who was previously the creative director on the Forza Horizon franchise. Running the studio itself is COO Harinder Sangha.
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Three Minutes to Eight developer Chaosmonger Studio “Multiple stories moving parallel”
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 27, 2023
Chaosmonger Studios , based in Tallinn, Estonia, is a multimedia production company specializing in everything from documentaries, science fiction films and animations to music video, graphic design and video games. His latest game Three Minutes to Eight is a real tour de force, both in storytelling and visual flair.
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PlayStation to acquire AAA multiplayer developer Firewalk Studios
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 20, 2023
PlayStation has agreed to acquire Firewalk Studios, the AAA multiplayer developer that is working on a live service game for PS5 and PC. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Sony had already announced it would be publishing Firewalk's first game back in April 2021.
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EA reveals Cliffhanger Games, the new studio working on a Black Panther game
GamesIndustry.biz
JULY 10, 2023
The AAA developer is based in Seattle, and it's creating an original third-person single player game based on Marvel's Black Panther franchise. It follows news that EA's Motive studio is creating a game based on the Iron Man IP.
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Solo developer Kaighen Finley: “It’s easy to lose myself in game development”
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 17, 2023
Fresh out of school Kaighen Finley started his own web & game development company Team iNtuition. Just to be on the safe side he mainly focused on web development, but his heart was not in it. Initially, I wanted to build games, but invested my eggs in web development first because I thought I was being pragmatic.
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PlayStation-backed Deviation Games closes
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 9, 2024
New AAA game developer Deviation Games is closing, the studio announced. It was formed in 2020 by Jason Blundell and Dave Anthony, two development veterans best known for the Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise. But the project hit challenges.
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Why external and distributed development is the future of AAA games
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 7, 2024
It’s no secret that game development has seen a massive expansion in scope in recent years. What would have once taken a development team three or four years to make now requires much more people, and four to six years to ship. Read more
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Battlefield leaders form new shooter studio Time To Kill Games
GamesIndustry.biz
MAY 23, 2023
Former EA DICE leaders have reunited to form Time To Kill Games, a new AAA studio based in Stockholm, Sweden. The developer is led by Lars Gustavsson, who up until November last year, ran the Battlefield series as creative director at EA DICE. It’s working on a new shooter built using Unreal Engine.
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ProbablyMonsters unveils Hidden Grove
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 9, 2024
Given the widespread contractions the industry has seen in the past year and ProbablyMonsters' own willingness to part ways with Firewalk, it's interesting to see the company seemingly return to growing its development footprint, but Ryan tells GamesIndustry.biz it's far from unexpected.
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Mastering the Art of AAA Game Development: Our Approach
Starloop Studios
AUGUST 17, 2023
AAA game development is a complex process that requires well-oiled teamwork from an experienced team. The AAA game development process is an intersection of art, technical skills, writing, and many more disciplines.
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AWS for Games debuts Guide to Generative AI for Game Developers, and more at GDC 2024
AWS Games
MARCH 27, 2024
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming industries, a seismic shift that was certainly felt at the 2024 Game Developer Conference (GDC) held last week in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center. Check it out , and follow the recap below for a full rundown of AWS for Games activities at GDC 2024.
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The 7 Stages of Game Development
Starloop Studios
NOVEMBER 24, 2022
The game development pipeline is a lengthy process. In our experience working on everything from AAA titles to smaller-scale projects, a common thread are the stages of game development.
How to Create a Game-Ready AAA asset
Logic Simplified
AUGUST 5, 2024
At Logic Simplified , a leading game development company , we created an FPS game Mr. 45. This is the workflow for creating a AAA model of an AK-47, using Maya, Substance Designer, Substance Painter and Marmoset. Seasoned gaming studios like ours love Maya for its features and flexibility.
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The five pillars of emergent gameplay
GamesIndustry.biz
NOVEMBER 28, 2023
Over the past twenty years, the scope, budget and audience expectations of games have inflated, and smaller studios are left seemingly locked in a cycle of diminishing returns on increasingly ambitious productions. Thrilling as a solo ten-hour-long campaign can be, linear content is expensive to produce.
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What are AAA Games and Mobile Games?
iXie gaming
FEBRUARY 17, 2023
With the rise of the gaming industry, two distinct categories of games have emerged: AAA games and mobile games. These games offer different gaming experiences, target different audiences, and have unique testing requirements for game QA. Can Mobile Games Be AAA?
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Gavin Raeburn announces new AAA studio Lighthouse Games
Game Development News
MARCH 28, 2023
Playground Games’ founder and former studio head Gavin Raeburn has announced that he has set up a new game development studio
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Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PlayStation Studios division has acquired Firewalk Studios
Game Development News
APRIL 21, 2023
PlayStation Studios has acquired AAA multiplayer game developer Firewalk Studios
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How to Seamlessly Integrate Stories Into AAA Console Gameplay
Starloop Studios
AUGUST 29, 2023
With AAA console game developers focusing on ensuring their games are more immersive than ever, intersecting gameplay and narrative has never been more crucial. Though the vast majority of games have a story, very few of them allow for meaningful gameplay and story integration.
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How VFX Streamlines Player Experience
Starloop Studios
JANUARY 12, 2023
Visual effects in modern gaming can be a transformative process that brings a title’s presentation and immersion to the next level. It has become an integral part of game development, from small-scale indie gems to AAA blockbusters.
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Is classic game porting/remastering becoming its own specialization? What I mean is, of course it’s happening more these days, so/but is space growing to be someone who specializes in these projects? Or is it still niche enough that the small number of teams/staff who do it will continue to do it?
Ask a Game Dev
SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
Here's the main issue - game development is expensive. AAA studios are expensive and cost a lot to run, assigning a AAA studio a remake/port project is not really worth it when compared to the estimated return on investment. The external studio gets to do that, and often has their own stuff in place already.
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AAA Game Development: Creating Next-Generation Games
Starloop Studios
MAY 4, 2023
With every new console generation comes the anticipation of next-gen games and the experiences they can bring to players. The arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S was met with similar excitement and curiosity as to what the new console generation would bring. At Magic Media, we are well-versed in [.]
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GTC 21: Top 5 Game Development Technical Sessions
Nvidia
MARCH 25, 2021
Check out our top sessions below for those working in the gaming industry: Ray Tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 Learn how ray tracing was used to create the visuals in the game, and how the developers at CD Projekt RED used extensive ray tracing techniques to bring the bustling Night City to life.
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Design review of Redfall by Arkane Studios Austin
Radiator Blog
JUNE 2, 2023
If Microsoft had given them another 6-12 months to truly polish everything, then it maybe would've been a more solid OK game. Anyway I didn't mind the incompleteness so much because I was playing less for fun, and more "for work", as a first person game developer. It's these small moments and details that stand out.
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Omeda Studios swaps out ‘Predecessor’ backend in less than five months using Amazon GameLift and Pragma
AWS Games
MAY 14, 2024
It’s hard to overstate the dedication of Omeda Studios developers working on the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game “Predecessor.” Its core team has developed the game since 2018, even though the studio was officially formed in 2020. We also knew we could trust GameLift with such a tight timeline.”
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A bit of a different question, but what does IT do in AAA? I feel like most game developers are pretty tech savvy.
Ask a Game Dev
JULY 8, 2024
While it's true that many game developers are tech savvy, there's more to IT than just keeping a workstation running. IT at game companies does the same thing that IT does at any tech company - they set up, maintain, and make decisions about tech solutions for an organization.
The joy of intergalactic journalism in Times & Galaxy by Copychaser Games
PreMortem.Games
MAY 17, 2024
Before I got into game development, I was a crime reporter at a daily newspaper”, says Ben Gelinas , creative director on Times & Galaxy and Copychaser Games’ founder. Times & Galaxy essentially mashes up my previous life in journalism with my current work in game dev.
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The Top 10 Popular VR Game Development Tools
Logic Simplified
NOVEMBER 7, 2024
Similarly, in a game development setup, various virtual reality tools have become easily accessible to both creators and consumers to create and encounter immersive experiences. 10 Popular VR Game Development Tools There are a range of tools and frameworks that are being used for VR game development projects.
Airship Interactive takes centre stage as the Headline Sponsor for Women in Games Awards 2024.
Game Development News
AUGUST 14, 2024
The MCV/Develop Women in Games Awards has announced that Airship Interactive is the headline sponsor for the 2024 event. Airship offer full end-to-end games art and implementation services to leading international game developers and AAA studios.
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QXR Studios accelerates game testing and development with Amazon GameLift Anywhere
AWS Games
JUNE 13, 2023
A mage, a hacker, and a barbarian walk into a bar… What sounds like the start of a joke is the ultimate vision for cyberpunk, blockchain collectible card game “Metropolis Origins”, created by game industry veterans at QXR Studios. However, balancing a three-faction card game is quite difficult,” Devine shared.
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Introducing AWS GameTime – a new AWS Twitch show
AWS Games
MAY 12, 2023
AWS GameTime is for gamers and budding game developers who want to go “behind-the-scenes” and learn how their favorite gaming experiences are made on AWS. The livestream is dedicated to showcasing game developers, playing their games and sharing their stories and expertise from the video game industry.
Chris Zukowski’s tips on How to NOT screw up your game launch “Wishlists aren’t milk”
PreMortem.Games
JULY 22, 2024
Chris Zukowski , Creative Director of How To Market A Game , is a game marketing consultant and strategist who has guided numerous game studios in finding their audience. Business Mistakes Quitting after your first game fails is a common mistake. Relying on a single game to fund your studio is unrealistic.
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How much freedom does a game designer have at a non-indie studio? Are they able to pitch and create their own ideas or are they basically project leads that get assigned games to make/design (ie that time everyone was making a WW2 shooter)?
Ask a Game Dev
AUGUST 5, 2024
We're not project leads that pitch entire games, we're [ content creators ] that build the bits of specific content in games - the spells, the monsters, the fights, the classes, the races, the quests, the environments, the stats, the companions, and so on.
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How long does pre-production last for a triple AAA game? Also sorry second question do developers start working on another game right after they finished launching?
Ask a Game Dev
JANUARY 26, 2023
For other games, it can be longer - the dev team can spend up to a year in preproduction figuring out the core gameplay for most games, with more time needed for games with really massive scope (e.g. Only a handful of game franchises are exceptions to this - Elder scrolls, GTA, whatever Riot or Valve are doing, etc.
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How 10 Chambers is using Lurkit as a force for creator engagement
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 16, 2024
The duo keeps a steady finger on the gaming community's pulse, GTFO was 10 Chambers' first game, a passion project of the founding members and the original crew of developers. "It It was built by a studio of 10 people, a very skeleton crew of people creating this game,” says Calle.
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Mastering Metaverse: John Krajewski’s Eco Adventure
Game Dev Unchained
SEPTEMBER 18, 2023
The conversation shifted from the nuances of game development to the larger, looming concept of the “metaverse.” Today, with an impressive team of 32 people, they’re working on Eco , a virtual society game built inside a self-contained ecosystem. But publishers are not the only avenue.
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Recently, Jason Schreier revealed some bts talks with Blizzard devs who told him that they were trying for an RTS for years but were denied by execs. I understand that execs weigh risk/reward in terms of profitability but from the consumer side, these sorts of reveals makes it seem like innovation is being stifled and shifted to the indie scene like the nothing but superhero movies. What’s it look like from the dev and creative side?
Ask a Game Dev
OCTOBER 15, 2024
Unfortunately, the real story in the AAA space is that experimental and niche games like RTS games don't have as much of a potential market anymore. If the studio doesn't have a good distribution of work for these devs to do, that inevitably leads to layoffs. Creatives want to be creative, so they pitch creative stuff.
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Code, Creativity, Completion: The Triple C’s of Full-Cycle Game Development Process
Starloop Studios
OCTOBER 10, 2023
The full-cycle game development process is an intersection of many disciplines, including artistic, technical, narrative, design skills, and much more. The bulk of these key aspects can be categorized into one of the three C’s of the game development process - code, creativity, and completion.
Mastering Game Engines: The Key to Full-Cycle Game Development
Starloop Studios
MAY 25, 2023
For most players, hearing the words game engine will conjure up imagery of the likes of Unreal Engine 5, game developers speaking about how useful it is, and promotional material about its array of useful features.
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