Thu.Jan 25, 2024

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Former Bungie general counsel says the game industry must unionize

Game Developer

Don McGowan, the former Bungie CLO who pursued Destiny 2 cheaters and players that threatened his coworkers, wants developers to fight for their rights.

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CWA says Microsoft's job cuts did not impact the staffers it represents

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Following news that Microsoft laid off 1,900 staffers from its games division, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said that the move has not impacted any of the staffers it represents. The CWA represents some employees from Microsoft divisions, including ZeniMax Studios and Activision Blizzard.

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Report: Microsoft follows Activision Blizzard merger with 1,900 layoffs

Game Developer

The company spent $68.7 billion on its merger with Activision Blizzard but claims it must now implement a "sustainable cost structure.

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Black Forest Games reportedly cuts 50% of employees

GamesIndustry.biz

THQ Nordic and Embracer subsidiary Black Forest Games has reportedly cut 50% of its workforce. As reported by Kotaku , the layoffs were announced yesterday with a source alleging that the developer's creative directors and "if not all" managers will keep their positions. GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Black Forest Games and Embracer Group for more information regarding the layoffs.

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Don't worry, The Pokemon Company is looking into the whole Palworld thing

Game Developer

"We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.

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Microsoft cuts 1,900 staffers from its games division

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Tech firm Microsoft is laying off 1,900 employees from its video games division. As reported by IGN , per sources familiar with the matter, the memo was delivered by Xbox boss Phil Spencer.

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Navigating neurodiversity: What you need to know about the games industry

GamesIndustry.biz

This article is part of our Get into Games special , offering students insight on life in the games industry and advice on how to get into the business Just because someone has an invisible disability doesn't mean their support needs are invisible, too. One in four working-age people have a disability, and even though it has long been unlawful for employers to discriminate against disabled people, just a tiny percentage of those in work have openly disclosed their disability to their employer, o

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Outriders studio People Can Fly is laying off Project Gemini developers

Game Developer

"To those individuals transitioning out of the studio due to these changes, we extend our sincere appreciation for the skills and expertise you brought to the team.

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Apple to allow alternative app stores in Europe

GamesIndustry.biz

Beyond its new policy allowing game streaming apps worldwide , Apple today announced new changes it is making to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act , most notably that it will allow alternative app payments and app stores. For its part, Apple continued to show reluctance to comply with the DMA, repeating concerns that the measures will make its platforms more vulnerable to privacy and security threats.

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Destroy All Humans dev Black Forest Games reportedly cuts 50% of staff

Game Developer

Known for remaking the Destroy All Humans games, Black Forest may be the next studio to get hit hard with reductions.

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Twitch expands partner program to give more streamers access to higher revenue shares

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Twitch has announced several changes to the way it pays streamers, suggesting that three times as many people who broadcast via its site will gain access to higher revenue shares. In a blog post attributed to CEO Dan Clancy, the company lays out three key alterations: the expansion of its Partner Plus Program, the removal of the $100,000 to its 70/30 tier, and changes to how the Prime Gaming subscription pays out for st

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Mike Ybarra exits Blizzard Entertainment after Microsoft layoffs

Game Developer

Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra says it's now time for him to once again be "Blizzard's biggest fan from the outside.

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Pokémon Company to investigate potential IP rights infringement amid Palworld debate

GamesIndustry.biz

The Pokémon Company has issued a statement saying it would look into infringement of its intellectual property after having received inquiries regarding "another company's game released in January 2024." While the games firm didn't name any title, this statement comes in the middle of a controversy surrounding Pocket Pair's Palworld and its alleged similarities with Pokémon.

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Blizzard cancels Odyssey MMO amid Microsoft layoffs

Game Developer

Blizzard Entertainment isn't just losing staff, it's also killed its mysterious Odyssey MMO it first mentioned in 2022.

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Find the right AI model for your game with Unity and Hugging Face

Unity Blog

Our neural engine for bring AI models to Unity – Unity Sentis – announces a new integration with Hugging Face, plus some product updates for the tool.

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Navigating the Unknown: Developing a Mixed Reality Game from Ground Up vs. a Console Game

Game Developer

With Mixed Reality (MR) as a key feature in current and next generation VR hardware and headsets, many developers are wondering if their console skill sets transfer to more virtual settings.

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Apple clears the way for Game Pass streaming on iOS

GamesIndustry.biz

Apple today has announced new rules that will allow game streaming apps onto iOS devices. The company first started prohibiting such apps in 2020 , blocking Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass streaming app (then called ProjectXCloud) and Google's Stadia from the App Store, explaining the move as necessary because Apple could not apply its review process to every game included in such offerings.

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Krafton wants to deepen AI relationship, franchise out PUBG

Game Developer

Whether by AI or making PUBG into a bigger series, Krafton is aiming to scale up and reach a "turning point" in its business.

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Xbox announces Indie Selects program

GamesIndustry.biz

ID@Xbox has launched a curated program to highlight the top indie games on its platform. The Indie Selects program will consist of games selected by the ID@Xbox team, showcased in a permanent section on the Xbox Store. Games will be spotlighted every Wednesday on dedicated channels including one for recently released games, another for games revolving around a weekly themes which players can suggest on social media.

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Apple allows game streaming services on its App Store

Game Developer

Apple continues making the App Store more third-party friendly for developers and other game streaming services.

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Grim Fandango | Why I Love

GamesIndustry.biz

Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other's work. This entry was contributed by Scott Christian, co-founder of Hilltop Studios, which launched the narrative adventure game Lil' Guardsman on PC, Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S this week. As a kid born in the mid-'80s, some of my earliest memories include NES (specifically standing right next to the already old CRT TV in our basement, pres

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Dev snapshot: Godot 3.6 beta 4

Mircosoft Game Dev

Godot 3.6 is still in development, slowly but steadily! This snapshot updates toolchains for official builds and adds official Linux ARM binaries, among other improvements.

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GameSquare reveals Moonlight Studios

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Entertainment and tech firm GameSquare has unveiled Moonlight Studios. The developer was in stealth for six months, focusing on developing brand experiences within metaverses such as Fortnite, Roblox, and Grand Theft Auto.

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Unreal and Unity Humble Bundles

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Unreal and Unity Humble Bundles There are not one but two game development Humble Bundles on right now, the Unreal Apocalypse Essentials Reloaded and the Unity based Fantasy Realms Bundle by Dragonsan Studios. As with most Humble Bundles these are organized into tiers: Unreal Apocalypse Essentials Reloaded 1$ Tier Flag Generator 41 Animations for Monsters … Unreal and Unity Humble Bundles Read More The post Unreal and Unity Humble Bundles appeared first on GameFromScrat

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True Gamers secures $45m investment

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Esports lounge creator True Gamers has secured a $45 million investment. The company intends to use the funds to create more than 150 esports clubs across Saudi Arabia.

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Game Developer’s Guide to Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) Part Three: Operation Best Practices

AWS Games

Introduction To continue our discussion about Amazon DocumentDB best practices in part two , we are going to focus on data protection, scaling, monitoring, and cost optimization in this blog. Protecting data To protect your data stored in Amazon DocumentDB, you should encrypt it by enabling the storage encryption option during cluster creation. Encryption is enabled cluster-wide by default and applied to all instances, logs, automated backups, and snapshots.

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Michael Blaker’s Translation Necessary Thursday: “Making Magic Volume 01” by Aloha Zachou

Game Industry News

Hey all, I’m back with a new series for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday. It’s “Making Magic: The Sweet Life of a Witch Who Knows an Infinite MP Loophole Volume 01” by Aloha Zachou. Plot: The plot of this first novel is about the main character Chise deciding to live in the middle of some wastelands after reincarnating into a new world and eventually becoming an immortal witch while stuck in the guise of a young girl and her journey with her created golem companion.

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Announcing NVIDIA Metropolis Microservices for Jetson for Rapid Edge AI Development

Nvidia

Building vision AI applications for the edge often comes with notoriously long and costly development cycles. At the same time, quickly developing edge AI. Building vision AI applications for the edge often comes with notoriously long and costly development cycles. At the same time, quickly developing edge AI applications that are cloud-native, flexible, and secure has never been more important.

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Fan Collective Unimatrix 47 Examines Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “Past Tense” Episode

Game Industry News

This past weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to meet the incredible Armin Shimerman, who played Quark in the Star Trek franchise. He was as lovely as you’ve all heard, and the occasion reminded me just how key Star Trek: Deep Space Nine really is to the Star Trek experience. Moreover, we are now in the year 2024, which is also the year of Deep Space Nine’s infamous Bell Riots , which take place in canon on September 1, 2024, and though I’m well aware the riots are fictional events, the

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Palworld Beginners Tips and Tricks: Everything You Need to Know

Game Errors

Palworld, or “Pokemon with guns” as some people call it, exceeded my expectations. At first, I thought that it would be similar to Pokemon. Yet, it feels a bit more like ARK: Survival Evolved with funny creatures instead of dinosaurs. Also, the game has so many mechanics that it is easy for a newcomer to get lost in them. So, I decided to make this beginner’s guide feature everything I’ve learned so far.

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Indie Game Showcase 184

Game Wisdom

Indie Game Showcase 184 Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" The weekly indie showcase highlights the many games we play here on the channel, and I’m taking submissions for future ones. All games shown are either press key or demo submissions. 0:00 Intro 00:14 Endling Extinction is … The post Indie Game Showcase 184 appeared first on Game Wisdom.

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Quick question. I often hear people say “digital games should be cheaper than physical games because you aren’t getting a tangible item.” Do you guys actually factor the cost of cart/disc, case, and paperwork printing into the *MSRP* of a game?

Ask a Game Dev

You're asking about a business term called COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold). It does factor in, but not exactly in the way you're probably thinking. Game prices don't really fluctuate all that much - most games cost around $60. That price might go up or down in increments of $5-10, but that's basically our target price. COGS absolutely factors into our metric, but because customers tend to balk at (especially upward ) prices changes, the determination is about whether the game gets made at all.

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Is there a Game Design Copying Problem?

Game Wisdom

Is there a Game Design Copying Problem? Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" Good artists may copy and great artists may steal, but does the game industry have an issue with copying a little too much? For this week’s key to games cast, we’re talking about how the industry goes … The post Is there a Game Design Copying Problem?

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[plug-in] Publish Steam with one click! Provide SteamAPI and WindowsAPI ! Very easy access to Steam achievements! If you want to publish your game to Steam, please click here!

Cocos

Dear friends, I’m property, a high school student from China, only 17 years old. I’ve created a one-click Steam plugin to help you publish your games to Steam. It allows you to access the SteamAPI very easily and can save you much time. I’ve been spend much time on this plug-in, suffered hundreds of hours of technical precipitation andthousands of failures.

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