Thu.Aug 15, 2024

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Book Excerpt: Great Games Need Great Leaders

Game Developer

'This book brings together the knowledge and perspectives of numerous past and present games industry leaders and practitioners to form a clear picture of how leadership operates in a game development studio.

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New report says the games industry is "showing signs of a recovery"

GamesIndustry.biz

The games industry is "showing signs of a recovery" from "record-breaking layoffs, closures, and business turmoil." That's according to DDM's Games Investment Review , which reports "a sizeable uptick" in investments, recovering ground lost in 2023. Whilst mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remain "low" – even taking out last year's anomalous $68.7bn generated by Microsoft's acquisition of Activision – and not a single quarter in 2023 surpassed $1.3 billion, both Q1 and Q2 in 2024 ha

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Trending Sources

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Call of Duty uncouples Warzone from annual schedule with platform overhaul

Game Developer

Activision Blizzard is addressing Call of Duty's file size problem and opening up a new distribution method for the annual series and the ever-popular Warzone.

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Reforged Studios acquires Ground Shatter and Extra Mile Studios

GamesIndustry.biz

Game publisher Reforged Studios has acquired Ground Shatter and Extra Mile Studios. Ground Shatter is led by founder and director James Parker, and is the developer behind roguelike deck-builder Fights in Tight Spaces. Extra Mile Studios is led by Bobby Farmer, and is known for providing co-developer services on Revolution Software's Broken Swords series.

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Why 'f**k around and find out' became the backbone of Arco's combat

Game Developer

'We wanted players to try different things and fail–but then try again. Because the combat shines when you play around with it.

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AWS gears up for action-packed Gamescom and Devcom 2024

AWS Games

More than 320,000 gamers and games industry professionals are expected to gather in Cologne, Germany, next week as Gamescom gets underway. One of the world’s most anticipated games industry events, the conference brings together developers, publishers, hardware manufacturers, and cloud providers from around the world alongside the gaming community to celebrate industry achievements and discuss the trends shaping the industry’s future.

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Embracer prioritizing 'controlled key IPs' to improve profitability of PC and console releases

Game Developer

The conglomerate currently has 127 projects in development–down on the 215 it had in the works this time last year.

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Pantaloon helps out indie devs with free resource hub

Game Developer

The publishing hub offers indie teams everything they need to take a crack at self-publishing, from pitch decks to roadmaps and playtest frameworks.

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Payload Studios lays off 25% of staff

GamesIndustry.biz

TerraTech developer Payload Studios has announced a wave of layoffs affecting 25% of its workforce. CEO and founder Russ Clarke shared the news on LinkedIn , citing the "struggles of affecting the wider industry" for the decision. "We tried very hard to avoid this, and I won't pretend that we got everything right over the last few years – but ultimately the games market has been very tough in recent times, and shows little sign of getting easier," Clarke wrote.

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RANKED: Four tiny screens to power your tiny alt ctrl dreams

Game Developer

During a raucous Hyper Talk at AMAZE Sheffield, alternative controller game designer Julia Makivic ranks a flurry of tiny screens.

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SteamOS support coming to ROG Ally and other handhelds

GamesIndustry.biz

Valve has confirmed SteamOS support is coming to the Asus ROG Ally and other third-party handhelds. As reported by The Verge , Valve designer Lawrence Yang confirmed the news after an update had been spotted in the latest SteamOS patch notes. "The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS," said Yang. "The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS.

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Mad Crusader puts $30 million toward double-A games, reopens transmedia incubation program

Game Developer

The company's World Builders program helps developers grow their project into a larger multimedia franchise, and it's taking applications ahead of its October launch.

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Rare and Dlala to discuss leadership through times of change at the GamesIndustry.biz HR Summit

GamesIndustry.biz

Leaders from Rare and Dlala will join a special panel to discuss how to support and lead development teams during times of intense change. The panel will end this year's GamesIndustry.biz HR Summit, which will take place at London's Royal Institution on September 18. Tickets are on sale here. Rare studio boss Craig Duncan and chief of staff Harriet Manson will join Dlala CEO Aj Grand-Scrutton and COO Gemma Foster in a discussion around the rapid rate of change happening inside and outside of the

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Reforged Studios does a double acquisition, buys Ground Shatter and Extra Mile

Game Developer

The two studios are Reforged's first purchases of 2024, and it plans to acquire more third-party teams before the year is over.

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Film and TV production firm Phipen Studios launches games publisher

GamesIndustry.biz

Phipen Studios, a US-based film and TV production company, is breaking into the video games sector with a new publishing business, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal. Phipen Games will be run by Molly Conners, who is also the COO and co-founder of Phipen Studios, who told us the movie firm has previously invested in selected games projects in the past and was keen to do something more in the space.

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Godot 4.3 Released

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Godot 4.3 Released The first major release of the Godot Game Engine of 2024 (Godot 4.2 was released in November 2023), Godot 4.3 is jam packed with new features. In fact, this release contains almost 3,500 commits since 4.2, with contributions from over 500 contributors! Highlight new features of the Godot 4.3 release […] The post Godot 4.3 Released appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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12 must-see sessions at Devcom 2024

GamesIndustry.biz

It's going to be a busy week in Cologne with both Devcom and Gamescom attracting games professionals from around the world. The former event kicks things off with a two-day conference that will see more than 250 speakers discussing some of the biggest challenges in the industry today across over 200 sessions. There's a lot to wade through in the full program , so the GamesIndustry.biz team has selected our highlights of some of the sessions we think will be most interesting.

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ALTERA - July Dev Update

Indie DB

Today we want to tell you about all the amazing stuff we've worked on the past few months!

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Antstream Arcade coming to PlayStation

GamesIndustry.biz

Antstream Arcade is coming to PlayStation, making it the first third-party cloud gaming service on the platform. Announced during Antstream's August 2024 Connection presentation yesterday (August 14), the retro game service will be available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. It will cost $39.99 for an annual pass or $99.99 for a lifetime subscription, with an official launch date to be announced in the coming weeks.

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Dekogon Townscape Essentials Unreal Asset Humble Bundle

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Dekogon Townscape Essentials Unreal Asset Humble Bundle The Dekogon Townscape Essentials – 2000+ Unreal Engine Assets Humble Bundle. This bundle is a collection of Unreal Engine 5.x assets that all redeem on the Epic Games Marketplace from Dekogon, although unfortunately they are redeemed one key at a time. While this is an Unreal Engine asset bundle, you […] The post Dekogon Townscape Essentials Unreal Asset Humble Bundle appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Cloud gaming platform Blacknut partners with Ubisoft

GamesIndustry.biz

Blacknut Cloud Gaming has announced a new distribution agreement with Ubisoft. Starting from this month, "a series of Ubisoft offerings" will join Blacknut's platform, which "allows players to access over 500+ premium games via streaming under a single subscription with no lock-in contract." Ubisoft – which owns cloud rights to current and new Activision games over the next 15 years – confirms that franchises coming to Blacknut include Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Anno, and Rayman.

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Godot 4.3, a shared effort

Mircosoft Game Dev

With over 3,500 commits authored by over 500 contributors, the latest Godot Engine release comes packed full of new features and improvements.

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Embracer sales drop 24% to $754m due to tough comparisons with Dead Island 2

GamesIndustry.biz

Embracer Group has released its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, with net sales dropping 24% year-on-year to SEK 7.9 billion ($754 million). There were also sales declines across its mobile, tabletop and entertainment divisions, but the company said these were in line with expectations due to a quieter release slate compared to the same quarter last year.

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[From the industry] Perforce research highlights expanding role of game engines: 50% of responses indicate use beyond gaming

Game Development News

Perforce Software, the devops company for global teams requiring speed, quality, security and governance at scale along the development lifecycle, announces the release of the 2024 State of Game Technology Report.

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Mad Crusader to invest $30 million in AA games

GamesIndustry.biz

Mad Crusader has announced it will invest $30 million in premium AA game IPs developed in its incubation program. The Cyprus-based company will share the investment in four rounds within two years, which will support graduates in developing initial concepts into commercial IP products. Investors and residents of the incubator program "will have an equity stake in the product, and an equity share in Mad Crusader's game development holding.

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[From the industry] Room 8 Group announces strategic partnership with Audiogroup to elevate game development services

Game Development News

Room 8 Group, an end-to-end strategic partner in external game development, announces a new partnership with Audiogroup, a global leader in music and sound services for games and immersive audio, running highly acclaimed brands like Dynamedion, BOOM Library, A Sound Effect, and more.

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Robo Quest Is One of the Best FPS Roguelites

Game Wisdom

Robo Quest Is One of the Best FPS Roguelites Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" This is a review of Robo Quest played with possibly a press key by the developer.… The post Robo Quest Is One of the Best FPS Roguelites appeared first on Game Wisdom.

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[From the industry] Reforged Studios kickstart ambitious growth plans with the acquisition of Ground Shatter and Extra Mile Studios

Game Development News

Reforged Studios are today delighted to reveal the first two of their acquisitions Ground Shatter and Extra Mile Studios, with others to be announced later in the year.

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Okay, say one of your games has just shipped. Assuming it is not a live service game or you are not assigned to post-launch dev work, on average how long is it before you are working on the next titles? What is the shortest period of time? What was was the longest?

Ask a Game Dev

The shortest amount of downtime between projects I had was two weeks. We shipped the game, I took my comp time, and I came back and started on a new project. We weren't going at full speed yet - it was mostly just exploratory preproduction work for the new game - but it was still work. The longest amount of downtime was indefinite. The project finished, didn't sell well, and almost everybody got laid off as a result.

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[[Share]Mini-Games On YouTube Playables

Cocos

Continuing the discussion from [Share]Mini-Games On YouTube Playables Created with Cocos Creator:

Games 40