Sat.Jul 27, 2024 - Fri.Aug 02, 2024

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Indie publisher Armor Games reportedly axes publishing team

Game Developer

Ex-staff claim the publisher has eliminated its entire publishing team. If true, it's unclear what that means for the games Armor's expected to publish.

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From Music to Games: Dominique Gawlowski’s journey to shaping Free Lives’ culture

PreMortem.Games

In 2023, I had the pleasure of attending Playtopia Festival for the first time. The welcoming atmosphere was unforgettable. Amy Blanchard, the festival’s production coordinator, made us feel at home. This warmth is a hallmark of Free Lives, the South African indie game development studio behind Playtopia. Beyond the festival’s vibrant energy, I recently spoke with Dominique Gawlowski , the managing director at Free Lives and the festival director at Playtopia.

Games 163
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Bungie lays off another 220 staff, acknowledging it was "overly ambitious"

GamesIndustry.biz

Bungie is laying off 220 developers. That's 17% of its overall headcount. Bungie boss Pete Parsons says the cuts are needed "to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon." "This morning, I’m sharing with all of you some of the most difficult changes we’ve ever had to make as a studio," Parsons wrote in a statement posted to the studios' official website.

Studios 143
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Shader Debugging Made Easy with NVIDIA Nsight Graphics

Nvidia

Shaders are specialized programs that run on the GPU that manipulate rays, pixels, vertices, and textures to achieve unique visual effects. With shaders, you. Shaders are specialized programs that run on the GPU that manipulate rays, pixels, vertices, and textures to achieve unique visual effects. With shaders, you can add creative expression and realism to the rendered image.

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Game Informer Magazine is shutting down

Game Developer

The long-running publication was abruptly shut down by parent company GameStop after launching its own, separate print subscription five months ago.

Games 332
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Oscar Salandin, developer of BOTSU Ridicuous Robots: “Solo dev can be lonely” 

PreMortem.Games

Oscar Salandin , known as Peculiar Pixels, received a major validation for his debut game, BOTSU Ridiculous Robots , by being named the Overall Winner at the Develop Indie Showcase Awards 2024. The English solo developer began his journey right after the Pandemic. He had saved enough money to live comfortably for a few years while pursuing his game development dream.

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GTA 6 and the PlayStation 4 problem

GamesIndustry.biz

The phrase that gets thrown around the games industry a lot right now is 'Survive until 2025'. The hope, or even the expectation, is that next year will see the games business bounce back after two years of faltering sales and mass redundancies. There are a few reasons for this expectation. First, there's the belief that we'll see continued economic recovery and falling inflation rates, which should result in increased consumer spending and investment.

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Destiny developer Bungie cutting 220 jobs after exceeding 'financial safety margins'

Game Developer

Bungie also plans to integrate over 100 employees into Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation Studios to help 'save a great deal of talent.

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The magical realism of Indonesia in the 90’s captured in A Space for the Unbound

PreMortem.Games

Video games have the ability to transport users to another place and time. The indie game that does this especially well is A Space for the Unbound by Mojiken Studio. It takes players back to the 90s, to a small town in rural Indonesia. There, a high school student struggles with everyday life and the fact that he has magical powers. “It’s a tribute to the time we grew up in and serves as a time capsule for that period”, says Dimas Novan, Director and Art Director of A Space for the Unbound.

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Activison continues to boost Xbox revenues but hardware sees further decline

GamesIndustry.biz

Microsoft's results for the final quarter of its financial year are in, showing continued growth in overall gaming revenue while Xbox console sales once again decline. The acquisition of Activision Blizzard was cited as a key factor in the growth recorded, with revenue from Call of Duty and the publisher's other properties now converted from third party to first party.

Console 145
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Why Summer Coding Camps Are the Perfect Balance of Fun and Education for Your Children

Real Programming

Is there anytime more precious for kids than the summer break? School is over, and the only thing there is to do is play and have fun. However, just because kids have time to play does not mean they aren’t learning! In fact, play is one of the primary ways kids learn. Through play, kids touch, probe, and absorb knowledge like a sponge. Parents understand that summer is a time for kids to enjoy a break from formal schooling, but many want their children to have a fun and productive time.

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Bungie devs imply CEO drove studio off a cliff while chasing growth

Game Developer

The studio's turbulent period has resulted in shuttered projects, departing alums, and a general uncertainty for its future endeavors.

Studios 335
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Mobile Gaming Atfer the Digital Markets Act

Deconstructor of Fun

Written by Michail Katkoff , founder of Deconstructor of Fun and a games industry veteran with 15 years of experience in building, operating, and scaling games and game companies. He’s also something of a protein smoothie sommelier. Now you know what’s the best way to “grab a drink” with this lad… Why are we talking about the Digital Markets Act? For the past year, governments across the EU, China, South Korea, Japan, and even the US have been looking at how digital markets operate and assessing

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Plaion to publish Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra

GamesIndustry.biz

Skydance Games has partnered with Plaion to publish Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra when it debuts next year. The game was unveiled earlier this year during GDC , and features both Captain America and Black Panther in a World War II setting. It is being developed by Skydance New Media, the studio led by Naughty Dog alum and Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig, as well as her fellow co-president Julian Beak.

Media 144
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Kinsfolk Demo Released

Indie DB

Demo for Kinsfolk just released! Kinsfolk is an emotional single player adventure game inspired by games such as Journey, Firewatch, A Short Hike, What Remains of Edith Finch and the likes.

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Humble Games' recent restructure is hurting devs and their games

Game Developer

Developers Squid Shock and Stairway are unable to push console updates, and the former is resorting to Patreon while looking for a solution.

Dev 332
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Humble Games Shutting Down Humble Bundle Unaffected

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Humble Games Shutting Down Humble Bundle Unaffected In a rather stark tweet, Humble Games announced they would be “restructuring”: In these challenging economic times for indie game publishing, Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations. This decision was not made lightly; it involved much deliberation and careful thought, with the goal […] The post Humble Games Shutting Down Humble Bundle Unaffected appeared fir

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The opportunity costs of NFT madness are still being paid | Opinion

GamesIndustry.biz

What have been the most successful licensing arrangements in games industry history? It's easy to pick out individual success stories – Rare's GoldenEye is the classic example, and some licenses like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars have produced a solid number of hits alongside various misses. For a really consistent success story, though, you generally have to turn to sports licenses.

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Tomb Explorer VR Playtest is LIVE

Indie DB

We are Accepting Players for the Play test right Now! For this reason game is delayed one week and the official launch date is August 1.

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Jam City lays off nearly 85 employees as industry fails to hit 'upward trend'

Game Developer

The mobile developer said its newest cuts were spurred by the industry's continued layoffs and the underperformance of its own titles.

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What is Volume Testing and Its Latest AI Trends in 2024

Rocket Brush Studio

Volume testing ensures software can efficiently handle many users and transactions. QASource leverages AI trends to optimize this process, enhancing performance and reliability. Discover how cutting-edge AI solutions transform volume testing for robust software development.

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The face of Supermassive Games' The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Curator, dies aged 67

GamesIndustry.biz

The face of Supermassive Games' Dark Pictures Anthology, Tony Pankhurst, has died aged 67. Although Pankhurst died in May 2024, Supermassive only today (July 29) shared the news across its social media channels. "We are all saddened to hear of Tony Pankhurst's passing," the studio said in tribute.

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Rogue Rollout

Indie DB

Rogue Rollout is a thrilling roguelike deck builder where you score points in a Yahtzee-style dice game, choose powerful artifacts, and face challenging obstacles as you push through endless rounds.

Games 82
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Nintendo financials show the post-Zelda comedown is real

Game Developer

Hardware and software sales took a hammering during the first quarter, but Nintendo still thinks it can sell another 13.5 million consoles before the fiscal year is out.

Console 291
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Building Spatial Intelligence from Real-World 3D Data Using Deep-Learning Framework fVDB

Nvidia

Generative physical AI models can understand and execute actions with fine or gross motor skills within the physical world. Understanding and navigating in the. Generative physical AI models can understand and execute actions with fine or gross motor skills within the physical world. Understanding and navigating in the 3D space of the physical world requires spatial intelligence.

AI 72
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How to survive until 2025 in the games industry

GamesIndustry.biz

'Survive until 2025.' The phrase still echoes around the games industry as it faces ongoing layoffs and studio closures. At Develop:Brighton this year, GamesIndustry.biz invited an array of developers, studio heads, managers, and more to share their advice on how to endure the turbulent times we're experiencing. Here's what they had to say: CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson kicked things off by sharing a survival story from the Eve Online developer's early years, which still applies to those

Studios 132
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Tormentis is out NOW!

Indie DB

Build a challenging dungeon with traps and monsters and attack other players' dungeons with your hero for loot and trophies.

Build 97
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Roses are red, Meta is blue, Reality Labs lost $4.5 billion during Q2

Game Developer

In news you can file under 'painfully predictable,' Meta spent another quarter burning through the GDP of a small nation in a bid to birth the metaverse.

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Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine Blender Add-On Review

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine Blender Add-On Review As part of the Blender Markets Essential Game Modding Toolkit Humble Bundle, today we are looking at three of the game engine related add-ons available in the bundle. These include Blender to Unity, Blender to Unreal as well as the Blender to Godot 4 Pipeline add-on. Blender to Unity Blender-to-Unity is […] The post Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine Blender Add-On Review appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Olympics reportedly dropped Mario and Sonic games in favour of mobile, NFTs

GamesIndustry.biz

The long-running and historic partnership between Nintendo and Sega to create Olympics video games reportedly ended in 2020 when the event's organisers sought opportunities elsewhere. Lee Cocker, who served as executive producer on multiple Mario & Sonic Olympics titles, told Eurogamer the International Olympics Committee allowed the licensing deal to lapse as it "wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports.

Esports 133
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Hive Jump 2: Survivors update

Indie DB

Volcanic Wastelands Update Coming Soon - Includes new map, a new boss, and lots of QoL improvements and bug fixes.

Bug 91
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Studios can 'suffer' on the stock market: Hitman dev IO Interactive says independence brought stability

Game Developer

IOI chief development officer Veronique Lallier explains how splitting from previous owner Square Enix paved the way for growth.

Dev 314
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How The Pokémon Company International Orchestrates Zero-Downtime Deployments for Pokémon TCG Live – Part 1

AWS Games

This blog is co-authored by Kylie Yamamoto, DevOps Engineer from TPCi, Sarath Kumar Kallayil Sreedharan and Jackie Jiang from AWS. Introduction Pokémon is one of the most popular and successful entertainment franchises in the world, encompassing video games, mobile apps, the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG), animation and movies, Play! Pokémon competitive events, and licensed products.

Mesh 60
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Gamescom Asia: We want to give Southeast Asian developers a platform to shine

GamesIndustry.biz

Gamescom is continuing on its mission to build a global brand of international events, with its Asian show due to take place in Singapore this October. Between a very successful inaugural Gamescom Latam earlier this year , the original trade show returning to Cologne in just a few weeks, and Gamescom Asia from October 17 to 20, 2024 will mark the first year with all three events taking place in full force.

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Buckshot Roulette Community Spotlight

Indie DB

Today’s post is a bit special, since we’ll be announcing the results of Mike’s BUCKSHOT ROULETTE OC Contest from Twitter.

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Report: 'Employee bingo' driving heavy losses at Meta's Reality Labs

Game Developer

Mark Zuckerberg's determination to win the metaverse has reporedly caused a yearslong crisis at Reality Labs.

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[From the Industry] Skydance Games & Plaion announce worldwide publishing partnership to bring Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra to players in 2025.

Game Development News

PLAION has entered into a worldwide publishing partnership with Skydance Games to bring its blockbuster game MARVEL 1943: Rise of Hydra to players in 2025.

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