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

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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 358
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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
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Trending Sources

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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
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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
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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
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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 145
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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

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'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 351
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PS5 price hike shows Japan's a low priority for Sony | Opinion

GamesIndustry.biz

All the way back in 2016, with the PS4 ramping up into a massive sales success, Sony carried out a fairly major organisational shake-up of its games-related businesses. Operationally, the biggest change was bringing everything PlayStation-related under one roof – up until that point, there had been a distinct business unit called "Sony Network Entertainment" running services like PlayStation Plus, as well as powerful and unusually autonomous regional units of Sony Computer Entertainment, a

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Aldora market forecast 2025: Game Industry is slowly moving upward

PreMortem.Games

The crew at ALDORA and Joost van Dreunen have put together their annual market forecast. Here are some of the highlights. It’s been a rough ride across the industry, to be sure. Layoffs continue to haunt everyone as game makers collectively focus on efficiency and profitability in an effort to stay alive long enough to make it to 2025. The long-term implications of this bloodletting will show themselves soon enough.

Esports 104
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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
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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.

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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 141
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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 91
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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 91
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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 336
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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 137
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Paris in 2000 Years now released

Indie DB

Watch 8 min of Middle Age gameplay, in this city-builder focused on the history of Paris.

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Dev snapshot: Godot 4.4 dev 1

Mircosoft Game Dev

The first snapshot after releasing 4.3, already packed with new features!

Dev 88
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Star Wars Outlaws lead actor Humberly GonzĂ¡lez made her character a 'dreamer'

Game Developer

GonzĂ¡lez's experience shows how actors and performers can inform all areas of development.

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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 130
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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 90
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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 87
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Report: NetEase cutting jobs at Ouka Studios ahead of potential closure

Game Developer

Layoff and shutdown rumors have begun to swirl just days after the launch of Ouka's latest project, Visions of Mana.

Studios 321
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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.

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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.

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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.

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Mental health in games charity Take This is facing extinction

Game Developer

The non-profit will be forced to shut down if it cannot raise $80,000 by the end of September.

Games 320
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A guide to culturalizing mobile games through live operations

GamesIndustry.biz

Mobile games now serve global audiences. Gone are the days when free-to-play mobile audiences were concentrated in Tier 1 gaming markets in the west and the far east. Earlier mobile titles could get away with optimizing gameplay and live events for players in these markets. However, with 5G and mobile technology penetration accelerating in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, Latin America, South-east Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa now generate a considerable number of downloads and active u

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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 84
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The Casual Gaming Insights Mobile Marketers Need to Know in 2024

Game Refinery

The post The Casual Gaming Insights Mobile Marketers Need to Know in 2024 appeared first on GameRefinery.

Mobile 83
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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.

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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 127
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Floops Big House Adventure

Indie DB

90's cartoon game Floops Big House Adventure releases on Steam today!

Games 84
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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.

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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 318
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CD Projekt profits up nearly 90% following success of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

GamesIndustry.biz

CD Projekt saw a significant increase in both sales and profit during the first half of 2024, its latest financial results showed. The Polish developer reported a 30.7% increase in sales compared to the same period last year, going from PLN 324.2 million ($84 million) to PLN 424.8 million ($109 million). Its net profit was PLN 170 million ($43 million), a staggering rise of 88.7% year-on-year compared to PLN 90.2 million ($23 million) made in the first half of 2023.