Celebrating one year of GamesIndustry.biz Academy
Browse through the GamesIndustry.biz Academy's most essential reads as the section enters its second year
It's been one year since we launched the GamesIndustry.biz Academy, and the section has gone from strength to strength since then.
With the aim to both support the next generation of game developers and provide resources to existing members of the games industry, the Academy produced over 250 guides to making, funding, monetising, promoting and working in video games in the last year. These articles were produced by the GamesIndustry.biz team of course, but we also collaborated with over 100 external contributors, experts in their fields, who shared knowledge in our pages.
In October, with the support of Creative Assembly, we organised a digital event designed to connect university and college students with games industry professionals in the UK -- GI Live: Academy, during which more than 1,500 students and 40 games companies joined a Discord server to meet and network. You can watch the event here.
During our first year, we also found great partners in the form of Epic Games, Amazon Web Services, Abstraction Games, and Lab Cave.
To celebrate the Academy's first anniversary, we wanted to highlight some of the most essential guides we published this year across the section's three categories: Making Games, Selling Games, and Working in Games. You'll find the links below.
And whether you're a day one reader or you're only just learning about what we do, feedback and suggestions are welcome -- input from the games industry is crucial to shaping where the Academy goes from here.
You can get in touch at academy@gamesindustry.biz. For sponsorship enquiries, you can contact chris.buckley@gamesindustry.biz.
Making games
At the NG20+ conference, Rami Ismail looked back at a decade of games industry and how it can inform indies' decisions going forward
In-depth guides to finding the best game engine to develop your game, including Unreal, Unity, GameMaker, and more
"It's not that Steam is not generating revenue anymore, there's just more losers now than there were before" Rami Ismail
At Ludicious X, ArenaNet's Jennifer Scheurle offered a roadmap for moving beyond the tired language and debates around difficulty in video games
A LudoNarraCon panel looked at the links between writing and localisation, and the impact translation has on world building
At GDC Summer, EA Sports' Karen Stevens shared the importance of legible fonts and why you shouldn't write off Comic Sans
Kate Edwards gives developers advice and tools to build fully realised game worlds
VR developers tell the GamesIndustry.biz Academy about the golden rules and design challenges of making games for virtual reality
"Games now cover as many different topics as other art forms do, but the taste of elitism and exclusion has persisted"Jennifer Scheurle
GDC 2020: Proletariat's Tori Schafer offers key considerations for studios including LGBT+ representation in their games
Moon Studios' Thomas Mahler reveals the challenges and solutions to managing a distributed development team
Video Games Tax Relief is not easy to understand -- here's our in-depth guide to making a VGTR claim and passing the cultural test
Selling games
Novarama's Daniel Sanchez-Crespo shares his golden rules of survival for indie developers with the GamesIndustry.biz Academy
The GamesIndustry.biz Academy explores why and when developers should make a demo, how to approach its release, and what makes a good first impression
Ahead of our Investment Summit Online next week, Execution Labs founder Jason Della Rocca leads advice from all around the industry about how to pitch your game
"About one in every four gigs you do will get cancelled. Get used to that"Daniel Sanchez-Crespo
Cassia Curran explored how to conduct market analysis during her talk at the Games Industry Investment Summit Online
nDreams' CEO Patrick O'Luanaigh details how to secure funding and avoid some of the pitfalls of investment
Content creators tell the GamesIndustry.biz Academy about best practices when creating a Patreon page and how to grow your community
Everything you need to know about publishing on Steam, direct from established developers and Valve itself
"If you're gonna show up and be an asshole, we don't want you and we don't want your money" Greg Miller
Kitfox communications director Victoria Tran on how compassion is at the heart of good community management
Oliver Hindle explains how Mediatonic rapidly grew its hit game's Twitter to one million followers
Video game music is more accessible than ever before, but a lack of business knowledge among composers means money is being left on the table
Working in games
Splash Damage's Jason Tzaidas goes through the dos and don'ts of interviewing for an engineering role
The GamesIndustry.biz Academy guides to finding games industry jobs in all sectors, from game design to journalism to games PR and more
During GamesIndustry.biz Live: Academy, Mike Bithell explored six lessons he's learned during his career that can help aspiring developers get a successful start in games
"There's no amount of intelligence that allows you to be nasty to people and I've got very little patience for it"Mike Bithell
Our EGX Rezzed Digital panel discusses the different aspects of being a writer in the games industry
UK census data suggests it isn't -- here's what you need to know to give yourself the best chance, from people that built careers
Focusing on retention and promotion, the GamesIndustry.biz Academy looks at the barriers facing Black talent in games
Victoria Setian gave a GDC Summer talk addressing how to fight discriminatory attitudes in the workplace and develop female talent into leadership
"Your talent is the number one resource you have, it's not the money that you have in the bank"Kate Edwards
Games studios championing mental health awareness tell the GamesIndustry.biz Academy about how to support and safeguard your staff's emotional well-being
The GamesIndustry.biz Academy explores the effect of unconscious biases on the workplace, and how you can steer away from them and towards diversity
At Devcom, Kate Edwards highlighted the main issues affecting game creators, and what the industry can do to address them
You can get in touch with the GamesIndustry.biz Academy at academy@gamesindustry.biz. For sponsorship enquiries, you can contact chris.buckley@gamesindustry.biz.