GDC 2018

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Players get credit for evolution--and stagnation--of gaming narrative

What Remains of Edith Finch developer Ian Dallas says the market is pushing the medium forward in some ways, tying its hands in others

May 25, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

1 comment

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FTL and Into the Breach: Two-of-an-unkind

Subset Games' first two titles are very difficult, yet very different; Justin Ma talks about the games' common threads and the studio's unconventional marketing strategy

May 23, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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Pushing PixelJunk beyond pixel art

With a market for "AAA indie" titles forming, Q-Games and Dylan Cuthbert are bringing their biggest franchise to the third dimension

May 17, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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Appealing to the West by focusing on the East

Spike Chunsoft CEO Mitsutoshi Sakurai says there's a growing global audience for the "very Japanese" games his company publishes

May 14, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

1 comment

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Balancing Hearthstone

Metrics help the team understand what's happening, but designer Dean Ayala says most changes in the Blizzard card game are made due to player perception

May 11, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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Evolving beyond empowerment narratives

Life is Strange: Before the Storm narrative director Zak Garriss says developers are exploring more complex, human spaces, and finding support from big publishers in doing so

May 9, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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"The reason we're killing ourselves isn't because we love what we're doing"

Night in the Woods' Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry discuss unionizing in games and what to do about indie devs crunching themselves

May 7, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

1 comment

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Supercell: Meet the industry's "least powerful CEO"

Ilkka Paananen on the value of leaving power in the hands of developers, and Supercell's ambition to create a "truly global" mobile hit

May 4, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

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"We can't rely on nostalgia to sell"

Brian Fargo mines the past with The Bard's Tale IV, looks to mine the future with blockchain-powered storefront Robot Cache

May 3, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

1 comment

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People have figured out premium mobile - Ken Wong

Designer of Monument Valley and Florence sees increased competition in the market, reflects on what connects his games

April 27, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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A Whole New World (of Tanks)

Wargaming's Victor Kislyi talks about why the free-to-play game's growth plateaued and the company's plan to keep it going for the next 20 years

April 25, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

2 comments

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Buried Signal: "Every piece of Gorogoa was a new problem"

After his excellent debut Gorogoa, Buried Signal's Jason Roberts looks towards a far less difficult second album

April 23, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

2 comments

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The accidental relevance of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus

MachineGames creative director Jens Matthies on when he realized his Nazi-killing game was going to be politically topical, and dealing honestly with Nazi ideology

April 17, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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Discord: 90 million PC gamers can't be wrong

Founder and CEO Jason Citron on the platform's rapid growth, and taking a hard line on the emergence of hate groups

April 16, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

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Yoko Taro: We don't need to think globally to sell globally

Nier: Automata director and PlatinumGames lead designer Takahisa Taura discuss developing for Western tastes, 3D action games, and the dilemma of multiple endings

April 13, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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Wadjet Eye: Streamers "pushed me to make the game that I've always wanted to play"

With Unavowed, founder Dave Gilbert aimed to make a point and click adventure game that can't be spoiled by YouTube videos

April 9, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

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Ageism: The issue never gets old

Veteran game developers share thoughts on how big a problem age discrimination actually is, and how to get around it

April 4, 2018 Steve Peterson

5 comments

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Fluffy Fairy Games: "People from the industry told us it doesn't work this way"

With Idle Miner Tycoon, the German startup ignored best practices on monetisation and minimum viable product - and created a €120k a day mobile hit

April 3, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

News

GDC 2018 breaks attendance record

28,000 industry professionals attended last week's show in San Francisco; dates announced for 2019 GDC and VRDC

March 28, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

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IGDA head on the problems with unions

Jen MacLean discusses challenges she sees to organized labor in games, attributes horror stories like 38 Studios to human nature and "wishful thinking"

March 28, 2018 Brendan Sinclair

6 comments

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"Don't get cocky": The story of Ratchet and Clank's 15-year survival

Adapt or Die and staying true to your heritage is a difficult balance to strike, says Insomniac

March 26, 2018 Christopher Dring

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#ThirdWorldProblems: How to not get a visa for GDC

Gwen Foster, one of the #1ReasonToBe speakers denied a visa, on being treated with "diplomatic hostility" in a global industry

March 26, 2018 Gwendelyn Foster

4 comments

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#1ReasonToBe: "Listen to the people you do not hear, because they're not allowed to speak"

Rami Ismail's GDC panel explored development in Madagascar, the Philippines, Colombia and beyond

March 26, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

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Riot's recipe for "sportsmanship" in League of Legends

At GDC, Kimberly Voll detailed how Riot Games successfully revamped LoL's ineffective Honor system

March 23, 2018 Matthew Handrahan

News

EA's SEED builds AI capable of teaching itself to play Battlefield I

"As deep learning technology matures, I expect self-learning agents to be part of the games themselves, as truly intelligent NPCs," says SEED technical director

March 23, 2018 Ivy Taylor

3 comments