Solving game development bottlenecks with cloud computing
Friday, May 13, 2022 by Richard Harris
For years, baking lightmaps have been a necessary but time-consuming part of game development. Pre-calculating lighting information improves performance in-game, but consumes on-premises computing resources, tying up artists' workstations or valuable network machines for minutes, if not hours, at a time.
But now, thanks to the power of cloud computing, ...
GDC 2022 highlights
Wednesday, April 6, 2022 by Brittany Hainzinger
The 2022 Game Developers Conference (GDC), the event serving professionals dedicated to the art and science of making games, concluded its 36th edition, after a week of networking, learning, and inspiration. The conference was the largest in San Francisco in the past two years, with a total of 12,000 industry professionals attending at San Francisco's Moscone C...
Game Developers Conference 2022
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 by Richard Harris
The 2022 Game Developers Conference (GDC), the world’s longest-running event for professionals dedicated to the art and science of making games, begins its 36th edition today, in person at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The week-long conference, which also includes a virtual component, will feature more than 200 exhibitors, over 1,000 speakers, an...
Mobile gaming market turned upside down by Netflix
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 by Mike Gadd
Stranger Things have happened but at the beginning of November, the global streaming giant Netflix announced that it is moving into the mobile gaming market.
Though it's a low-key debut by Netflix standards, with just five mobile games initially available to download through its app on Android smartphones (with two focused on the entertainment juggernaut's 80...
Steam Founder Rick Ellis talks developing mobile real money games
Friday, October 29, 2021 by Richard Harris
Is developing mobile games that people play for real money the next big wave in game development?
Rick Ellis, lead developer and founder of the Steam platform and marketplace, and also a developer on Half-Life 2 has pivoted to mobile and he's making real-money tournament games alongside Ross Krasner, Ryu Games founder and CEO, and they have plenty to s...
Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC 2021
Monday, August 2, 2021 by Brittany Hainzinger
Organizers of the 21st annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) have revealed the recipients of this year’s Pioneer Award and Lifetime Achievement Award. Tom Fulp, creator of Newgrounds and trailblazer of the Macromedia Flash games that helped define a generation of indie developers, will receive the Pioneer Award, while influential game designer with 28 years ...
GameBake launched for developers to reach new markets around the globe
Thursday, May 6, 2021 by Brittany Hainzinger
GameBake is thrilled to announce it has launched its distribution service for mobile games developers and publishers that wish to reach new markets across the globe.
GameBake provides the infrastructure and knowledge needed for developers and publishers to publish their games on a variety of high-quality platforms beyond Google Play and the Apple App Store. Accessibl...
Atari expands partnership with Chain Games
Friday, March 26, 2021 by Brittany Hainzinger
Atari® announced that they will expand their existing partnership with Chain Games to integrate into the upcoming Atari Multiverse experience. As a part of this expansion, Chain Games and Atari will develop a region within the Atari Multiverse where users can experience their collaborative efforts, including brand new interactive experiences provided by both pa...
Mobile ads are about to get annoying says Brainium Studios
Tuesday, January 5, 2021 by Freeman Lightner
The new year will usher in a new definition of “mobile” in mobile gaming apps. Currently, mobile gaming apps have been synonymous with gaming on our phones. But, with the non-stop innovation in IoT and the looming promises of 5G, the “mobile” in mobile gaming is about to refer to everything from refrigerators to mirrors to spaceships. Wherev...
NextNav releases a Unity plug-in for Pinnacle
Thursday, December 10, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
NextNav announced the release of a Unity plug-in for its vertical positioning service, Pinnacle, which delivers precise altitude data to unlock 3D experiences for geolocation applications. NextNav’s Unity plug-in makes it easy for developers to integrate vertical location into any application built with the Unity engine, including games, training applications, ind...
Game development and Live Ops are evolving
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 by Richard Harris
We recently caught up with Carbonated and AWS Game Tech to discuss how Carbonated’s custom-built, live ops platform Carbyne enables game developers to bring fresh content to players in real-time, without engineering support or an office-based workforce.
While Carbonated is a relatively small gaming studio, they have the tools to become a major player among the ...
Mobile game monetization models might be evolving
Thursday, October 1, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
GameRefinery’s database counts with more than 10,000+ analyses of top-performing mobile games. The company has recently acquired UK’s Reflection.io, providing them the capability to offer additional revenue and download data for iOS and Android games spanning 35 markets, in addition to its feature-level insights.
With a library of the latest mobile game d...
GDC 2021 event lineup
Tuesday, September 1, 2020 by Freeman Lightner
Informa Tech, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), have revealed a new structure for virtual and physical GDC events for the rest of 2020 and 2021, which are continuing to evolve due to changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the inability to meet in person for the near future, organizers are expanding multiple aspects of its program. GDC 202...
Atari partners with Unikrn
Friday, June 12, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Atari® has announced a partnership with Unikrn. This agreement promises to accelerate the adoption of the Atari Token by incorporating it into Unikrn's already thriving cryptocurrency ecosystems - which offers shopping, betting, and gaming.
Through this new partnership, Unikrn will gain access to Atari's unrivaled catalog of gaming classics like Centipede...
Epic Games partners with Fortumo to launch carrier billing
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
The video game and software developer and publisher Epic Games and the mobile technology company Fortumo are announcing the launch of a carrier billing partnership. Epic Games has integrated Fortumo’s carrier billing platform to collect payments for Fortnite Battle Passes, game purchases in the Epic Games Store and other Epic Games content.
The first country wh...
Informa Tech announces GDC Summer
Monday, March 23, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Informa Tech has announced GDC Summer, a three-day celebration of the art, craft, and business of game development, to be held from August 4-6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. GDC Summer will be a unique Game Developers Conference experience but will retain the same high level of expert-led talks as the traditional GDC, along with a freestyle two-day expo show fl...
Coronavirus takes down GDC and is impacting SXSW, is E3 next
Thursday, March 5, 2020 by Stuart Parkerson
San Francisco and the tech industry felt trembles and it wasn’t an earthquake or Godzilla, it was Coronavirus flexing its muscle as the leadership at GDC announced at the end of last week that they were postponing the weeklong Game Developers Conference indefinitely, which was scheduled to kick off March 16. That means that over 30,000 people won’t be attend...
Global gaming industry in 2019
Thursday, January 9, 2020 by Christian Hargrave
Mobile is on track to dominate the estimated $152 billion global gaming industry in 2019, accounting for 45% of the market. To help app developers and advertisers take advantage of this meteoric growth, Adjust, the industry leader in mobile measurement, fraud prevention, and cybersecurity, has become the first mobile measurement partner in Unity Technologies’ Veri...
Panion social app fights loneliness in Sweden
Tuesday, December 17, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
When Melanie Aronson moved from New York City to Malmö, Sweden 5 years ago, she quickly realized that making friends in this new part of the globe would be very difficult. As an immigrant in the country that continuously ranked number 1 as the hardest place to make new friends, Melanie struggled, and as a researcher at Lund University, focused on integration, she realiz...
How game developers can drive more revenue
Monday, September 23, 2019 by Offer Yehudai
Game developers tend to follow standard templates for monetizing their apps. Mid-core publishers focus on IAP and time-gated ads to be shown at a later date, usually based on their studios' recommendation. Meanwhile, hyper-casual ones go all-in on advertising, while casual games fall somewhere in between. These default strategies leave money on the table b...
Hot Wheels Infinite Loop mobile game released
Friday, August 23, 2019 by Richard Harris
Mattel, Inc. released the Hot Wheels Infinite Loop, a new digital racing game that brings the legendary Hot Wheels catalog to mobile devices for the ultimate smash-and-crash speed competition. With an introduction timed to Gamescom, Europe’s leading trade fair for digital games culture held in Cologne, Germany, Hot Wheels Infinite Loo...
How to create effects like Game of Thrones
Friday, August 16, 2019 by Richard Harris
Red Giant is once again taking on what is arguably one of the greatest TV series ever made with the latest edition of its popular YouTube tutorial series, Cheap Tricks, diving into the mind-blowing visual effects of Game of Thrones. In part one of the series, Action Movie Dad Dan “Hashi” Hashimoto demonstrates how to create magic fire effects like the many s...
Buildbox game creation software bought by AppOnboard
Thursday, June 13, 2019 by Richard Harris
AppOnboard, a company which focuses on app creation software has purchased Buildbox, the low code game creation platform that just released version 3.0. Jon Zweig, the CEO of ApponBoard and Trey Smith, CEO of Buildbox, both share the same belief that No-Code is the future of development.
Jonathan Zweig is the founding CEO of AppOnboard and was previously CE...
Blockchain based private messenger surfaces from ODIN
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 by Richard Harris
ODIN Blockchain is a platform enabling users to fully control their privacy. This claim is proven by the recent launch of ODIN.CHAT, the flagship ODIN Blockchain mobile app. ODIN.CHAT is launched in advance of upcoming ODIN products and services which enable users to privately communicate, whilst benefiting from innovative blockchain-related features on ODIN.
Mobile ...
New hyper casual game development studio emerges from Gismart
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
Gismart has announced the launch of a new internal studio, which will focus on producing both hypercasual and casual games.
The new Gismart studio boasts an ambitious growth strategy, with a roadmap that will see ten quality casual and hypercasual games launched within its first year of operation, as the company looks to recruit over 40 talented games indus...
Apple Arcade game development and Stadia set to shift gaming industry
Wednesday, May 1, 2019 by Richard Harris
In the last few months, the gaming industry has witnessed major shifts as new emerging services begin to take shape across various platforms. Drilling down into mobile gaming, the recent launches of Google Stadia and Apple Arcade have presented gamers with two new mediums to flex their gaming skills. However, these emerging platforms have presented new implications, cha...
Making mini games for WeChat's platform now possible
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 by Richard Harris
WeChat is now opening up its newest and powerful Mini Games platform, enabling game developers around the world to create hit games on WeChat’s unique ecosystem.
Here are the proof points:
The Mini Games platform has grown to more than 400 million monthly active users.
The 7-day user retention rate of some the most popular Mini Games has already rockete...
The most popular gaming platform, and why cloud gaming sucks
Friday, March 22, 2019 by Richard Harris
Gamers spend an average of 7 hours, 7 mins each week playing (up 19% from last year), and cloud is the next frontier for video games it seems, with major tech players like Microsoft and Google teasing their cloud gaming launches at GDC 19. But getting gamers on board with these new services will require developers to create interactive games that don’t frustr...
Publishing mobile games with Gismart now possible
Wednesday, March 13, 2019 by Richard Harris
Gismart has added an investment program for mobile app startups to its already established publishing unit. In addition to developing and publishing its own titles, Gismart also acts as a strategic partner for aspiring indie developers. The newly launched investment program highlights Gismart’s commitment to helping independent developers bring their titles to mar...
Gaming on mobile data says you are probably a gamer but don't admit it
Tuesday, February 26, 2019 by Richard Harris
Who’s a gamer? Chances are, it’s you. Most smartphone owners in the U.S. need look no further than their own mobile phone home screen for evidence that new categories of games are changing the face of modern video game players. From the early days of arcade games to the rise of Fortnite, mobile gaming - and the rise of casual games - has democratized gaming ...
Unity's Adaptive Performance gaming feature set for the Galaxy S10
Thursday, February 21, 2019 by Richard Harris
The Samsung Galaxy S10 will have many mobile "super-powers". From extended battery life to Instagram mode pictures - they have packed enough tech inside to make any propeller spin.
But something mentioned during the announcement caught my attention relating specifically to game development, did you hear it?
Unity is soon to launch what they call, "A...
Developing video games that work for everyone
Monday, January 14, 2019 by Matias Nicolas Rodriguez
Video games are interactive experiences – as the player, you can live many different lives racing fast cars, fighting great creatures and going on exciting, magical adventures. For as long as video games companies have existed, the focus has been largely on games that are fun to play.
Of course, though, we’ve all had to sit out a round and wait for a free...
Independent Games Festival finalists and ceremony at GDC 2019
Friday, January 4, 2019 by Richard Harris
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has revealed the finalists for its 21st annual awards ceremony. The IGF Awards will take place March 20th, 2019 at 6.30pm PT during the Game Developers Conference 2019, and will be hosted by Meg Jayanth, the award-winning writer of 80 Days, the acclaimed globetrotting interactive storytelling game and former IGF Award winner for Exce...
The subscription based app model is working and here's proof
Monday, November 5, 2018 by Richard Harris
Liftoff released its annual Mobile App Engagement Index, describing trends in consumer app engagement and ways mobile marketers can adapt to thrive in the changing landscape. Specifically, the report reveals that mobile users are head over heels for the subscription model, with considerable momentum gained from last year. Additionally, the Index highlights a shift in ge...
Top ranking mobile games earn 10X what other games do
Monday, October 29, 2018 by Richard Harris
A report from Mobvista-owned GameAnalytics has shown yet again just how competitive the mobile games industry is, with a minority of top-performing titles capturing a disproportionate slice of the $70 billion forecast to be spent on mobile games in 2018.
The report, titled "Mobile Gaming Benchmarks", is GameAnalytics’ second global anal...
