Winter Digest Gaming Industry News

Winter is the perfect time for gamers and developers. On cold evenings, games become more attractive, and development - more productive. Let's find out how things were in the gaming industry at the beginning of winter.



Mobile direction:

Everyplay's Oscar Clark believes that the gold rush in the mobile market is over.
The research company SuperData has published an infographic with data on the profits of the most popular mobile games.
Eric Sefert, director of marketing for Wooga, spoke about what awaits the mobile industry this year.
Google has published a list of the most popular games and applications in 2014.
Mobile advertising network RevMob has prepared an infographic showing how seasonal holidays affect marketing applications.
The best mobile games of 2014 that you most likely missed.
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Audio:

Crytek's Simon Presley talked about why you need to control the volume of the sound in games.

Important news

APM Music and Unity signed a cooperation agreement. Now a huge library of sounds from games, movies and TV shows is available to developers in the Unity Asset Store.
Autodesk provided free access to their products for students in 188 countries around the world.
Apple called Monument Valley and Threes! best games of the year.
The 2014 TGA award took place in early December. For those who missed - full video.
Steam set a new record: 8.47 million users online.

Game Project News

David Jeff, who had a hand in such projects as God of War and Twisted Metal, is working on the creation of the shooter Drawn to Death - it will look very unusual.
The development of the next part of Assassin's Creed, the action of which will unfold in Victorian London, took the studio Ubisoft from Quebec. The game will be released this year on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Fullbright is developing a new game Tacoma, the release is scheduled for 2016.
Hatred was removed from Steam Greenlight , 2 days later it was returned back, and Gabe apologized to the developers.
The Swedish underwear company released a new game, First Person Lover, which parodies the recently announced Hatred project.
The Polygon portal also shared its vision of the best games that came out in 2014. In their opinion, they deserve recognition: DA: Inquisition , Wolfenstein: The New Order , Dark Souls 2 , Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor , Mario Kart 8 , Far Cry 4 , Shovel Knight , PT

Company news

It became known that David Helgason , the founder of Unity, leaves the post of manager and will be engaged in strategy and communications in the company. In his place came the former top manager of Electronic Arts, John Richitello.
Rovio closed a studio in Tampere and laid off 110 employees.
Boyd Multerer, who has been involved in Xbox Live development for 20 years, left Microsoft .

This is useful

8 drawing and texturing tools in games.
How to create a table of counting lives, time, points in HTML5 using WiMi5.
Basics of creating quests.
Journalist Simon Hill talked about how to take the right screenshot and write a good description of the application.
Tips art director Plants vs. Zombies, which will help in the career development of the designer.
How to make a good casual sequel.
Sergei Babayev told at what stage it was necessary to begin communicating with publishers , what to indicate in the first letter, whom to contact in the CIS for publishing, and what to do if your game "did not go."
An interesting article about game engines that became more accessible in 2014.
When does a video need voice acting?
Why do we need gaming conferences, as well as how to get the maximum benefit from participating in them.
Specialists from Ubisoft Montreal talked about using the OpenStage tool to create cinematic scenes in Far Cry 4.
12 tricks to help you sell ideas, the game and yourself.
Eight best systems to create a UI.
Polygon published a huge article telling the story of the success and bankruptcy of THQ, which gave the world such games as Supreme Commander, Metro 2033, Saints Row, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, Red Faction, Company of Heroes.

It is interesting

Sergey Galenkin shared his opinion on the Playstation Experience.
Video games - the source of amazing stories!
In a recent interview with Blizzard discussed the idea of ​​including eSports in the program of the Olympic Games.
Gennady King from Moon Studios talked about the creation of the game Ori and the Blind Forest.
Art stories: narrativistika in games.
Big model in the theory of role-playing games.
Recently saw the game Temple Run VR for a helmet of virtual reality. Using this example, on the resource Gamasutra briefly examined some of the problems that are inevitable in this new area for the gaming industry.
I want PR: what is needed for publication in the media?
Independent developer Dmitry Lukash told the CPU about how to squeeze the most beautiful graphics for your game on Unity, as well as about the features of the fifth version of the popular engine.
Michia Rohrssen advises how to promote the application in order to make it to the top App Store.
Several interesting articles appeared on Geektimes, which tell about the history of video games: “Retro Mortis: RTS, Part 1: It all started in the desert ...” and “The eSports industry, part 2”.
Seppo Helava, co-founder of Self Aware Games , explains why shareware games as they exist now should become a thing of the past.
Kotaku has prepared a list of the biggest disappointments of 2014 in the gaming industry.
At http://siliconrus.com, experts continue to share their opinions about the games of independent teams: Mail.Ru and Nika Entertainment experts gave some tips to the Sumoman project , Plarium experts - to the indow-project Exowar.
American McGee created a slot game based on IP Akaneiro and shared his vision of the development of this genre in an interview.
Fred Wilson, one of the most successful investors, shared his thoughts on important events of 2014 in his blog .
On December 6, at the 92nd year of life , Ralph Baer , the creator of the first television game console Odyssey, and the author of the legendary game Pong, died . The editors of the Games Market on siliconrus.com remembered how Ralph Baer created his first video game, and how his invention led to the development of an entire industry.
Sergey Galenkin talked a little about games and women.
10 people who changed the gaming industry in 2014.
Ben Kucera talked about Gamer Gate and how this movement changed the world in 2014.
The Polygon portal published a list of 50 people who influenced the gaming industry in 2014.
Emily Hera believes that the war against critics is as old as the world , and Gamergate is another example of this confrontation.
REACT article: Sandbox Play project and creating a game for kids that will make them spend less time with monitors.
If you are not bored with the speculations around STALKER, read a cognitive article that contains all the information about the last unsuccessful attempts to create a clone or a continuation of the game.
Notch mansion rebuilt in Minecraft.
Michael McVertor analyzed the 2014 releases and explained why so many bad games came out.
2014 was a good year for female characters.
The developers of The Talos Principle punished the pirates by creating a bug that appears only in the pirated version of the game.
The authors of the portal Polygon told about the best costumes and characters in 2014.

Crowdfunding

The game That Dragon, Cancer about a child with cancer has collected the necessary amount on Kickstarter.

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