Digest of the game industry: August

Our digest will bring you some magic, warmth and sunny mood. In anticipation of the Indian summer, read the latest gamedev news and useful tips on game development.



Mobile direction

Final Fantasy VII is now available on iPad & iPhone .
Angry Birds will fire another 260 employees.
Jeff Earl is appointed CEO at MobilityWare.
Konami will close 31 premium mobile games in Japan.
Rovio has appointed a new regional director for India.
Americans spend more time on smartphones than ever, but the time of gaming sessions falls.
Risks, rewards and the development path of mobile games .
Half Life port released on Android Wear Smartwatches.
33% of iOS games that received a million downloads, achieved this in the first month after the release - App Annie.
New game designer released: Android FPS Maker from SilentWorks.
What is soft launch and how to use it in the development of mobile applications.
App Annie: for a successful game, the average time to reach a million dollars is 159 days.
Konami developers are downgraded to guards and cleaners for poor performance - a Nikkei report.
How to make the right game for Apple Watch ?
Studio Hipster Whale: Pac-Man 256 is not like Crossy Road .
Minimalistic Agar.io has become the most downloaded July game on iOS .
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Audio

Creating the right music in the game : large and small forms.
On the creation of the soundtrack to the game Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime.
On the development of audio design of the game Gathering Sky: part 1 , part 2 , part 3 .
Nick Ryan's view on creating music for games .

Making games

How to create a data structure for a turn-based game?
Video : why you should not rely on the emergent behavior of AI in your game.
2D lighting system in Monogame.
Use State Machines to create character animations and describe user actions in the game.
To create a game you need a plan and a design .
Use the Map / Reduce tools to test a variety of initial game scenarios .
Creating 2D portals using shaders.
21 free educational resources for game developers.
We achieve the effect of "walls in fire" with a simple change of the shader .
Improve Android gaming performance with Intel INDE Graphics Performance Analyzers.
OpenSpace3D 1.9 is released with support for export for Android.
Approaches and methods in the development of the visual style of the game project.
Demonstration of Designer Tool features in CE3.
CryEngine 3.8.3 release with new UV Mapping Editor, Character Attachment Merging technology and other innovations.
The release of the designer of 3D games Shoot 'Em Up Kit 2.0.4.
How to draw a map of the city ?
The team of the Russian studio All Correct Games about working with Ubisoft and the experience of localizing the game Valiant Hearts .
Developers from Silicon Studio have submitted a roadmap for updates to their 3D game engine, Paradox Game Engine.
Marmalade SDK 7.8.1 release with support for Windows 10.
The fourth UE pre-build is 4.9 .

news

Nintendo patented the console without a floppy drive .
Google has officially launched YouTube Gaming for iOS, Android and web platforms.
N3twork acquired the company Nio Games .
Nintendo will make movies on their games.
Clint Hawking is back at Ubisoft .
Microsoft announced the release of Xbox One Elite .
Based on the game Borderlands will shoot the film .
Del Toro : "If I start working on a video game, the Third World War will begin."
The new Xbox One controller looks great.
Judicial vicissitudes in the company Machine Zone: game developer Game of War sued a competitor because of a drunken dispute at a party, and a former employee of the company was arrested on suspicion of stealing corporate secrets .
From 3 to 14 October 2015 in Moscow , the WN: Mobile and Social Game Development Conference will take place - a conference of mobile and social game developers.
Developers using Twitter began to share tips on creating games .
CG Event Moscow will be held from 28 to 29 November 2015.
Competition to create games Gamiron № 10 "Random Generation."
Glu Mobile won a clone case from Hothead Games.
From September 22 to 25, 2015, the anniversary GraphiCon will be held - an international conference on computer graphics, computer vision, visualization systems and virtual environments.
The number of World of Warcraft players for 6 months decreased by 44% . But Blizzard refuses to admit defeat and plans to restore its former glory with the help of popular characters .
The Russian developer of payment systems for games Xsolla launched the e-sports academy .
Riot Games announced a b2b conference in Moscow .

Video Game News

Tekken 7 will appear on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Transformers Devastation gameplay looks even better than Michael Bay movies .
The release of Assassin's Creed Syndicate on the PC is delayed by almost a month and is scheduled for November 19. It became known that the game will be available missions with Darwin and Dickens .
This War of Mine: The Little Ones will appear on PS4 and Xbox One next year.
Karos game returns to Steam.
The creator of Gears of War, Cliff Blesinsky, introduced the gravity- defying shooter LawBreakers.
Velocity 2X, which has recently appeared on both PCs and Xbox One, has been positively evaluated by experts.
Republique will appear on PlayStation 4 in early 2016.
The wrestling girl Rainbow Mika is a new fighter in Street Fighter 5.
Kerbal Space Program will appear on Xbox One and Wii U.
3 evidence that Bethesda is making the new Quake .
Mad Max developers talked about the resolution of the game and the size of the world - the badlands will have no end or edge.
Published a new video screenshot of the third "Kazakov" .
The developers of Final Fantasy VII are still not completely determined what the battles in the game will be .
"Knock-knock" will be released on PlayStation 4 .
The creators of Trine 3 responded to those who were dissatisfied with the game: the marketing manager took the blame .
The innovation center of WG Labs launches a cycle of developer diaries telling about the revival of the famous 4X strategy - Master of Orion.
Yakuza 5 will be released in the West with all the DLCs already released, including Another Drama.
Announced a collector's edition of Master of Orion . It will include an exclusive version of the game with a unique race, all previous parts of the series and other bonuses.
Nintendo announced release dates for Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water, Star Fox Zero and Mario Tennis: Ultra.
There will be updated versions of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2.
Cliff Blesinsky shared unexpected facts about Gears of War .

It is interesting

Spin-off: the code of CryEngine 3 SDK is verified with PVS-Studio.
Case: an experiment of creating and further updating the game according to user feedback and Google Analytics data .
Worst post-mortem : Wayfor's Til Morning Light game.
About the man who sent his game to Gabe Newell in his briefcase.
Requirements for functions in games.
Major lessons learned from seven commercially successful games created during gamejacks .
Classic post-mortem : game Psychonauts from Double Fine.
Why NASA changed Unity to Blend4Web .
Review of the game Until Dawn .
Interview with the creator of the game in assembly language .
5 lessons that I learned from creating a MOBA-game for touch screens .
On the confrontation YouTube and Twitch .
The first FPS in real life .
Phantom Pain is not like other Metal Gear games .
Use of Google Analytics in games.
Post-mortem games Lost Within from the studio Human Head.
Devil's Third Game Review.
The pros and cons of total employee independence is the experience of the Wooga gaming company.
Exoplanet: First Contact. How to make a big game a small team.
Are “screaming” icons more effective ?
Users started spending less time and money on games.
Balancing game mechanics : value for money.
Becoming a father, I again fell in love with Nintendo .
Systems theory : patterns in the relationship between objects.
How to create a mobile game (educational 60-second video).
Gold, life, health: how are numerical values ​​in games related.
NPD Group: players spend an average of 1.6 games .
Theater of Fear : A Review of Until Dawn from “Disgusting Men.”
EA: advertising in our games is 2.5 times more effective than TV advertising .
How is the economy of the popular game "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt."
Retrospective of the Metal Gear series from Kitchen Riots.
The basics of game balance : deterministic, non-deterministic and solvable games.
The American Psychological Association has found a link between violent games and violence .
Average performance indicators of free-to-play projects on the market: retention, revenue, session duration.
Review of stealth platformer Canvaleon.

Podcasts

The use of psychology in the work on the UX.
Peter Salnikov in the podcast "How to make games."
Events of the summer and Gamescom exhibition.
Analytics in games.
Visual style in games.

Crowdfunding

Open world, survival, crafting, a cubic style a la Minecraft and the environmental component in the Eco project on the Kickstarter service .
Divinity: Original Sin II scored the required amount on Kickstarter in 12 hours , but the campaign will last more than a month.