Game industry: useful materials for game development from A to Z
Recently, we often come across questions about how to get into the gaming industry, what useful materials on this topic can be read and see where to start learning gamedev. When initial knowledge appears, more specific questions arise, such as "where to find like-minded people to create the game," "how to promote your project with a minimum budget", "which publishers should go out, how to do it and whether it is worth it at all", "how improve retension in our game "and so on.
A friend of our educational programs, Mikhail Pimenov, the CEO of Wonder Games and Team Lead of the indie-project " Guard of Wonderland ", has repeatedly asked himself these questions, created for himself a selection of all sorts of materials on the game-dev industry. From useful resources, to communities, podcasts, books and films , which are designed to help understand what begins and ends with the development of a game project. By combining our forces, Misha and I made this article with a selection of useful materials on the gaming industry. You will find a selection under the cut.
In order to combine all the accumulated materials into one structure, we decided to divide the Article into several sections. In the "introduction" you will find materials for beginning game developers. In the "Development" section - resources with free content. And then each of the sub-items is devoted to its subject matter. It is easy to guess that "game design" contains the necessary information about the aspects of game design, an understanding of which is necessary to create a game. In turn, “Marketing and Analytics” contains everything about project promotion: metrics, statistical data, project cost calculations, etc. Next will be sections on communities in social networks, books, podcasts, films, useful resources and conferences.
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All these materials are designed to help you understand the gaming industry and answer most of the questions that often arise not only for beginner game developers, but also for the grated games industry.
Resources with free content
Game design
Marketing and Analytics
Promotional resources
Storytelling
Translations of these and other foreign books on game design into Russian are here .
Also on App2Top there is a good selection of literature on the topic “What to read to a game designer.
⬝ app2top.ru - b2b-portal dedicated to all aspects of the mobile gaming industry
⬝ gdcuffs.com - portal, mainly about game design
⬝ dtf.ru - One of the oldest portals on the development and industry of gamedev. Currently moved to a new engine and revived the publishing house „Committee“
⬝ igromania.ru - Website ID "Igromania." Regularly publish news and articles about games from all platforms.
⬝ kanobu.ru - The largest portal about games and gaming industry
⬝ progamedev.net - Gamedev 's blog about Alexander Shtachenko
⬝ torick.ru - A blog about game development from Svyatoslav Torik
⬝ gamedev.ru - The oldest portal for developers.
⬝ apptractor.ru - A good resource for mobile development
Apps4all.ru - Resource on the news of mobile games
⬝ aushestov.ru - A quality blog about game design from Anatoly Shestov.
⬝ indiedev.name - Blog about the development and promotion of mobile games and applications
⬝ gamesisart.ru - Useful articles and resources about game development
Cup gcup.ru - Portal is dedicated to the creation of games, including without programming. On the site, you can download the necessary tools (game designers, engines), study the necessary literature (articles, magazines, books), etc. In our forum, you can always ask for advice or share your work.
⬝ www.ant-karlov.ru - Author's blog about creating games
⬝ www.gamedis.ru - Game Design Blog
⬝ gamesjam.org - A platform where gamejams of various subjects and directions take place
⬝ www.gamedevblogs.ru - Former FlashGameBlogs.ru is a friendly association of blogs of independent game developers.
⬝ leaden.ru - Personal blog of game designer Yaroslav Kravtsov
⬝ habrahabr.ru - A huge portal with programming materials, resources and useful articles about software and games development.
⬝ www.progamer.ru/dev - There are good materials about game development
⬝ gameinstitute.ru - There are a number of articles on game development
⬝ mmozg.net - Website about MMO games
⬝ core-rpg.net - The main direction of the site - the development of RPG
⬝ tiendil.org - Alexey Yeletsky’s blog about software development and game project creation
⬝ gopractice.ru - Oleg Yakubenkov's blog. Published materials about the creation, analytics and marketing of mobile applications and web services.
⬝ warnworld.com - Game designer Ilya Tumenko's blog. Game development, game design, mobile markets and the gaming industry
⬝ fallingtosky.livejournal.com - Daria Morgunova's blog on game design
VC:
vk.com/gameinstitute - DirectX, OpenGL, Ogre3D, Unity, Udk and other gaming technologies. Tutorials, articles, contests, lessons.
vk.com/vgamedev - Everything for a beginner and professional game developer: Game engines, Game designers and Development environments, Articles.
vk.com/virtualnaya_realnost_segodnya - About game development in virtual reality.
vk.com/androiddevelopers - Development of applications for the Google Android platform
vk.com/empathybox - Group about game development and gamedev culture.
vk.com/gamedev_ru - Game creation, game projects, industry news, job search. How to make a game.
vk.com/gametarget - New online games and MMORPG news: announcements, releases, beta tests
vk.com/mmocult - Portal exclusively for MMOG, MOBA, MMORPG and other Online games
vk.com/zobra_fun - Actual news of the gaming industry
vk.com/unicrydk - publication of materials about creating games
vk.com/gdacademy - Step-by-step algorithm for creating your game from scratch
vk.com/gamedev_group - The group is dedicated to everything related to the video game development industry. News, technical articles, educational materials, game industry, game projects, etc.
vk.com/globalgamedev - A weekly review of GameDev articles from around the Internet.
vk.com/devsgo - MitApy gaming industry representatives
vk.com/igromania - Group of the magazine "Igromania"
vk.com/gamenavigator - Magazine, TV show and portal about video games. In the ranks since 1997
vk.com/rabota_v_gamedeve - Community about vacancies and job seekers in the gaming industry
vk.com/cgic_group - Community with materials about modeling and everything connected with it
vk.com/xakep_mag - Community of the largest magazine in Russia and Europe, devoted to the issues of information security, programming and administration of computer networks.
vk.com/loftblog - Free video tutorials on HTML5, CSS3, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, C ++, PYTHON, RUBY, JAVA, etc.
vk.com/tindie - Here you can learn a lot of interesting and useful information on game development.
vk.com/gdevs - All about the game industry and game development
vk.com/indie_info - News, interesting facts and figures of the gaming industry.
vk.com/best_games_app - The group contains useful tips and guides for Indie beginners developers or people who are interested in game devs, as well as articles about game engines
vk.com/over720 - Materials about creating games, as well as about various interesting technologies
vk.com/gamedesignation - Game design from scratch
vk.com/games_element - All about games and their development
vk.com/gameart - The team of game developers
vk.com/indie_help - Help Indie Developers
vk.com/indiedev_name - Promotion and development of games
vk.com/cg_vk - Game creation community
vk.com/mistle_gamer - The community will be interesting to those involved in game design, or indirectly related activities
vk.com/gamgid - Game development materials
vk.com/world_of_indie - One of the biggest communities about indie games
vk.com/from_idea_to_release - Creating a project from idea to release. Many useful development materials.
https://vk.com/metagd - good game design community “Metaphysics Game Design”
FB:
pringamedev - PR in GameDev
vr.ar.gamedev - Virtual and Augmented Reality Group
gamedeff - All about gededev
IndieGamePromo - Promo of their projects
IndieGameDevs - The international community of gaming industry developers
601210009911004 - Project Promotion
2248433342 - The international community of gaming industry developers
indiedevhangout - Indie Developer Community
russia.android - Community of Russian Android developers
GamingIndustryTalent - The international community of gaming industry developers
IndieGameChat - Indie Developer Community
GameDevBeginners - Beginner Community
gdrullez - Practical Game Design
714657441905881 - Promotion of game projects
gamedevfeedback - The developer community for discussion and feedback for indie games
1435669336648312 - Community of indie game players and developers
793578767413728 - Promotion of game projects
DevGAMM is the largest conference for gaming industry professionals in Russia, Belarus and Europe. Advantages of DevGAMM: high-quality content on game development, a low entry threshold for novice developers, and a series of events aimed at productive pastime and effective networking.
White Nights Conference is an international business conference dedicated to the development and promotion of games on all platforms. It takes place three times a year: in February in Europe, in June in St. Petersburg, in October in Moscow. Total for the year, White Nights collects more than 4,000 professionals in the gaming industry.
Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the largest annual gathering of professional computer game developers with a focus on learning and inspiration. The event includes exhibits, networking events, award ceremonies such as the Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Choice Awards , as well as various consultations, lectures and round tables on the areas of game developers covering programming, design, sound, business and management, and visual art.
NextCastle - Annual festival for gamers and developers. An excellent chance for indie developers to show the game to the gaming audience and get feedback on the project.
upd. 31.10:
https://vk.com/devmeat - MitAps of Game Industry Representatives (St. Petersburg)
https://vk.com/devsgo - MitAps of Game Industry Representatives (Moscow)
In general, there are a lot of gaming conferences in the CIS and in the world, starting with the largest type Gamescom and E3 and ending with small but pleasant parties of game developers like DevsGo. We have described in this article several of them, a detailed list of the end of this year is here . But the calendar , sharpened by a mobile developer.
upd. by Lerika : Top Gaming Events 2016
upd. from PatientZero : There is still a good calendar of indie gaming jams .
This article will be updated with new materials as they become available. If you want to share resources that were not listed in the article - write in the comment . We would like to draw your attention to the fact that Russian-speaking resources were prioritized for this reason, therefore, hamasutra and another 100,500 foreign resources did not include, we would rather make separate material about foreign useful resources in order not to inflate this catalog to unreadable sizes. However, do not forget that all decisions on the addition or non-addition of submitted resources remain with the authors of the article and are conducted at their discretion.
A friend of our educational programs, Mikhail Pimenov, the CEO of Wonder Games and Team Lead of the indie-project " Guard of Wonderland ", has repeatedly asked himself these questions, created for himself a selection of all sorts of materials on the game-dev industry. From useful resources, to communities, podcasts, books and films , which are designed to help understand what begins and ends with the development of a game project. By combining our forces, Misha and I made this article with a selection of useful materials on the gaming industry. You will find a selection under the cut.
In order to combine all the accumulated materials into one structure, we decided to divide the Article into several sections. In the "introduction" you will find materials for beginning game developers. In the "Development" section - resources with free content. And then each of the sub-items is devoted to its subject matter. It is easy to guess that "game design" contains the necessary information about the aspects of game design, an understanding of which is necessary to create a game. In turn, “Marketing and Analytics” contains everything about project promotion: metrics, statistical data, project cost calculations, etc. Next will be sections on communities in social networks, books, podcasts, films, useful resources and conferences.
')
All these materials are designed to help you understand the gaming industry and answer most of the questions that often arise not only for beginner game developers, but also for the grated games industry.
- A brief history of the gaming industry by platform
- Tips for beginner game developers
- Tips for a team from a single developer
- 10 theses indie development - article from Kallist
- Open lecture by Konstantin Sakhnov “How to create your own game”
- Alexander Myasishchev (Executive Director at Nival) - Development of large and small: key differences
- Game Development Outsourcing: Analysis and Pitfalls
- The materiel about the differences between Western and domestic gamedev
- GameDev education in Russia
Resources with free content
- Where to get multimedia content for free and legally? 10 best services
- Mobile Developer Dictionary
- 10 free game design courses
- Free sounds and music for game developers .
Game design
- Introduction to game design (materiel)
- Level Design in The Last of Us
- L. Sirotin: Game designers do not exist (what types of game designers are divided into)
- How to make the game 129. Game design
- How games are made 129. Game design - Extended article by Andrei Kosciuszko (Director and Game Designer of Creoteam)
- Game designer tools
- What is Meta-game
- Designer Uncharted and The Last of Us about the development of action games
- Lengthening gameplay and creating replayability
- Features of interface design in mobile games
- Balance: where to start
- My beauty - article from Sergey Gimelreikh (CEO OR WORK) about collection mechanics
- My Charm 2: Collection Mechanics in Games
- Research on game settings and mechanics, in particular, on daily tasks, on the genre of battlers, on the highest grossing game mechanics, on currency trading, VIP-statuses, etc.
Marketing and Analytics
- Calculation of payback game projects
- How much does it cost to make your game
- Analytics for game designers and producers
- Summary of master class Vasily Sabirov on game analytics
- 5 ideas on game analytics
- SurveyMonkey Intelligence: which categories of games make the most money
- Mobile app promotion: tools and marketing plan example
- 5 simple PR tips for mobile game developers
- How to promote mobile applications before the release. Part 1
- Check Sheet 81 Receiving Mobile Application Promotion
- USA Mobile market through the eyes of EEDAR on 11/16/2015
- Reddit Promotion
- TOP ARPPU in projects for 2015
- How to succeed on Kickstarter if you are indie (Part 1)
- What is ASO and why it is urgently needed by today's developers
- How an indie developer made his way through boomstarter and greenlight purchased
- Fun or disappeared: 33 key benchmarks for assessing the success of the game
- Russian gaming market 2016. Infographics
- F2P Offers
- NEWZOO: Free Global Mobile Market Report
Promotional resources
- Publisher Search Resource
- List of foreign YouTube players: Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3
- Database of sites for the promotion of mobile games and applications. List of game publishers.
- List of publishers, samizdat resources, reviewers
Storytelling
- Software for screenwriters
- [Might & Magic X] Working with Articy: draft
- Method of writing a game plot
- Environment Painter CD Project Red tells how the world was created in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- What is ludonarratic dissonance
- The illusion of choice is better than choice - material about branching out of plot lines.
- Half-Life Screenwriter: “It’s Like I Made a Romance”
- "The Way of the Hero" in the game Journey
- Who is the “Narrative Designer”?
- A. V. Tsyganov. Game theory
- Jesse Schell. Game design art
- Tristan Donovan. Video game history
- R. Koster. A Theory of Fun for Game Design
- Scott Rogers. Level up
- Richard Bartle. Designing Virtual Worlds
- E. Rollings, D. Morris. Game Design and Architecture
- Sergey Galenkin. Games Marketing
Translations of these and other foreign books on game design into Russian are here .
Also on App2Top there is a good selection of literature on the topic “What to read to a game designer.
- How to make games: http://galyonkin.com - One of the oldest and most popular podcasts in Russia and the CIS. Presenters - M. Kuzmin (lead manager of HeroCraft for the distribution of games), S. Galenkin (Epic Games. Head of the publishing department in Eastern Europe)
- Garage is a podcast from Svyatoslav Torik, mainly about game design (Product Vision Expert in Wargaming.net ): http://torick.ru
- The psychology of videogames: A psychology podcast in video games (in English). Presenter - Jamie Madigan (Ph.D. in psychology)
- #RadioFlazm : Podcast about independent game development in small teams. Technologies, platforms, promotion issues, working conditions. Alexey Davydov leads (CEO at Flazm.com )
- TheGameDev. Interviews with game developers. Presenters - Alexey Melnikov (CGSpeak) and Alisa Khusnutdinova
- Indie game: The movie - Documentary about the developers of Fez, Super meat boy and Braid.
- Free to play - Documentary about three cyber sportsmen participating in the first international Dota2 championship
- Gambling: The story of interactive cinema - material from the magazine “Gambling” on the development of visual mechanics of video game narration
- The History of Grand Theft Auto (Documentary) - Documentary about the creation of the GTA series
- Behind the wall: Creating Skyrim - https://youtu.be/JEmPkdVtanw
- Behind the Scenes Uncharted 4 - a cycle of short films about the creation of Uncharted 4
- Pushing the boundaries of the possible. Part 1 : Part 2 : At the end of the road : Drake's growing up - Grounded: The Lasting Us
- The eyes of bayonetta
- Making of Silent Hill 2
- Tomb Raider 2013 - The Making Of
- Making of Mortal Kombat 3
⬝ app2top.ru - b2b-portal dedicated to all aspects of the mobile gaming industry
⬝ gdcuffs.com - portal, mainly about game design
⬝ dtf.ru - One of the oldest portals on the development and industry of gamedev. Currently moved to a new engine and revived the publishing house „Committee“
⬝ igromania.ru - Website ID "Igromania." Regularly publish news and articles about games from all platforms.
⬝ kanobu.ru - The largest portal about games and gaming industry
⬝ progamedev.net - Gamedev 's blog about Alexander Shtachenko
⬝ torick.ru - A blog about game development from Svyatoslav Torik
⬝ gamedev.ru - The oldest portal for developers.
⬝ apptractor.ru - A good resource for mobile development
Apps4all.ru - Resource on the news of mobile games
⬝ aushestov.ru - A quality blog about game design from Anatoly Shestov.
⬝ indiedev.name - Blog about the development and promotion of mobile games and applications
⬝ gamesisart.ru - Useful articles and resources about game development
Cup gcup.ru - Portal is dedicated to the creation of games, including without programming. On the site, you can download the necessary tools (game designers, engines), study the necessary literature (articles, magazines, books), etc. In our forum, you can always ask for advice or share your work.
⬝ www.ant-karlov.ru - Author's blog about creating games
⬝ www.gamedis.ru - Game Design Blog
⬝ gamesjam.org - A platform where gamejams of various subjects and directions take place
⬝ www.gamedevblogs.ru - Former FlashGameBlogs.ru is a friendly association of blogs of independent game developers.
⬝ leaden.ru - Personal blog of game designer Yaroslav Kravtsov
⬝ habrahabr.ru - A huge portal with programming materials, resources and useful articles about software and games development.
⬝ www.progamer.ru/dev - There are good materials about game development
⬝ gameinstitute.ru - There are a number of articles on game development
⬝ mmozg.net - Website about MMO games
⬝ core-rpg.net - The main direction of the site - the development of RPG
⬝ tiendil.org - Alexey Yeletsky’s blog about software development and game project creation
⬝ gopractice.ru - Oleg Yakubenkov's blog. Published materials about the creation, analytics and marketing of mobile applications and web services.
⬝ warnworld.com - Game designer Ilya Tumenko's blog. Game development, game design, mobile markets and the gaming industry
⬝ fallingtosky.livejournal.com - Daria Morgunova's blog on game design
VC:
vk.com/gameinstitute - DirectX, OpenGL, Ogre3D, Unity, Udk and other gaming technologies. Tutorials, articles, contests, lessons.
vk.com/vgamedev - Everything for a beginner and professional game developer: Game engines, Game designers and Development environments, Articles.
vk.com/virtualnaya_realnost_segodnya - About game development in virtual reality.
vk.com/androiddevelopers - Development of applications for the Google Android platform
vk.com/empathybox - Group about game development and gamedev culture.
vk.com/gamedev_ru - Game creation, game projects, industry news, job search. How to make a game.
vk.com/gametarget - New online games and MMORPG news: announcements, releases, beta tests
vk.com/mmocult - Portal exclusively for MMOG, MOBA, MMORPG and other Online games
vk.com/zobra_fun - Actual news of the gaming industry
vk.com/unicrydk - publication of materials about creating games
vk.com/gdacademy - Step-by-step algorithm for creating your game from scratch
vk.com/gamedev_group - The group is dedicated to everything related to the video game development industry. News, technical articles, educational materials, game industry, game projects, etc.
vk.com/globalgamedev - A weekly review of GameDev articles from around the Internet.
vk.com/devsgo - MitApy gaming industry representatives
vk.com/igromania - Group of the magazine "Igromania"
vk.com/gamenavigator - Magazine, TV show and portal about video games. In the ranks since 1997
vk.com/rabota_v_gamedeve - Community about vacancies and job seekers in the gaming industry
vk.com/cgic_group - Community with materials about modeling and everything connected with it
vk.com/xakep_mag - Community of the largest magazine in Russia and Europe, devoted to the issues of information security, programming and administration of computer networks.
vk.com/loftblog - Free video tutorials on HTML5, CSS3, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, C ++, PYTHON, RUBY, JAVA, etc.
vk.com/tindie - Here you can learn a lot of interesting and useful information on game development.
vk.com/gdevs - All about the game industry and game development
vk.com/indie_info - News, interesting facts and figures of the gaming industry.
vk.com/best_games_app - The group contains useful tips and guides for Indie beginners developers or people who are interested in game devs, as well as articles about game engines
vk.com/over720 - Materials about creating games, as well as about various interesting technologies
vk.com/gamedesignation - Game design from scratch
vk.com/games_element - All about games and their development
vk.com/gameart - The team of game developers
vk.com/indie_help - Help Indie Developers
vk.com/indiedev_name - Promotion and development of games
vk.com/cg_vk - Game creation community
vk.com/mistle_gamer - The community will be interesting to those involved in game design, or indirectly related activities
vk.com/gamgid - Game development materials
vk.com/world_of_indie - One of the biggest communities about indie games
vk.com/from_idea_to_release - Creating a project from idea to release. Many useful development materials.
https://vk.com/metagd - good game design community “Metaphysics Game Design”
FB:
pringamedev - PR in GameDev
vr.ar.gamedev - Virtual and Augmented Reality Group
gamedeff - All about gededev
IndieGamePromo - Promo of their projects
IndieGameDevs - The international community of gaming industry developers
601210009911004 - Project Promotion
2248433342 - The international community of gaming industry developers
indiedevhangout - Indie Developer Community
russia.android - Community of Russian Android developers
GamingIndustryTalent - The international community of gaming industry developers
IndieGameChat - Indie Developer Community
GameDevBeginners - Beginner Community
gdrullez - Practical Game Design
714657441905881 - Promotion of game projects
gamedevfeedback - The developer community for discussion and feedback for indie games
1435669336648312 - Community of indie game players and developers
793578767413728 - Promotion of game projects
DevGAMM is the largest conference for gaming industry professionals in Russia, Belarus and Europe. Advantages of DevGAMM: high-quality content on game development, a low entry threshold for novice developers, and a series of events aimed at productive pastime and effective networking.
White Nights Conference is an international business conference dedicated to the development and promotion of games on all platforms. It takes place three times a year: in February in Europe, in June in St. Petersburg, in October in Moscow. Total for the year, White Nights collects more than 4,000 professionals in the gaming industry.
Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the largest annual gathering of professional computer game developers with a focus on learning and inspiration. The event includes exhibits, networking events, award ceremonies such as the Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Choice Awards , as well as various consultations, lectures and round tables on the areas of game developers covering programming, design, sound, business and management, and visual art.
NextCastle - Annual festival for gamers and developers. An excellent chance for indie developers to show the game to the gaming audience and get feedback on the project.
upd. 31.10:
https://vk.com/devmeat - MitAps of Game Industry Representatives (St. Petersburg)
https://vk.com/devsgo - MitAps of Game Industry Representatives (Moscow)
In general, there are a lot of gaming conferences in the CIS and in the world, starting with the largest type Gamescom and E3 and ending with small but pleasant parties of game developers like DevsGo. We have described in this article several of them, a detailed list of the end of this year is here . But the calendar , sharpened by a mobile developer.
upd. by Lerika : Top Gaming Events 2016
upd. from PatientZero : There is still a good calendar of indie gaming jams .
This article will be updated with new materials as they become available. If you want to share resources that were not listed in the article - write in the comment . We would like to draw your attention to the fact that Russian-speaking resources were prioritized for this reason, therefore, hamasutra and another 100,500 foreign resources did not include, we would rather make separate material about foreign useful resources in order not to inflate this catalog to unreadable sizes. However, do not forget that all decisions on the addition or non-addition of submitted resources remain with the authors of the article and are conducted at their discretion.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/313326/
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