 | |
 Screenshot of the website in December 2024 | |
Type of site | News and information for video game developers |
|---|---|
| Owner | Informa TechTarget |
| URL | gamedeveloper |
| Launched | 1997 |
Game Developer (known as Gamasutra until 2021) [1] is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer prior to the latter's closure in 2013. [2]
Game Developer publishes daily news, features like post-game post-mortems and critical essays from developers, and user-submitted blog posts. The articles can be filtered by topic (All, Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet, Independent, Serious) and category (Programming, Art, Audio, Design, Production, Biz (Business)/Marketing). The site has an online storefront for books on game design, RSS feeds and the website's Twitter account. [3]
The site also has a section for users to apply for contracted work and open positions at various development studios. [4]
While it does post news found on typical video game websites, Game Developer provides articles for professional game developers on the disciplines of design, audio, public relations, and art. The site encourages professionals to publish blogs in order to share their expertise with other developers. The editorial staff also takes part in conducting interviews with developers and hardware designers, such as Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, [5] Nintendo 3DS designer Hideki Konno, [6] and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw. [7]
Project post-mortems, articles in which developers recount the successful and unsuccessful elements of a specific game's development, provide direct insight in all aspects of game design and educate other developers on various risks and important tips. Many post-mortems have been published, ranging from independent games such as Okabu and The Path to major studio projects such as Ōkamiden and BioShock . There are currently over 150 collected post-mortems dating back as far as 1997. [8] There have been unusual post-mortem articles published, including "A Story of GameLayers, Inc." that reveals the tumultuous development and eventual cancellation of a Firefox toolbar-based MMORPG, [9] and "What Went Wrong? Learning from Past Post-Mortems" that details the most common mistakes that developers make as admitted in the articles. [10]
Game Developer offers the opportunity for users to publish blog articles on their website. To ensure a high standard of quality, interested authors are required to collaborate with their editorial team. Contributors retain the rights to their content after publishing it with Game Developer. [11]
Users are also allowed to comment on articles, but there is a strict set of rules. Comment guidelines are designed to keep user discussions of a given article on the topic and prevent comments from devolving into [12] flame wars (hostile interactions on the Internet), as seen on other community-driven websites where comment regulations are looser. Users are encouraged to post only constructive thoughts that add to the conversation.
GameSetWatch is an alternative video game weblog and sister site of Game Developer. It is dedicated to collecting curious links and media for offbeat and often ignored games from old and new consoles, as well as digital downloads such as iOS, and indie spaces. [13]
GameSetWatch was founded by Simon Carless in November 2005. It was up and running for six years until its semi-permanent hiatus in November 2011. The site stopped as the creators saw an overlap of content with their sister site IndieGames.com and because they felt the mainstream gaming blogs were covering more of the "weirder" and alternative video game news. [14]
Those that contributed to the launch included IGF chairman Brandon Boyer, GameTrailers stalwart Michael McWhertor, Game Developer news director Frank Cifaldi, Alice Taylor, as well as Game Developer magazine EIC Brandon Sheffield. [15]
IndieGames.com started in October 2005. IndieGames.com is Game Developer's sister site dedicated to reporting on indie games. It became the UBM TechWeb's main method to deliver news about independent games after GameSetWatch closed. [14] In September 2018, IndieGames.com split from its longtime owner UBM. The writers started a new independently ran website called Indie Games Plus and carried over the older IndieGames.com posts to the new website. [16]
The interviews section of the site features interviews with indie game creators and developers. The interviewees answer a set of questions posed by the interviewer including questions regarding their inspirations and hardships. The page is also split into three categories: desktop, console, and mobile to organize the interviews by platform interests. [17]
The features section of the site consists of posts by the writers and editors of the site. Articles are written on any topic in the indie game sector. It was announced in September 2014 that there would be a collaboration with the Games We Care About Twitter page to help gamers discover alternative games recommended by developers and peers. [18]
There also is a Best of Features page that highlights some of the more notable freeware and indie games of current and previous years. [19]
The Reviews section of the site is written by Michael Rose starting in February 2009. It features reviews on the games mentioned in the "Best of Features" page to give readers a look into the game before playing it themselves. [20]
As Gamasutra, the site and its team of editors won a Webby Award in 2006 and 2007; their five-word acceptance speeches were "Heart plus science equals games" and "Art plus science, still games", respectively. [21]
Steam is a digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) measures, social networking, and game streaming services. The Steam client offers features such as automatic updates, cloud storage, and community features such as direct messaging, an in-game overlay, discussion forums, and a virtual collectable marketplace. The storefront also offers productivity software, game soundtracks, videos, and sells hardware made by Valve, such as the Index and Steam Deck.
Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is an open source development tool primarily used to create graphic adventure games. It is aimed at intermediate-level game designers, and combines an integrated development environment (IDE) with a scripting language based on the C programming language to process game logic.
Joystiq was a video gaming blog founded in June 2004 as part of the Weblogs, Inc. family of weblogs, now owned by AOL. It was AOL's primary video game blog, with sister blogs dealing with MMORPG gaming in general and the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft in particular.
Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles, and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs, although the vast majority of its traffic could be attributed to a smaller number of breakout titles, as was typical of most large-scale successful blog networks of the mid-2000s. Popular blogs included Engadget, Autoblog, TUAW, Joystiq, Luxist, Slashfood, Cinematical, TV Squad, Download Squad, Blogging Baby, Gadling, AdJab, and Blogging Stocks.
Jay Is Games is a game review website that features daily updates and links to casual games, indie games, browser games and flash games of wide interest to casual gamers. It was founded on April 19, 2003 by Jay Bibby, initially as a personal blog, although it later had several contributors.
An indie video game or indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to a lack of publisher support. The term is analogous to independent music or independent film in those respective mediums.
Xbox Live Indie Games were video games created by individual developers or small teams of developers released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360. The games were developed using Microsoft XNA, and developed by one or more independent developers that are registered with App Hub. Unlike Xbox Live Arcade titles, these were generally only tested within the local creator community, had much lower costs of production, and generally were less expensive to purchase. The service was released to widespread use alongside the New Xbox Experience, and as of November 2014, over 3,300 games had been released on the service, many receiving media attention. All Indie Games currently require the user to be logged into their Xbox Live account to initiate the start-up of each game. Indie Games were not available in Australia due to local classification requirements which were unable to be fulfilled, though there were workarounds which allowed Australian users to download them regardless. The Xbox Live Indie Games program did not continue with the release of the Xbox One, and the marketplace for these games was shuttered on October 7, 2017.
Runic Games was an American computer game developer based in Seattle. It was formed by former Flagship Studios developers in August 2008. In 2009, the company released Torchlight, a single-player action role-playing game. It was acquired by Perfect World in May 2010. They released a sequel, Torchlight II, in 2012. It was at this time the developers revealed they were no longer pursuing plans to create an MMO in the Torchlight universe.
Edmund Charles McMillen is an American video game designer and artist. He is known for his Adobe Flash games with unconventional visual styles. His works include 2010's side-scroller Super Meat Boy, 2011's roguelike game The Binding of Isaac, and its 2014 remake The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
VVVVVV is a 2010 puzzle-platform game created by Terry Cavanagh. In the game, the player controls Captain Viridian, who must rescue their spacecrew after a teleporter malfunction caused them to be separated in Dimension VVVVVV. The gameplay is characterized by the inability of the player to jump, instead opting on controlling the direction of gravity, causing the player to fall upwards or downwards. The game consists of more than 400 individual rooms, and also supports the creation of user-created levels.
Daniel Benmergui is an independent game designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina known for the creation of art games such as Today I Die, I Wish I Were the Moon, and Storyteller.
Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and the rest split between the game developers. Humble Bundle continues to offer these limited-time bundles, but have expanded to include a greater and more persistent storefront. The Humble Bundle concept was initially run by Wolfire Games in 2010, but by its second bundle, the Humble Bundle company was spun out to manage the promotion, payments, and distribution of the bundles. In October 2017, the company was acquired by Ziff Davis through its IGN Entertainment subsidiary.
Tommy Refenes is an American video game designer and programmer, best known for his work on the game Super Meat Boy, a platformer he co-created with designer Edmund McMillen.
GROW is a series of Flash or HTML5-based puzzle games created by On Nakayama, a Japanese indie game developer, and posted to his website, eyezmaze.com. The series, which was launched on February 7, 2002, comprises 12 full games, 7 minigames, and 1 canceled game. The most recently released title was published in June 2018. The games all feature a simple click-button interface requiring the player to determine the correct combination of buttons to click to maximize visual reward and ultimately to achieve the good ending. Graphically spare and minimalist, GROW games employ a cute aesthetic and often include creatures and characters taken from On's other games like those in the Tontie Series.
Questionaut is a short educational video game developed by Amanita Design for the BBC. It's a point-and-click adventure game meant for English speaking children of school age. It is supposed to exercise their knowledge in English, mathematics and natural science.
Game Jolt is a social community platform for video games, gamers and content creators. Founded by Yaprak and David DeCarmine, it is available on iOS, Android, and on the web and as a desktop app for Windows and Linux. Users share interactive content through a variety of formats including images, videos, live streams, chat rooms, and virtual events.
I Get This Call Every Day is a 2012 point-and-click video game developed and published by Toronto-based developer David S Gallant. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X on December 21, 2012. It focuses on a call received by an employee of a customer service call centre; the player must navigate through the call without irritating the caller or breaking confidentiality laws. Gallant was fired from his job at a call centre as a direct result of publishing the game.
Flywrench is an action video game developed and published by Messhof. The game puts the player in the role of 6802, a spacecraft floating through the Solar System in search of a mysterious access point. As 6802 passes the different planets towards the Sun, the player is tasked to maneuver 6802 through a variety of levels, in which they, by pressing or holding one of two certain buttons, must change 6802's color adaptively to barriers blocking the way to the finish and at the same time control 6802's movement behavior.
Super Hydorah is a 2017 independent side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Locomalito and published by Abylight Studios. It features a 16-32 bit era look and feel as well as a CRT Monitor effect. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita on September 20, 2017, and later, in 2018, ported to iOS on May 17 and Nintendo Switch on November 15, respectively. The game is an expanded and enhanced version of the developer's previous freeware game Hydorah.