Game Developer (website)
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Type of site | News and information for video game developers |
|---|---|
| Owner | Informa |
| URL | gamedeveloper |
| Launched | 1997 |
Game Developer (formerly Gamasutra) is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on all aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acted as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer. The site was known as Gamasutra until August 2021.[1]
Sections[edit]
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Game Developer has five main sections:
- News: where daily news is posted
- Features: where developers post game postmortems and critical essays
- Blogs: where users can post their thoughts and views on various topics
- Jobs/Resume: where users can apply for open positions at various development studios
- Contractors: where users can apply for contracted work.
The articles can be filtered by either topic (All, Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet, Independent, Serious) or category (Programming, Art, Audio, Design, Production, Biz/Marketing). There are three additional sections: a Store where books on game design may be purchased, RSS where users may subscribe to RSS feeds of each section of the website, and a section that links to the website's Twitter account.
Trade Center Resource[edit]
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While it does post news found on typical video game websites, Game Developer provides articles for aspiring and 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, Nintendo 3DS designer Hideiki Anno, and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw.
Postmortems[edit]
Project postmortems, articles which developers recount the successful and unsuccessful elements of a specific game's development, are the most celebrated features on the website, as they provide direct insight in all aspects of game design and educate other developers of various risks and important tips. Many postmortems 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.[2] 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,[3] and “What Went Wrong? Learning from Past Post-Mortems” that details the most common mistakes that developers make as admitted in the articles.[4]
Guidelines[edit]
Game Developer requires users who wish to publish articles on the website to work with the features director Christian Nutt, whether they have fleshed-out drafts, an outline, or a concept. The editorial staff offers help in shaping, polishing, and editing articles before publication. A broad range of topics can be selected given the audience, which consists of businesspeople, educators, and developers, both professional and aspiring. The articles are required to contain at least 1500 words, though the average length tends to be 2500 to 3500 words. Game Developer also requires a thirty-day exclusivity period from the date of publication, after which the writer is free to take the article elsewhere and retains ownership.
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 topic and prevent comments from devolving into[5] 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[edit]
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 consoles old and new, as well as from the digital download, iOS, and indie spaces.[6]
GameSetWatch was founded by Simon Carless in November 2005. It has been up and running for 6 years until its semi-permanent hiatus in November 2011. The site has 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.[7] GameSetWatch has remained up for readers but no new content has been posted since.
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.[8]
IndieGames.com[edit]
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.[7] 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.[9]
Interviews[edit]
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.[10]
Features[edit]
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 will be collaboration with Games We Care About Twitter page to help gamers discover alt.games recommended by developers and peers.[11]
There is also a Best of Features page that highlights some of the more notable freeware and indie games of this and previous years.[12]
Reviews[edit]
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.[13]
Awards[edit]
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.[14]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Graft, Kris (August 23, 2021). "Gamasutra is becoming Game Developer". Gamasutra. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
- ^ "Postmortem". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ "A Story of GameLayers, Inc". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ "What Went Wrong? Learning From Past Postmortems". Gamasutra. April 22, 2009. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ See [the example sentence for] sense number 5 ["To degenerate; to break down"] of this version of wikt:devolve#Verb. For (far) more example sentences, "see also" this other online dictionary, and while there, click on "more example sentences" at the entry for "(devolve into)" (that entry was labeled [sense] "1.2" as of August 3, 2017). The information in this footnote probably would "not" have fit into an "edit comment" (as of August 3, 2017)
- ^ "GameSetWatch". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ a b Tracey Lien (December 1, 2011). "GamePro And GameSetWatch Close Their Doors". Kotaku. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ Eric Caoili (November 29, 2011). "This Is The End, My Friend". GameSetWatch. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ Couture, Joel. "IndieGames: A Farewell, But A Hello At IndieGamesPlus.com!". IndieGames.
- ^ "IndieGames.com". indiegames.com. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ Simon Carless (September 14, 2014). "IndieGames.com Games We Care About - Tough Love++!". indiegames.com. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ "IndieGames.com - The Weblog". indiegames.com. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ "IndieGames.com - The Weblog | Reviews". indiegames.com. Retrieved 2018-06-17.
- ^ "The Webby Awards: Archived Winner Speeches". International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-08-02.