Minecraft surpasses 100M users in China on PC and mobile The Chinese version of Mojang's blocky builder is a free-to-play release, and is operated by internet technology outfit NetEase. 

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  Sony: The next PlayStation is another three years away Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the Japanese console maker revealed the next PlayStation won't surface for at least another three years.

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  Blog: Defining variance and understanding replayability For the final part of my look at replayability, we're going to talk about what variance is, and how games have to be designed to be replayable.

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  Game Design Deep Dive: Rendering the player as a form of pure energy in Recompile Phigames' Phi Dinh writes about how the studio's upcoming Recompile's humanoid protagonist rendered as a form of pure energy, using instanced cube meshes with a custom shader.

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  Video: How For Honor addressed its post-launch problems In this GDC 2018 session, Ubisoft's Damien Kieken and Roman Campos Oriola discuss the story behind For Honor as it traveled from beta, through its launch, to its first post-launch year.

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1 EA acquires GameFly's cloud gaming service Electronic Arts announced its acquisition of the cloud gaming technology assets and personnel of GameFly today.

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7 We Happy Few refused classification by Australian ratings board Australia’s regulatory board that doles out ratings for games seeking release in the country has refused classification to Compulsion Games’ We Happy Few, effectively banning the sale of the game in Australia.

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  New studio Neon Giant launched by former Wolfenstein devs Former Wolfenstein, DOOM, Bulletstorm and Gears of War developers have teamed up to form the Swedish-based studio Neon Giant. 

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  Get a job: Disbelief is hiring a Junior Programmer Disbelief is looking for a full-time junior programmer to work on everything from gameplay to core engine programming as a member of its team in Chicago, IL.

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  UK government takes aim at online games in Internet Safety Strategy response Video games were listed among the many online spaces being scrutinized by the United Kingdom government ahead of new laws that would aim to make the internet and social media safer for UK citizens.

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  Building a light-hearted puzzle game around Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees “As with Slayaway Camp, we were aware of a fine line when doing comedy this dark," says Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle dev Nate Schmold. "It can easily cross over from gross-but-funny to just nasty."

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8 Don't Miss: Tim Sweeney on the creation and legacy of the Unreal Editor On the 20th anniversary of Unreal, take a look back at this chat with Epic founder Tim Sweeney about how the UnrealEd level editor emerged as one of the most popular tools of its era.

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  Microsoft partnership brings video game event to Special Olympics USA Games Microsoft has teamed up with the Special Olympics to bring a video game tournament to the Special Olympics USA Games this July in Seattle, Washington.

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9 Opinion: Illuminating the shadowy group celebrating Valve's latest censorship drive Gamasutra contributor Katherine Cross digs into the history and agenda of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a right-wing advocacy group gleefully campaigning for Valve to censor Steam games.

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  Blog: Drawing inspiration from a global community of game devs For me, the best thing about game conferences is meeting fellow developers from around the world and hearing their stories. Here's why I value those interactions above all else.

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  Blog: Making strategy games interesting to read In a strategy game reading is the process of parsing the information on the board, allowing players to identify threats and opportunities. This article can help you make that text interesting to read.

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  Sony: PlayStation 4 is entering 'final phase' of its lifecycle Sony Interactive Entertainment chief exec John Kodera explained the PlayStation 4 is about to embark on the last leg of its journey, and that sales will be affected as a result. 

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  Avalanche forms Malmo studio to focus on 'flexible' projects The new opening will join the Just Cause developer's other offices in New York and Stockholm, and will focus on 'relatively small and flexibly projects.'

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  Building the boss fights of X-Morph: Defense - Part 1 This article is the beginning of the series in which we will describe the design and implementation of boss fights in X-Morph:Defense.

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  Why the Cultist Simulator devs built their Lovecraftian game on a house of cards Cultist Simulator devs Alexis Kennedy and Lottie Bevan speak to the highs and lows of designing games around cards, the value of a minimalist interface, and walking the tightrope of indie game dev.

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1 Video: The combat design of DOOM In this GDC 2018 session, id Software's Kurt Loudy & Jake Campbell go into the philosophy behind the combat design of 2016's DOOM and its implementation.

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2 Paradox looks at Crusader Kings 2 for improving DLC in future games In an interview with PC Gamer, CEO and VP of business development at Paradox Interactive Ebba Ljungerud and Shams Jorjani discuss the DLC model forCrusader Kings 2.

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  Get a job: Kaneva is hiring a Software Engineer Kaneva is looking for a Software Engineer well versed in Unity to work on mobile and VR development as a member of its Georgia-based team.

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  Lack of oversight led to use of Overwatch art in Paladins Strike ad, says dev A promotional image for Hi-Rez Studios’ Paladins Strike mobile game took its background directly from Blizzard, something the dev chalks up to lack of oversight in regards to outsourced work.

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  Adult Swim acquires Pocket Mortys dev Big Pixel Studios Adult Swim has acquired Big Pixel Studios, the developer behind the Pocket Mortys game based on the Rick And Morty animated series, for an undisclosed sum. 

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