The imperfect science of Falcon Age's baby bird-based social media marketing Outerloop Games co-founder Chandana "Eka" Ekanayake talks about the baby bird that won Twitter's heart, and also a bit about Disneyland-like level design in Falcon Age.

---

  Video: Procedurally creating Manhattan for Marvel's Spider-Man At GDC 2019 Insomniac's David Santiago shares a behind-the-scenes look at the open world pipeline of Marvel's Spider-Man and how it was architected to procedurally author an open-world Manhattan.

---

  Nintendo's past VR research laid the foundation for Labo VR Existing virtual reality research made the craftable cardboard Labo kits a natural solution to bring VR to the Nintendo Switch.

---

  Get a job: Deep Silver Fishlabs is hiring a Lead Combat Designer The Deep Silver Fishlabs team is looking for a dev to lead a small combat design team working on a 3D SciFi game.

---

12 Gearbox CEO: Both devs and players benefit from Epic and Steam competition "At the end of the day when we look back at this moment, we’ll realize that this was the moment where the digital stores on PC became unmonopolized."

---

2 Don't Miss: Devs reflect on the impact and legacy of Burnout Paradise Devs who worked on or were influenced by Criterion Games' 2008 release Burnout Parasise reflect on what made the game so special and how it changed the racing genre.

---

  Game Informer Australia closed down in wake of GameStop cuts Game Informer parent company GameStop has closed down the Australian version of the magazine, and will replace it with the US version in the country.

---

  Blog: Why game jams can be a necessary distraction Six months ago, my tiny indie studio failed our first attempt at crowdfunding a game. Without the inspiration that came from entering game jams, we may have never tried again.

---

  Burnout Paradise's online servers are shutting down after 11 years Criterion Games is shutting down the servers for its 2008 game Burnout Paradise, a decision that affects the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC versions of the game.

---

  Freshly founded All-in Games set to publish Daymare: 1998, Paradise Lost The new Poland-based company has lined up publishing deals for 16 games since opening its doors and is actively looking for more devs to sign.

---

2 Iraq parliament votes to ban Fortnite and Battlegrounds The Iraq parliament has voted to ban a number of notable online games including Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds as a result of their "negative" influence. 

---

2 Blog: What makes a game prologue gripping? An article about what methods great game prologues use to grip players attention, as well as about which goals they strive to achieve.

---

  Report: Cheaper Switch model will focus on portability A new report from Nikkei claims Nintendo's rumored cut-price Switch will be geared towards portability, but will still be compatible with the console's television dock

---

  Nintendo and Tencent gain approval to bring the Switch to China Nintendo and Tencent have joined forces in an attempt to bring the Switch to China, and the pair are making significant headway.

---

  Lights in the dark: How Ashen's design sets it apart from other 'Soulslikes' Creative director Derek Bradley opens up about the design of A44's remarkable Soulslike Ashen, and discusses how subtle art and design choices set it apart from the bleak worlds of From Software.

---

  Video: Steps for building a game's community from scratch In this Game Discoverability Day talk from GDC 2019, No More Robots director (and former Gamasutra editor) Mike Rose offers developers advice on how to build up a game's community from nothing.

---

2 Kickstarter's games category surpasses $1 billion in pledges Games on Kickstarter have brought in over $1 billion in pledges, though it’s a milestone that includes both board games and video games.

---

  Get a job: War Drum Studios is hiring a 3D Artist War Drum Studios is seeking a 3D Artist to create detailed 3D models and high-resolution environment materials for an upcoming Unreal Engine 4 game.

---

  Google opens its Indie Games Accelerator to mobile devs across 37 countries Google has expanded its Indie Games Accelerator program and is now taking applications from devs in select countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

---

36 Don't Miss: Alien: Isolation and the evolution of horror sims Amnesia & Soma dev Thomas Grip recounts a history of games that invoke terror in players & how Alien: Isolation successfully captured the spirit of a 'horror simulator' game.

---

  AbleGamers opens Accessible.Games, a dev portal for accessibility info AbleGamers has launched a new website in the interest of giving game developers access to more information on how to make their games more accessible through community collaboration.

---

  Trion Worlds is shutting down Atlas Reactor this summer The developer has already shut down in-game purchases and servers are set to go offline for good this June.

---

  Amy Hennig thinks game streaming could spark a creative revolution Veteran writer and director Amy Hennig hopes the advent of game streaming services like Google Stadia will spark a creative revolution within the games industry.

---

2 Blog: Exploring the 'what' of bittersweet game design Fun. That's why we create games, right? To create that lovely, lovely endorphin rush. But in all seriousness, is that really the case? Read this to find out.

---

1 Ubisoft pledges over $500,000 to Notre-Dame restoration efforts Ubisoft will donate $565,000 to help with the restoration and reconstruction of the historic Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was tragically damaged when a fire broke out on Monday.

---

[Read More]