2 Blizzard pulls devs off Heroes of the Storm and cuts eSports support Today Blizzard announced plans to pull developers off of its free-to-play MOBA Heroes of the Storm and discontinue Heroes eSports events in a bid to position the game for "long-term sustainability."

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  Video: Hacking into the combat AI of Watch Dogs 2 In this GDC 2017 talk, Ubisoft's Chae Dickie-Clark explains how the NPCs of Watch Dogs 2 efficiently process their environment to select cover and perform other dynamic behaviors.

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1 Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward evacuated after bomb threat Infinity Ward, the Los Angeles-based developer behind multiple Call of Duty games, evacuated employees today following a bomb threat.

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  Twitch sells Curse Media after two years Wiki hosting service Fandom (formerly known as Wikia) announced that it is currently in the process of acquiring Curse Media, which hosts a collection of gaming websites.

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  Get a job: Warframe dev Digital Extremes is looking for a Sr. UI Artist Digital Extremes is looking for a dev to tackle the creation and implementation of an in-game user interface, among other tasks, as a member of its Canadian game dev studio.

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  League of Legends will no longer support Windows XP and Vista in 2019 League of Legends is officially ending support for Windows XP and Vista as of May 14, 2019. 

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1 Best of 2018: How Rare designed Sea of Thieves' infinite pirate generator Rare lead character artist Sam Chester talks through the conception, design, and implementation of the "infinite pirate generator" character creator in the studio's swashbuckle-'em-up Sea of Thieves.

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  Indie Megabooth is hosting a curated indie game collection on Kartridge A partnership between the two companies will see past Indie Megabooth games regularly highlighted on Kongregate’s indie game storefront Kartridge.

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  Applications are now open for GDC 2019's low-income free pass program! Game Developers Conference organizers have once again donated a number of complimentary GDC 2019 passes that will be given away (via lottery) as part of a special low-income GDC pass program!

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  Come to GDC and see how BioWare shaded the world of Anthem! At GDC 2019 you'll get an inside look at how BioWare artists breathe life into Anthem's dynamic seasons, weather events, and time of day using smart shader techniques.

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1 Blog: How I faked Desert Child's striking 3D visuals Oscar Brittain and Akupara Games are releasing Desert Child on Switch, Xbox, PS4, and Steam on December 11. Oscar hit us with the following tech blog on how he 'faked' the game's striking 3D look.

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How 'user stories' can help players grasp new content An in-depth look at why creating "user stories" is one of the main tricks in a game developer's arsenal.

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7 Blog: Why being an indie game dev is harder than ever This is my contribution for data-points on the Indiepocalypse, wherein I compare my best-rated and best-selling games.

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Video: The living world of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt In this GDC 2016 session, CD Projekt Red's Matthew Steinke explains how he developed a role-playing experience that would provide players with gameplay spanning the vast open world of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.

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  Detroit: Become Human has sold over 2M units worldwide Quantic Dream announced earlier today that Detroit: Become Human has sold over 2 million copies worldwide since launching back in May. 

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  Get a job: Colorado-based Jade Ember Studios is hiring a Level Designer Jade Ember Studios is looking for a Level Designer with 1-3 years of professional experience to join the team in creating an original action/adventure 3D title in the metroidvania genre for PC and consoles.

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5 First-party Switch games are setting new attach rate records for Nintendo Nintendo says that the Switch is performing at historic levels for the company, and the attach rates for many of the company’s first-party titles are one such example of that.

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10 Best of 2018: A Classic Tools Retrospective on the first version of the Unreal Editor Epic founder Tim Sweeney talks to David Lightbown about UnrealEd, one of the most popular level editors in the game industry, used to build levels for Unreal, Deus Ex, Gears of War, BioShock and more.

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  Black Desert Online dev Pearl Abyss to open California office to handle Western affairs Pearl Abyss, parent company of EVE Online dev CCP Games, has set up its first North American office.

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  Blog: Resources for game music composers - The big list Composer Winifred Phillips has gathered together some of the top online resources and guidance available for newbies in the field of video game music. Take a look.

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  Play these 20 unique games at GDC 2019's alt.ctrl.GDC showcase! One of these alternative controller games will win the alt.ctrl.GDC Award -- which includes a $3k prize plus a special trophy handmade by game maker Robin Baumgarten -- at the IGF ceremony during GDC!

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  Epic Store to launch cross-platform games services suite Epic is rolling out many new features for the Epic Games Store beginning in 2019, starting with the launch of a cross-platform games service free for all developers.

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  Get game design tips and tricks from Dead Cells' co-creator at GDC 2019 Motion Twin's Sebastien Benard will be at GDC to deliver a neat Design track talk about the little things (from controls to particles) that turned out to make Dead Cells a significantly better game. 

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  Super Smash Bros. Ultimate breaks the series' launch sales record in Japan Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 1.23 million copies in Japan during its launch weekend, according to the latest sales figures from Famitsu.

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2 Blog: An IKEA guide to Steam product pages that simply work The role of your game's store page varies depending on the stage of your marketing campaign you are in at the moment. Whatever role it plays, it proves to be a handy tool in your marketing toolbox.

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