Stalled Ouya just landed $10 million investment, report claims The Wall Street Journal reports that anonymous sources claim Alibaba is considering integrating the Ouya platform (and its catalog of games) into its own line of set-top boxes.

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  How Crossy Road made $1 million from video ads After topping a million downloads and $1M in ad revenue in its first month of release, Crossy Road co-creator Andrew Sum breaks down the award-winning mobile game's unobtrusive monetization design.

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  Road to the IGF: Justin Smith's Desert Golfing Continuing our Road to the IGF series of interviews with nominees, we speak to Desert Golfing creator Justin Smith about his Nuovo Award-nominated surprise hit, an infinite and improbable existential cruise.

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21 Don't Miss: Self-promotion for game developers Industry vet Raph Koster (Ultima Online) explains in this post how self-promotion is neither dishonest nor tacky -- and explains how you should step up and take credit for your work.

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  Sleep well, come prepared, collaborate: Lessons from the Global Game Jam "This year I honestly felt like I didn't learn much about the direct process of making a game, but I learned a lot more relating to everything else that plays a supporting part in game development."

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  Nintendo turns YouTubers into partners via new affiliate program The company launched a beta version of the Nintendo Creators Program this week, and it affords developers some interesting insight into how one of the biggest names in games views YouTubers.

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  Creating a user-generated chain story: A Global Game Jam postmortem Lessons learned when one developer worked through his fears to create Escalate! -- a collaborative storytelling game where the next person to pick up the game branches its story and adds their own touch.

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  UX insights: How King is shaping the future of match-3 A user experience designer takes a close look at how King is shaping the future of match-3 UI/UX, from gameplay to purchase options -- with its soft-launched Pepper Panic Saga.

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  Successful game makers share indie biz tips at GDC 2015 Speakers from Double Fine, Ouya, Devolver Digital, TinyBuild, Finji and more will be sharing their lessons learned as successful indie game makers during GDC 2015.

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27 Trailer trouble: Dealing with pixel-art backlash Two days ago, we released our first "big" trailer. It got a lot of views, but a very vocal minority downvoted it, and got extremely mad about our use of pixel art. Here are some of our learnings from the experience.

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  Which of your new users are about to churn? "The most significant churn occurs right after install regardless if it’s on a mobile device or on the web. The first hours, not to say minutes, of game play, are critical."

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3 Horror in the Making: How Red Barrels outlasted Outlast Development of Red Barrels' Outlast was as intense -- and at times as horrifying -- as the game itself. Studio co-founder Philippe Morin writes about the ups, downs, and ultimate success of the survival horror game.

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  Steam Workshop creators can now sell content for non-Valve games Valve has begun supporting paid, curated Steam Workshops for non-Valve games, starting with Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and Dungeon Defenders: Eternity. If your game is on Steam, this is a big deal.

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5 Valve's economist is now the finance minister of Greece Economist Yanis Varoufakis, known best in game development circles for his work as Valve's economist-in-residence, is now the new finance minister of Greece.

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3 Nintendo returning to profits, but is still struggling to sell hardware Nintendo had a profitable quarter, and is on track for a full-year profit -- but the company is still fighting to make up lost ground amidst weak sales of the Wii U and 3DS year-on-year.

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  Get a job: Blizzard is looking to hire a VFX Artist The Hearthstone team seeks a visual effects (VFX) production artist to develop new effects, from concept through implementation, at Blizzard's Irvine, CA headquarters.

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  Hear game dev tips from Xbox frontman Phil Spencer at GDC Phil Spencer, head of Xbox and gaming at Microsoft, will be delivering a sponsored hour-long talk at GDC 2015 on how developers can best make games across the Xbox One and Windows 10.

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26 Don't Miss: The top 10 weird children of games and neuroscience In this classic 2011 feature, indie game developer and former neuroscience researcher Erin Robinson takes a look at ten particularly interesting studies to see what they can teach us as game makers.

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1 5 'small but important' tips gleaned from the Global Game Jam "Realizing these aspects of game jams helped us a lot, so maybe it will help you too," writes Donald Kooiker, Global Game Jam participant from two-person team Duckbridge.

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  Video: Analyzing the phenomenon that was TwitchPlaysPokemon Speaking at GDC Next 2014, game researcher Alex Leavitt offers a data-rich analysis of the TwitchPlaysPokemon phenomenon and what it means for game makers.

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  Finnish game company Rovio has lost its games chief Jami Laes, who up until recently served as Rovio's EVP of games, has left the company as it struggles to maintain its financial successes.

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1 A clever way to handle the Global Game Jam theme, 'what do we do now' "Instead of taking the theme and trying to fit a game concept around it, we decided to literally apply the theme to the process of building the game." Find out how they did it!

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  Get practical production tips from an EA researcher at GDC 2015 At GDC 2015, an EA researcher offers practical advice on how you can apply player research data to your late-stage efforts to tune your game and "move the needle" to hit that perfect sweet spot.

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7 Game jams, and the difference between hacking and engineering Lessons learned when coding late at night on a tight deadline: "The issue of hackers vs. engineers is often framed as a question of identities, as a clash of cultures. I don't think that's healthy."

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  A diary of compromises: The process of making Girl's Flu for Global Game Jam One Global Game Jam participant looks back at the process involved in creating Girl's Flu, a 2D adventure game.

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