Zynga founder Mark Pincus steps down as company poaches Xbox Live point-man Pincus stepped aside to let Microsoft exec take the CEO role; now he moves away from the day-to-day entirely as Mattrick brings in more Xbox talent.

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  That Dragon, Cancer developer shares grace through game design Josh Larson exhorted fellow developers to think of games as a form of communication between themselves and their players in a talk given today at the 12th annual Games for Change festival.

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1 See Jane study exobiology: A new approach to role models in games Rob Jagnow writes on how scientist Jane Van Susteren became a character in Extrasolar: "her transition from biology consultant to in-game character wasn't the intent from the start."

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5 Spoiler: Steam games with high Metacritic scores tend to sell well According to data gathered as part of Ars Technica's ongoing Steam Gauge project, games with extremely high Metacritic scores tend to see significantly higher sales on Steam than those with extremely low scores.

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2 Automatic avoidance for player characters on an indie budget Mike Bithell (Thomas Was Alone) describes how he's emulated the smart input optimization you see in triple-A games in his upcoming Volume -- in a quick and simple way.

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  Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR gets FTC approval The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has granted antitrust approval to Facebook's proposed acquisition of Oculus VR, allowing the deal to move forward as planned.

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  Hack-Man: An interview with Watch Dogs' creative director Creative director Jonathan Morin speaks about decisions made during the development of the hotly anticipated Watch Dogs, and his expectations for the next generation of games.

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15 Blog: Are innovative games too risky for Kickstarter? "Hex Heroes didn't take off on Kickstarter as we anticipated. This campaign was in the works for over four months. Why wasn't Hex Heroes funded in its first three weeks?"

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1 Cloud Chamber: The TV show you play on Steam How the heck do you describe Cloud Chamber? Imagine following along with your favorite TV series, and after each episode you're able to jump online, dig deeper into what you watched, and discuss the twists and turns with fellow viewers.

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1 Have you played the Train Jam games? In the days leading up to the Game Developers Conference this year, dozens of indie developers all boarded a train from Chicago, and sat together for 56 hours to create games.

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  Ubisoft aims to better support Latin America with local payment options Ubisoft is looking to more rapidly expand the presence of its video game catalogue in Latin America, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, with a new partnership that will introduce more local payment methods in its games.

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3 Blog: A look at my Google Play and iOS sales, early 2014 edition "The sales data shows that my plan for making lots of little games quickly for multiple platforms should work as long as I keep up a steady stream of quality releases."

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  New Unity offices in Moscow aim to support Russian devs As the number of Russian developers adopting the Unity Engine grows, Unity Technologies is looking to better support these devs. The company announced today that it has opened a new office in Moscow.

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3 The Xbox One is finally coming to Japan The Xbox One will launch in Japan on September 4, 2014, Microsoft announced today, with dozens of developers onboard for the launch.

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10 Blog: Long-term retention - How to keep players playing "To heighten the likelihood of engaging a player long term, the game needs to create a vision for the player. Visualize the goal, what the player can become, and what awesome features are ahead."

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2 Close encounters with console indie execs, part 1: PlayStation's Adam Boyes What are the tastes, backgrounds and game industry experience of some of the biggest decision-makers at major console companies? We find out, starting with PlayStation's Adam Boyes.

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4 How arcade games have come, gone, and could come again In this classic Game Developer magazine column, Nolan Bushnell explains why arcade machines failed and how location-based video games could still thrive in the age of online technology.

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  Massive Atari archive heads to ICHEG for preservation The National Museum of Play's International Center for the History of Electronic Games has acquired a thousands-strong collection of Atari coin-op materials, stretching from 1972-1999.

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16 No more excuses: Apple now labels apps with IAP on App Store charts Today's iOS update adds a new labeling system to the App Store charts and lists to highlight games and other apps that offer in-app purchases.

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  The best part about King's expansion into Japan are the TV ads Candy Crush Saga developer King has opened an office in Tokyo, Japan in order to localize King games for the lucrative Japanese mobile market.

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  New documentary delves into the game industry's LGBTQ presence You can now pay what you want for Gaming In Color, a feature-length documentary film that seeks to elucidate and explore what it means to be a part of the LGBTQ community within the game industry.

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  3 tips for organizing internal hackathons "Before organizing a hackathon, think about the goals you hope to accomplish, as well as the strategies and logistics that will resonate well within your company culture."

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5 10 insightful playtest questions "Playtests are always a valuable way to evaluate the state of your game, but it's important to observe the right signs and ask the right questions in order to get objective and worthwhile feedback."

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13 Electronic music for fun, games, and profit: A complete beginner's guide Paul Taylor of Mode 7 Games (Frozen Synapse) shares "the absolute basics with an emphasis on the practical rather than the theoretical" when it comes to getting started with game music.

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4 Rebel Jam aims to turn a game jam disaster into something positive The games industry read on in collective despair last month, as it came to light that a production company had attempted (rather hideously) to film a game jam in the format of a reality television show.

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