Learning to Love Handicaps in Competitive Games 14
by Keith Burgun [05.22.13]
Rubberbanding and injected randomness can level the playing field in competitive games -- letting players of various skill levels play together. But they also can create other problems, potentially harming your game's design. So why not take a look at handicaps?
Production, Interview, Console/PC

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Tutorial: Simple, High-Performance Particles for Mobile 4
by Itay Duvdevani [05.20.13]
A simple but useful tutorial for creating great-looking particles on smartphones -- that won't eat up all of your performance budget.
Production, Interview, Console/PC

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Killer & Dragons: The GungHo and Grasshopper Interview 10
by Christian Nutt [05.17.13]
His company went from an unknown to beating Nintendo for market cap thanks to the success of Puzzle & Dragons, and in this interivew, Kazuki Morishita explains his personal management style to Gamasutra -- joined by Goichi "SUDA51" Suda, whose studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, he recently acquired.
Business/Marketing, Interview, Console/PC, Smartphone/Tablet

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From XNA to MonoGame 11
by Dean Ellis [05.15.13]
If you created a game in XNA, its discontinuation doesn't mean that you have to start over from scratch. Enter MonoGame, an open-source implementation of the XNA 4 API -- and this tutorial to help you use it.
Programming, Game Developer Magazine, Console/PC, Indie, Smartphone/Tablet

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Secrets of Quick Iteration in the Core Social Space 7
by Gabi Shalel [05.13.13]
How do you react to the speed of the mid-core social market -- incorporating ideas from fans and developers while getting updates out there quickly? Total Domination developers Plarium explain.
Design, Production, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet

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Pursuing a Video Game Masterpiece 39
by Paul Walker [05.10.13]
Three speakers reflect on the "games as art" debate -- but not whether they are art (they are) but instead what that means, how developers can best pursue it, and what tendencies might be holding them back.
Design, Interview, Console/PC

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PlayStation Plus: Good for Players, But is it Good for Developers? 20
by Kris Graft [05.09.13]
Sony's service, which allows gamers to get a huge variety of free games, has been a big hit with PlayStation fans. But what do developers get out of it? Gamasutra finds out.
Business/Marketing, Console/PC

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Postmortem: Appy Entertainment's Animal Legends 7
by Rory McGuire [05.06.13]
From building a flexible, low-cost server back-end to launching big in China, Animal Legends offered the team at Appy Entertainment a huge number of challenges -- which are fully outlined in this candid postmortem.
Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Art, China

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Managing Risk in Video Game Development 7
by Paul Tozour [05.03.13]
How do you best manage risk when creating a game? Using this article and the attached spreadsheet, you can better identify the problem areas in your game and get a sense of whether any decisions you are making actually make business sense.
Business/Marketing, Production, Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet

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Crowdfunding, One Year Later 3
by David Daw [05.01.13]
Game Developer Magazine asked devs behind major crowdfunding pushes from the last year -- Chris Roberts, Brenda Romero, Greg Rice, and Jim Rossignol and James Carey -- for their advice on what worked for them and what they’d do differently.
Business/Marketing, Game Developer Magazine, Console/PC, Indie, GD Mag, GD Mag Exclusive

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