Amid rumors of buyout talks, GameStop confirms it is in 'exploratory discussions' A source disclosed that GameStop is currently in talks with private equity firms about a possible buyout, and GameStop later confirmed that talks about “a potential transaction” are indeed underway.

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  Both Owlchemy Labs' CEO and studio director are leaving to start something new Owlchemy CEO Alex Schwartz and studio director Cy Wise are leaving the Google-owned studio to start a new company.

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  Blog: Game design beyond screens and joysticks - Part 5 Tatiana Vilela dos Santos is an indie designer and digital artist making games with special interfaces, and she wants to talk about game design beyond the world of screens and joysticks

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  Is single-player dead? Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick 'doesn't buy it' "There are people [today] saying that a game won't work if it's not a free-to-play battle royale. People really are saying that, and not even tongue-in-cheek. I don't buy that."

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  Blog: Using prefabs in game development If you've never heard of prefabs or want to know how to make them more powerful, give this a look.

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1 Steam devs and publishers can now create customizable homepages Steam's new Creator Homepages feature has entered open beta, meaning developers and publishers using the marketplace can now create customizable homepages to better showcase their game portfolios. 

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  Blog: How we designed an erotic user-interface A short essay on making an erotic game with classical user-interface elements and the challenges of avoiding a penis-centric reading of the slider.

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1 Games industry trade bodies concerned by 'gaming disorder' classification A coalition of games industry trade bodies from around the world have questioned the World Health Organization's to list 'gaming disorder' as an addictive condition.

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2 How useful errors and evolving player skills shape Fortnite's UX Ben Lewis-Evans, lead UX researcher at Epic Games, discusses his work on games like Fortnite and how UX researchers can preserve the roughness of good game design.

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4 Reverse-engineered Diablo source code released on GitHub Someone who goes by "GalaxyHaxz" has uploaded what appears to be a reverse-engineered version of the original source code (sans game assets) for Blizzard's pioneering 1996 game Diablo to GitHub. 

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  Video: Creating the narrative of Rise of the Tomb Raider In this GDC 2016 talk, writers and narrative designers from Rise of the Tomb Raider discuss how they worked together to build the next stage of Lara Croft's adventures.

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1 Sensible Object raises $3.2M for R&D toward board games using Alexa Sensible Object, developer of the voice-augmented trivia board game When in Rome, has raised $3.2 million to be used toward R&D for board games that will utilize Amazon Alexa.

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3 Analyst: 66% of console players still prefer physical games over digital The majority of players still prefer physical games over digital on console, and Nielsen Games reports that the exact opposite is true for players on PC.

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  Get a job: Armature Studio is hiring a Sr. Gameplay Programmer Armature Studio is looking to bring a Sr. Gameplay Engineer on board at its Texas-based studio to design innovative gameplay systems for an ongoing project.

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3 Don't Miss: A Game Design Deep Dive into Darkest Dungeon's Affliction System Chris Bourassa & Tyler Sigman of Red Hook Studios: "We wanted to capture the human response to stress. Any person can break under pressure, and people break in different ways."

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3 Valve introduces limits for new games to prevent 'fake' ones from gaming Steam “We don’t believe these constraints will negatively impact real games in any way, and the removal of fake games should improve the store experience for everyone.”

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3 'Gaming Disorder' officially listed in World Health Organization diagnostic doc The World Health Organization has finalized the draft for the 11th International Compendium of Diseases (ICD) revision, including a disorder involving video game addiction within its pages.

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  Blog: Building the boss fights of X-Morph: Defense - Part 3 In the third article in the series, we unveil the design decisions behind the bomber boss in X-Morph: Defense, and why we decided to get rid of it completely.

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2 Rare says streamers were critical to Sea of Thieves' success Sea of Thieves broke its three-month sales target in 24 hours with a little help from Game Pass, and a lot of help from streamers. 

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3 PUBG dev says store-bought assets help teams 'work smart' "Hiring an art team of 40 people to 'try a game' and 'see if it's fun' is simply not a smart way to work. This is what the asset store is for."

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5 Blog: Are battle royale titles the next big esport? Battle royale titles and Fortnite in particular have taken over multiplayer and streaming, but does the genre have the legs to be the next big esport?

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  How Avalanche and id are working together to build a new Rage Rage 2 game director Magnus Nedfors explains how Avalanche and id started collaborating, shedding some light on what he and his team have learned about making open-world games that feel dynamic.

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  Video Game Deep Cuts: Another Grim E3 World This week's highlights include lots of E3 news, a Grim Fandango reading to remember, and a stellar analysis of Another World/Out Of This World.

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  Video: Building the touchy-feely world of Media Molecule's Tearaway At GDC 2013, Tearaway creative lead Rex Crowle described the challenges of designing and building a world that can flex, fold, tear and crumple under the fingertips of players.

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  Sales from Fallout 76 'Country Roads' cover will be donated to charity Bethesda Softworks will donate 100 percent of sales made from the song used in Fallout 76's trailer to Habitat for Humanity.

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