The m  ost exciting virtual game developer summit is back! Join us on February 16, 2022, for Breakpoint 2 and get the opportunity to network and share best practices with other developers and leaders in the gaming industry.

This time, we’re shifting the focus on tools and best practices that developers rely on to ship quality mobile games and apps.

Participate in breakout sessions on game quality, testing tools and techniques, and performance issues troubleshooting. Learn from industry leaders like Google Stadia, Epic Games, AWS, Unity, Respawn, Helpshift and the IGDA.

So, mark your calendars and join us on this one-day-only event, and get a chance to win awesome prizes like a PlayStation 5 or equivalent and much more. You can also win gift cards when you register.

Join our Discord to connect with fellow developers, designers, and programmers to improve your chances.

Register Today

Are you a student with a passion for games? Want to earn up to $2,500 USD and potentially a marketing internship in the games industry by sharing that passion with your friends? You could be a perfect fit for Manticore Games’ new opportunity for students, the Core Student Ambassador Program!

Core is a digital playground with over 40,000 games for you to explore. With an editor powered by Unreal Engine 4, Core makes creating your own games and experiences easy. Core also takes care of multiplayer networking for you, allowing you to publish your creation instantly to be enjoyed by anyone. Best of all, Core is completely FREE and you can even monetize your work through our Perks program. Many Core creators have been able to pay their bills, buy their dream cars and quit their day jobs with the money they have earned.

With the Core Student Ambassador Program, you can earn rewards by organizing events like Core game nights, in-game competitions, or Game Jams. By hosting events and inviting others to join Core through your unique link you’ll earn points. These points translate into payouts and build towards lifetime reward tiers including access to event budgets and handouts that will help your personal Core community grow!

Interested? Learn more at ambassadors.coregames.com

Applications are open now!

Learn More

A Pocket Gamer Connects online conference is the perfect way to meet, learn from, and do business with over 1,000 games industry professionals, and over 130 speakers. We’ve run 30 Connects events now since 2014, and we’re excited to continue connecting the global games industry.

As one of the expected 1,000 attendees, you will have access to an innovative online platform for three days in November 2021. You’ll be able to select from a programme of great live video content full of insight and practical advice across 14+ themed conference tracks. You can watch the tracks live or catch up on the recorded videos within your own time, and if you’re online while the speakers are performing you’ll be able to interact with them and the other viewers with questions and comments.

IGDA members save 20% on tickets by using the discount code here.

Join DevGAMM Fall 2021 online conference that will take place on 17-19 November! No flights, quarantines or hotel reservations — everything is right on your laptop. These three days include: the best content, game activities and pitches, online meetings and expo.

Moreover, starting from 20 October, each Wednesday, watch Public Pitch live streams with pitches of game developers on DevGAMM YouTube channel. There will be 4 live streams in total. The finalists will join a live stream during the event on 19 November!

The developers will be able to watch streamers playing their games during the Streaming Showcase format, and get inspired by the review sessions in public by experts in the field of game design, art, or marketing. In addition, the best games in 9 nominations of DevGAMM Awards will be named on 19 November. The prize fund is $40,000 from Xsolla, tinyBuild, GEM Capital and Green Gray.

Register Today

MEGAMIGS is the unmissable event in Canada dedicated to the video game industry, and has been for over 15 years. The 2021 edition will take place virtually from 9 – 14 November and access to the virtual expo is free for the general public. This year, the event focuses on gameplay and discovery. With more than a hundred exhibitors present, it will be possible to virtually discover their booths and showcases. Game demos, trailers and other exclusive content awaits.

As every year, quality conferences held by passionate speakers are organized and business development returns with a more interactive formula, better adapted to everyone’s needs. MEGAMIGS offers many opportunities to network through creative activities. Investors, developers, and buyers come together in a setting that is designed for business development. Last year, more than 1000 business meetings between entrepreneurs, developers and creators took place. MEGAMIGS is the event in Canada where discovery, exchange and exposure of the video game industry meet.

WN Seattle’21 (16-17 November, in Seattle, WA) is a gathering for decision-makers in the video game industry with over 500 publishers, service providers, investors, game platforms and studios representatives on-site.

Game studios and teams can apply for the developer showcase (till 7 November) and get a free booth in the Expo Zone and up to 3 free Premium Passes per team.

The event hosts live lectures from Ed Fries, Dean Takahashi, Phoena Pang, Kate Edwards, Mihai Pohontu, and other leading industry experts.

If you can’t go to Seattle — welcome to the WN North America Online’21 (showcase application deadline is 12 November).

A good Blog, suggested by your fellow student Finley Lewis:
https://www.slynyrd.com/blog/2018/8/19/pixelblog-8-intro-to-animation

Today we wanted to shine a spotlight on Michael Schwalbe and What He Said Voiceovers, LLC. Michael Schwalbe is a veteran voice actor and director, with more than 10 years of experience bringing hundreds of his clients’ projects to life. You’ve almost certainly heard his voice without realizing it, in titles like Half Life: Alyx, Slay the Spire, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Mafia: Definitive Edition, SMITE, Genshin Impact, Devil May Cry 5, Bugsnax, and many, many more. He’s often referred to as a “vocal chameleon,” performing 60+ roles for a single game on more than one occasion.

We at the IGDA were also pleased to have Michael as the announcer for our upcoming Global Industry Game Awards. Michael noted that he was honored to announce the ceremony, and offered his sincerest congratulations to all the talented nominees and winners. When asked about his support of the IGDA, Michael said, “Because I find myself so often working with small to mid-size indie studios, it just makes sense to be a part of the organization doing the most to support game developers like them. Plus, indies still think voice actors are cool. Who doesn’t like feeling cool?”  Read More

The Unity for Humanity Summit presents a call to action to imagine, design, and create a healthier, more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world for all using real-time 3D (RT3D) technology.

Neko Ghost, Jump! is a cute but challenging puzzle-platformer where you take control of Nekoman while on a journey to save his friends and bride-to-be from the clutches of the evil Space Dog Pirates that have invaded Nekoworld. By using the abilities to switch between 2D & 3D camera perspectives as well as switching between your physical & ghost forms, you’ll be able to solve puzzles, find hidden loot, combat enemies, and clear levels faster. Nekoman’s journey will take him through several biomes ranging from grassy plains to snowy tundras, to sweltering deserts and beyond. Coming to PC and Consoles this July.

Do you have a game coming out? Submit it for the Game Showcase today!

In partnership with Facebook Gaming, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is proud to announce that our newest white paper, “Guide for Game Companies: How to Create and Sustain a Positive Work Culture”, has been published online in the IGDA Resource Library. This white paper dives into the best practices for developing and sustaining a positive and productive team through the use of proactive culture development, support of inclusivity and diversity, and team development resources and tools. These are critical topics for the healthy growth of new and current studios.

We hope that this white paper not only empowers studios to create a healthier and more productive workplace culture, and also leads to the betterment of our industry as a whole. Our industry and our world has seen much adversity recently, particularly in regards to lack of inclusivity. It is the duty of all of us to be welcoming and supportive of everyone we interact with.

Please use this new resource to empower yourself and your company to consider how to best support those around you, and together we can lead our industry forward. Click below to read the full white paper!

Head of WW Soultions (Amazon Web Services)

Software Developer II / Game Developer (Scientific Research Corporation)

Online Instructor – Game Design and Coding (iD Tech)

The latest Global Game Developer Competition is here! Gaming studios of all sizes are invited to join Ohayoo’s first developer competition, which runs through Feb. 19. Since launching last month, scores of developers have submitted game demos to Ohayoo for the chance to take home a range of tiered prizes, from $1,500 USD for the top 10 winners scaling up to a grand prize of $100,000 USD plus a publishing contract for first place winner.

Ohayoo provides the tools, services and solutions for global developers to successfully optimize user retention and monetization, successfully enter the Chinese casual gaming universe, and capture the meteoric rise of casual gaming in markets worldwide. Since launching in 2019, Ohayoo has published 150+ games and achieved 500 million total downloads, with 9 games individually bringing in over $15 million USD in revenue each, and 39 games individually driving revenue over $1.5 million USD each.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be discovered by Ohayoo on its mission to empower developers to transform their creativity into chart-topping hits and bring joy to players worldwide! All materials must be submitted by February 19 to Ohayoo’s official email address. Find full details here, and good luck!

This week’s Black History Month spotlight is on Tony Barnes.

Tony Barnes is a 35 year industry veteran and a recipient of the Jerry Lawson Lifetime Achievement award. An artist, designer, composer, producer, and engineer, some of his highlights include The Strike Series (Desert, Jngle, Urban, Nuclear), Madden Football, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Medal of Honor, Star Wars EP3, Star Trek DS9, Strider, and more. On what he’s currently working on, here’s what he had to say: “After over 3 decades of creating and maintaining franchises for others, I started my own company, RetroNinja in 2020. A solo dev effort, I have 2 games looking to ship in 2021. One is a first-person platformer, called Run Die Run Again and the other is a co-op top-down shooter, called Chaos Chassis.”
Learn more about him and his work!

CableLabs Distinguished Technologists, Greg White and Steve Glennon, do an in-depth look at sources of latency in home and access networks and learn how the Cable industry is providing tools for game developers to improve the game experience. Most applications have different traffic patterns and needs which ultimately require different solutions for reducing and managing latency. This is true even between seemingly related applications like online gaming and game streaming. The good news is that CableLabs has been building and testing latency and congestion management solutions for some time, including one that is well-tailored to emerging game streaming platforms. The suite of features developed by CableLabs and its industry partners, known as Low Latency DOCSIS® technology (LLD), can provide better customer experiences for both current multiplayer online gaming and emerging cloud gaming services. In this session, game developers will learn about the steps to ensure their games are ready to take advantage of these new network capabilities.

Watch the webinar now.

Intellectual property (IP) is critical to the gaming industry. A video game is, at its heart, a collection of intellectual property rights. Whether you work for a pillar of the industry or are just starting out as an independent game developer, everyone should have a basic understanding of what these rights are, how they can impact your business, and how you may lose those rights. Our friends at Finnegan LLP have produced another white paper to cover the basics of intellectual property law, and it’s application to the gaming industry. Download it here.

Join us for a FREE 2-day virtual gaming developer summit that will gather thought leaders in the gaming industry to share tools and best practices that programmers depend on to develop and ship games, with a focus on 3 major segment areas: Debugging, Performance, Quality Assurance & Testing.

Breakpoint will take place 24 – 25 February 2021 – to learn more, visit the event website.

Despite social distancing, the end of the year is still a great opportunity to build connections that elevate your career.  With so many people working and attending school virtually, people are easier to contact online than ever before.  Check out this short video ​to learn quick tips like these:

• Put together a nice holiday/New Year’s message to touch base with your network, like former instructors, coworkers, and supervisors
• Ask your network for names of people you should know
• Develop your LinkedIn profile (see page 8 in the Career Guide)
• Reach out to professionals doing what interests you for a virtual informational interview or brief chat about their career journey

Want to know more?

• Central Piedmont Career Services Career Guidefeatures information about building connections in the “Introducing You” section beginning on page 5.
• Watch our 3-minute videofor more expert tips!
• Meet with a career counselor in the new year

Amazon is getting into the cloud gaming business with Luna, a new service that uses its Amazon Web Services tech as the backbone. Amazon says that at launch, Luna will be playable on PC, Mac, Amazon’s own Fire TV devices, as well as iPhone and iPad through web apps. An Android version is said to be coming soon as well. This is a notable difference between Luna and the cloud gaming services from Microsoft and Google–xCloud and Stadia, respectively–which have run into Apple policies that have prevented the ability to play on iOS devices. Apple recently changed its rules, but Microsoft issued a statement maintaining that it’s still a bad experience for gamers.For the time being, Luna will be available in the mainland US. It is not yet available in Hawaii, Alaska, or US territories.

AdColony_DISQO_TheModernMobileGamerReport

AdColony partnered with consumer insights platform DISQO to survey 1,200 verified mobile users about their mobile gaming behaviors, preferences, and sentiments. The Modern Mobile Gamer Report reveals insights into the types of mobile games consumers turn to the most, why they play, and what they are doing at the same time. Download the full report!

https://unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/factory-environment-collection
Epic Games made waves with their recent Unreal Engine 5 demonstration, but they have also made recent announcements that can boost your projects and game jams today. On August 28th, Epic announced in collaboration with ArtCore Studios that they were releasing a new Factory Environment Collection of free assets for developers.

Valve gives a nice look into how hats are made for TF2.

Team Fortress 2 Hats: How They Are Made