2015
Company
Documents about 2015
Fast, Cheap and Flashy An Indie Art Direction Adventure
Effective art direction in independent game development requires balancing aesthetic ambition with the pragmatic constraints of production timelines and technical readability.
- Effective art direction must prioritize functional visual communication and clarity over individual asset complexity to ensure the game remains readable during gameplay.
- When facing a critical visual overhaul ten months before its 2015 launch, Tooth and Tail successfully pivoted to a 90s-inspired pixel art style to simplify animation workflows and unify its design language.
- Development teams can increase efficiency by using 3D models to generate pixel-art assets and testing small, incremental changes directly within the game engine to avoid labor-intensive manual processes.
Leadership, Circuition, and Shift in Tabletop Wargaming Community
This paper, by Jacek Mianowski of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, examines the life cycle of tabletop wargaming communities, covering how groups form, how they sustain themselves, and the mechanisms that lead to their decline.
- The report proposes a three-stage model of wargaming community development: small group dynamics, organised play once a group reaches roughly six or more active players, and national and international competition with events of twenty to over a hundred participants.
- Community sustainability depends on engaged players willing to act, support from local hobby shops and publishers, and games that remain appealing enough to attract new participants.
- Decline typically stems from power struggles, negative public discourse on social media, and the departure of community leaders, while revival requires a shift toward forward-looking conversation and renewed civic engagement.
Developer Satisfaction Survey 2019: Industry Trends and Future Outlook Report
The 2019 game industry landscape reflects a period of significant transition, marked by a tension between technological innovation and systemic workplace challenges.
- 90 percent of industry professionals project moderate to considerable growth for the sector over the next three years, driven primarily by investments in PC and console platforms.
- Nearly 50 percent of the game development workforce supports unionization as a mechanism to address professional grievances and improve workplace standards.
- The industry is experiencing a decline in job satisfaction and growing pessimism regarding its current trajectory despite a strong focus on game design and storytelling.
Data Deep Dive: The Long Tail of Steam Games
This analysis examines the revenue "long tail" for games on the Steam platform, specifically investigating how initial launch performance correlates with long-term earnings.
- Games utilizing Early Access reach a five-year revenue total up to 20.34 times their first-week earnings, significantly outperforming standard release models.
- For non-Early Access titles, median gross revenue after one year is 4 times the first-week total, while one-month revenue is 1.47 times the first-week total.
- The initial launch week serves as a critical performance benchmark, as long-term revenue growth multiples remain consistent regardless of the specific launch year between 2015 and 2020.
Power of Storytelling in Blockbuster Casual Games
The casual mobile gaming industry, particularly the match-3 puzzle genre, has experienced a significant shift toward narrative-driven design as a primary method for product differentiation.
- The number of match-3 games reaching the top 100 grossing charts has seen an exponential increase between 2015 and 2020 due to the incorporation of character-driven narratives.
- Casual games represent the second-largest mobile genre, generating $8.1 billion in revenue in 2019, with the match-3 sub-genre capturing the majority of this market share.
- Player research indicates that up to 32% of puzzle gamers seek to learn new skills through gameplay, while 31% specifically look to immerse themselves in different characters or worlds.
Mobile Games Market Spotlight: Japan
Japan remains a dominant force in the global mobile gaming industry, accounting for 22 percent of total worldwide player spending on the App Store and Google Play during the first nine months of 2020.
- Japan accounted for 22% of all global mobile game player spending on the App Store and Google Play during the first nine months of 2020.
- The Japanese mobile gaming market reached a record $14.5 billion in revenue in 2019, representing nearly 23% of the global market share.
- Japanese publishers maintain strong local dominance, with eight of the top 10 revenue-generating mobile games in Japan between 2016 and 2020 originating from domestic companies.
IndieCade: A History
Celia Pearce's "IndieCade: A History" is a narrative account, written from the perspective of a founder and scholar, of the IndieCade festival and the broader independent game movement it helped shape.
- IndieCade launched its inaugural event, the IndieCade Showcase @ E3, in July 2007 with funding from the Entertainment Software Association, presenting curated indie games within the larger expo.
- Academia played a foundational role in indie game criticism and scholarship, with University-driven book series and journals such as Well Played helping establish video game studies as a discipline.
- Game mechanics as a vehicle for meaning gained prominence through works like Darfur is Dying (adapting Frogger-style mechanics) and Brenda Romero's Train (2009), and through the NSF-funded Values at Play research project.
Funded Company Acquired for £23 Million: UK
The acquisition of Sunderland-based developer Coatsink by the Swedish firm Thunderful Group highlights the successful trajectory of UK-based independent game studios supported by early-stage public funding.
- Swedish company Thunderful Group acquired UK-based developer and publisher Coatsink for an upfront consideration of £23 million.
- The acquisition deal includes an earn-out component that could bring the total consideration to a maximum of £65.5 million.
- Coatsink will continue to operate as an independent development studio while functioning as part of the Thunderful Games division.
Designing Social Play for Sky: Children of the Light
The design philosophy behind Sky: Children of the Light centers on fostering genuine interpersonal connections by prioritizing empathy and social simulation over traditional goal-oriented multiplayer mechanics.
- Social play is defined as any activity performed near others that encourages the simulation of another person's thoughts and feelings, effectively requiring players to practice empathy rather than just coordination.
- Goal-oriented gameplay often discourages social interaction, as players focused on objectives tend to ignore others; therefore, thatgamecompany places cooperative tasks on optional side paths while keeping main story progression single-player.
- The 'hand-holding' mechanic serves as a core social tool that allows one player to guide another, fostering intimacy and requiring the guide to actively anticipate the needs and interests of their partner.
WhatRunsWhere vs SocialPeta: The Most Powerful Ad Intelligence Tool
The comparison evaluates two leading digital advertising intelligence platforms—WhatRunsWhere and SocialPeta—to determine which offers greater analytical power for marketers.
- SocialPeta offers significantly broader market coverage than WhatRunsWhere, monitoring 73 global ad platforms and over one billion ads across 45 countries.
- WhatRunsWhere provides granular tracking within a more limited scope, covering 120,000 web publishers and 95,000 Android app publishers across seven developed markets.
- SocialPeta targets medium-to-large enterprises with annual contracts starting at $5,000, while WhatRunsWhere offers monthly subscription plans ranging from $299 to $399.
Store Intelligence Data Digest: Q3 2020
Sensor Tower's Q3 2020 Store Intelligence Data Digest examines how COVID-19 reshaped mobile app and game behavior worldwide, drawing on download and revenue estimates across the App Store and Google Play.
- Global mobile app downloads reached 36.4 billion in Q3 2020, a 22.8% year-over-year increase driven primarily by a 30.3% surge in Google Play installs.
- Among Us achieved a historic milestone as the first title since 2018 to exceed 100 million global downloads in a single quarter, with 24 million of those installs occurring in the United States.
- United States consumer spending reached a record $5.8 billion in Q3 2020, with Simulation and Casino genres serving as the primary growth drivers at 59% and 51% increases, respectively.
Embracer Group Acquires Palindrome Interactive
Embracer Group has finalized the full acquisition of Palindrome Interactive, a Skövde-based strategy game developer, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Amplifier.
- Embracer Group has acquired the remaining 50 percent stake in Skövde-based developer Palindrome Interactive through its subsidiary, Amplifier.
- The transaction includes an upfront payment of 21.5 million SEK in cash and Embracer B shares, plus 20 million SEK in performance-based earnouts tied to net contribution targets over the next decade.
- Palindrome Interactive is a 14-person studio specializing in single-player strategy, empire management, and turn-based combat.