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Deadlock Valve's new game revealed: It's a shooter, NOT just MOBA.
Deadlock represents a significant evolution in competitive gaming by synthesizing the strategic depth of multiplayer online battle arenas with the mechanical intensity of high-mobility hero shooters.
- Valve's Deadlock is a 6v6 competitive title that blends MOBA-style lane management and objective control with the mechanical demands of a high-mobility hero shooter.
- The game has achieved significant market traction during its closed beta phase, consistently maintaining over 150,000 concurrent players on Steam.
- Matches typically last between 25 and 40 minutes and feature a 'Soul' economy that forces constant combat to secure or deny currency across four distinct lanes.
How To Make Money As A Game Dev — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 019
Achieving financial sustainability as an independent game developer requires shifting away from the high-risk, single-project model toward a high-frequency release strategy.
- Shift from a high-risk, single-project model to a high-frequency release strategy to mitigate the dangers of market oversaturation and individual project failure.
- Optimize revenue for smaller, niche titles by pricing them between $2.99 and $9.99, with a specific sweet spot identified at $4.99 to $5.99.
- Prioritize console development over Steam to leverage higher natural discoverability and avoid the burnout associated with the massive marketing efforts required to succeed on the Steam marketplace.
Top 3 Mistakes Gaming Startups Make - According to the VCs
Venture capital in the gaming industry operates on a power law model, where the success of a fund relies on a small number of high-performing investments capable of generating massive returns.
- Venture capital funds in the gaming sector target a 2.5x to 3x return over a 10-to-12-year lifecycle, necessitating startups that demonstrate massive scalability.
- Excessive early dilution from angel investors can result in a broken cap table, which serves as a primary barrier to securing subsequent institutional funding.
- Founders should prioritize targeting stagnant or lapsed genres rather than entering hyper-saturated categories where incumbent dominance is already established.
BRUTAL Honesty From 7 Legendary Game Devs (About The State Of The Industry)
The global video game industry is currently undergoing a significant structural correction as the post-pandemic market bubble bursts, leading to widespread budget tightening and a decline in traditional marketing metrics like wishlists.
- The industry is undergoing a structural correction following the post-pandemic bubble, forcing a shift away from unsustainable AAA-style development toward lean, conservative production models.
- Market oversaturation has rendered viral hits unreliable, necessitating a focus on financial discipline and smaller project scopes to maintain long-term profitability.
- Developers should adopt the 'big but' principle, which combines familiar, accessible genres with a unique mechanical or visual twist to differentiate titles in a crowded market.
A Survival Guide for Game Developers in a Post-Pandemic World
The global game industry is currently navigating a significant market correction characterized by widespread layoffs and increased operational burn rates following a period of unsustainable pandemic-era expansion.
- The game industry is undergoing a significant market correction characterized by widespread layoffs and high operational burn rates following unsustainable pandemic-era expansion.
- Career stability now requires a shift toward self-directed management, as many studios lack formal mentorship and onboarding structures to support professional growth.
- Long-term success depends less on baseline technical proficiency and more on soft skills like emotional intelligence, concise communication, and adaptability to shifting project requirements.
Building a Creator-Focused 3D Engine with Hiber
Hiber aims to democratize 3D world creation by providing a lightweight, browser-based engine that removes the technical barriers associated with traditional game development.
- Hiber has scaled to 6.5 million user-generated worlds and 1.2 million creators by utilizing a lightweight, browser-based engine that removes the need for large downloads or complex coding.
- The platform enables a direct-to-consumer model by allowing brands to embed 3D experiences directly into their own websites, bypassing high revenue commissions typically charged by major app stores.
- Hiber’s user base is evenly split between the United States and emerging markets, with a primary demographic of users aged 13 to 18.
Gameloft's Cross Platform Live Services: Past, Present, and Future with Dima Dimov, VP of Live Ops
Gameloft’s approach to live operations centers on the transition from siloed, monetization-heavy models to a cross-functional, product-centric discipline.
- Gameloft has shifted from siloed, monetization-focused operations to a cross-functional model that integrates marketing, community management, and development to prioritize long-term player lifetime value over short-term acquisition spikes.
- Operational efficiency is driven by team autonomy, replacing rigid executive-led quarterly reviews with lightweight, team-led forecasting and internal dashboards that allow for real-time adjustments to game features.
- The company manages the complexities of cross-platform live services by synchronizing update cycles across mobile and console certification processes through a hybrid of internal infrastructure and third-party solutions.
Rapport d'évaluation des crédits d'impôt: 2023
The CNC's annual evaluation of France's film and audiovisual tax credits for 2023, submitted to the Government and Parliament, assesses the credits' effect on territorial attractiveness and economic spillovers.
- National spending in France supported by the tax credits rose by 1,077 M€ in 2023 compared with 2019, a 50% increase over four years.
- Filming expenditure for fiction works benefiting from the credits reached 771 M€ in 2023, up 66% from 2019.
- Outside Île-de-France, the number of direct jobs from fiction works supported by the credits rose by nearly 35,000 between 2019 and 2023, a 56% increase.
CEDEC 2025 Schedule Announcement
The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) announced on September 13, 2024 the schedule for CEDEC 2025, Japan's largest conference for computer entertainment developers.
- CEDEC 2025 will take place from July 22–24, 2025, shifting the conference approximately one month earlier than its traditional late-August schedule.
- The call for session proposals opens on January 6, 2025, with a strict submission deadline of February 17, 2025, at 10 a.m. JST.
- Selection results for proposed sessions will be communicated to applicants in late March 2025.
TWIG #297 Gamescom Confidential, Why Steam ain't Blocked by China and the TRUTH about Tim Hortons
Gamescom 2024 underscored a pivotal shift in the global gaming landscape, characterized by the aggressive expansion of major Asian publishers like NetEase, miHoYo, and Tencent into Western markets.
- Asian publishers like NetEase, miHoYo, and Tencent are creating high competitive barriers in Western markets, with miHoYo investing $200 million annually into live-ops resources.
- New game titles are struggling to gain traction, currently capturing only 8% of total player time, while Steam wishlist-to-sale conversion rates have dropped as low as 5%.
- Black Myth: Wukong achieved record-breaking sales of 10 million units in three days, though its success remains heavily concentrated within the Chinese domestic market.
Is It The End Of The Indie Game Industry (As We Know It)?
The indie game industry is currently undergoing a significant structural shift, characterized by widespread layoffs, increased market saturation, and the rapid integration of AI tools.
- The indie game market is experiencing extreme oversaturation, with approximately 80,000 games released on Steam in 2023 alone.
- To survive, developers must secure at least 10,000 wishlists before launch to ensure visibility and achieve the critical threshold of 10+ reviews required to exit Steam's 'sandbox' phase.
- Owning an audience—built through consistent content creation on platforms like YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit—is the most valuable asset for ensuring a game's success in the current market.
Concord and AAA games Failure to Launch | 353
The contemporary gaming landscape is defined by a crisis of identity and sustainability among high-budget AAA titles.
- The commercial failure of Concord highlights the inability of high-budget, premium-priced hero shooters to compete in a market saturated by established free-to-play titles like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals.
- Lengthy AAA development cycles are increasingly unsustainable, as they often result in derivative products that are disconnected from current market trends upon release.
- Industry success now relies on operational agility, the strategic use of recognizable intellectual property, and the integration of community feedback via early access rather than relying solely on massive development budgets.
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