According to the third annual Game Developer Census, game industry employment in North America has risen slightly in 2009, due in part to new Canadian studios and a rise in social and online gaming developers.
More than a year ago we hosted a slew of photos showing off the work desks and gaming set-ups of the world’s game developers.
Self-described Metacritic-expert Tim Sweezey over at GameQuarry.Com has a fascinating report up about the developers that are most consistent in publishing a certain quality of game.
Been to a game’s official site lately? You probably have. Probably noticed while there that it was a bit crap, full of useless flash pages and 320×240 “screenshots”. Here’s five ways to fix that.
Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer continues his week-long look at video game review practices by exploring the practice of game publishers withholding certain bonuses and/or royalties if the game doesn’t achieve a certain Metacritic average. Basically a publisher agrees to finance the development of a game as long as the developer in these sort of situation agrees to Metacritic score limit stipulations that could theoretically see a low-scoring game that sells millions (any children’s licensed title really) hardly earning the devs a dime.
Games are a global business. After all, how many other industries could I work in where I live in Australia, work for an American-based company and can be read by anyone from Portugal to the Philippines at the push of a button? Not many. So it’s a shame that while information about games is truly global, the games themselves are not.
It’s a sad fact that most publishers just can’t keep up with the 21st century. Consoles, games, console services like Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network are advertised globally, on globally-read sites, and yet their actual distribution is delayed not just by translation, but by 20th-century ideas like staggered market regions and country-specific licensing deals. Which in the end means lots of people gets lots of games a lot later than other people.
It sucks. You hate it, I hate it, we all (especially the Europeans among us) hate it. So I figured it’d be interesting to take a look at the industry’s biggest publishers, look at their biggest games from the past two to three years, and see which companies are doing a good job of satisfying global demand for their product, and which ones…aren’t.
