GameMakers 3. 2. 1. Retro #1: Netease Bails on Western Studios, IGN Restructuring, Ubisoft and King Showcase AI
Top 3 Gaming News From Last Week:
NetEase Shuts Down Another Western Studio (Game Developer): NetEase has closed T-Minus Zero Entertainment. This marks the third Western studio closure as part of a broader reassessment of business priorities and has raised concerns about the stability of Western studios under NetEase's ownership.
IGN Publisher John Davison Exits Following Major Layoffs (Kotaku): John Davison, IGN's publisher since 2019, announced his departure at the end of August 2025 following significant layoffs affecting 12% of the editorial union. The exit represents broader instability in gaming media as the largest gaming outlet globally faces consolidation pressures.
Ubisoft and King Showcase AI Production Acceleration (Business Insider): Major studios revealed how AI tools are transforming game development, with Ubisoft's FaceShifter reducing 3D head creation time from a week to half a day, while King uses AI as a "co-pilot" for playtesting at scale and level tuning across thousands of Candy Crush Saga levels.
Top 2 Game Dev Issues I Thought About From Last Week:
1. People vs. Product
Most companies overindex on product analysis while treating people issues as taboo - You can ruthlessly critique and analyze the product all day, but giving critical feedback to individuals often gets labeled as "toxic" or grounds for termination. This creates a toxic positivity culture that stunts growth.
- People are the engine that builds the product - Without improving your team's capabilities through honest feedback (both positive and constructive), you're fundamentally limiting your organization's potential. The product can only be as good as the people making it.
- Recognize and leverage both skillsets - Some folks excel at people management (mentoring, developing talent, giving balanced feedback), others at product work (analysis, problem-solving, execution). The rare ones who master both are gold. The challenge is that people-focused contributions are harder to measure than code commits, leading to these employees being undervalued.
2. Why Our Game Design Process Sucks
"Ooh, that's cool!" is not a design philosophy - Too many designers are really just players in disguise, borrowing features from other games without connecting them to clear design objectives. Real design starts with objectives, not with "wouldn't it be cool if..."
Lack of rigor kills games - Your team's design specs are missing crucial elements: user flows, edge cases, knock-on effects to other systems. Without tools like logic trees to map out the full implications of a feature (seeing the whole elephant, not just the parts), you're essentially doing "RNG design" - throwing random features at the wall and hoping they stick.
This is a massive competitive advantage waiting to be claimed - Getting design process right is a huge source of "alpha" because frankly, most companies - even successful ones - are terrible at it. The fact that games with fundamental design flaws still succeed proves that nobody really has this figured out.
2 Game Dev Lessons:
#1. People vs. Products
#2. Why Our Design Process Sucks -> Don't RNG Design