Game Developer Podcast

Join Danielle Riendeau, Bryant Francis, Holly Green, and Dom Tait as they discuss key takeaways from the 2024 State of the Game Industry Report. They cover topics like industry layoffs, game engine trends, unionization, generative AI ethics, and more. Listen for insights on the diverse business models, NFTs, future growth, and the controversy surrounding game engines.

The GameDeveloper crew sits down to discuss its favorite games of 2023, including Alan Wake 2, Dredge, Immortals of Aveum, Forspoken, El Paso Elsewhere, Baldur's Gate 3, and a lot more. Happy Holidays, y'all!

Strange Scaffold founder Xalavier Nelson Jr. sits down with Danielle to discuss his company's ongoing efforts to operate ethically, how said efforts impacted the creation of El Paso, Elsewhere, and how he handles life and leadership in a tumultuous industry.

Arcade evangelists Josh Debonis and Nik Mikros of BumbleBear Games join Danielle to discuss the unlikely origins of their modern coin-op classic, Killer Queen. [Our apologies for the audio quality on this one, folks! We think the discussion is still worth it!]

Rod Humble and King Choi of Paradox Tectonic join Danielle and Alissa to discuss their enormously ambitious upcoming life sim -- Life by You -- as well as their approach to flat hierarchies, empowering mod communities, balancing feature creep in an inherently sprawling project, and a lot more.

Chris Zukowski, Expert in marketing indie games, discusses strategies for indie game marketing including timing a Steam page launch, leveraging alternative platforms like itch.io, the perils of Early Access, and utilizing TikTok as a marketing tool. They also explore the profitability of the game market and strategies for sustainable business in indie game development, as well as the benefits of working on a clone game as a learning experience.

Unknown Worlds CEO and co-founder Charlie Cleveland joins Alissa and Danielle to discuss Moonbreaker's miniatures, Subnautica's scares, the importance of gaining creative momentum, integrating community feedback while maintaining design cohesion, the elegance gained by eschewing grids, and a lot more.

Danielle takes a brief voyage with Joel, Alex and Mikey of Black Salt Games to discuss the process and priorities behind their debut horror/fishing game, DREDGE.

Yarn Spinner lead developer and Secret Lab co-founder Jon Manning shares the secret trick to teaching writers to code, sings the praises of good documentation, and explores game dev lessons learned from tool development. And a special thank you to Dove for sponsoring today's episode! Dove is on a mission to challenge and change female representation in video games through the global launch of its Real Virtual Beauty campaign. Learn more at: https://www.dove.com/uk/stories/about-dove/real-virtual-beauty.html

On Game Developer Podcast episode 30 we have KEN AND ROBERTA WILLIAMS, cofounders of SIERRA ON-LINE and the legendary minds behind games like KING'S QUEST and MYSTERY HOUSE, discussing their RETURN TO GAME DEVELOPMENT after 25 years and their recent REVIVAL OF A TEXT-BASED CLASSIC.