Mark Brown, an indie developer and editor of the Pocket Gamer resource, told about why, in relation to game design, less is better, as part of the Game Maker’s Toolkit video cycle. With the author’s permission, we have prepared a text version of the material in Russian. We share.

Arma developers don’t want to monetize skins in the game. They stimulate the purchase of additional content and DLC with push buttons and watermarks.

In 2016, the authors of Angry Birds changed the approach to closing projects. Previously, the company tried to close controversial projects as early as possible. Today, Rovio decides on the fate of games at later stages of development.

The Humble Bundle platform announced the creation of an initiative to publish and finance games. The new division of the company will release games, both on PC and on consoles and mobile devices.

A series of innovations in the Steam game store has improved the visibility of programs, payment conversion and sales. Valve shared specific figures.

Developer and publisher Kabam continues to get rid of assets. The company announced the closure of the development in the Beijing studio.

Activision Blizzard’s revenues from October to December 2016 amounted to $2.01 billion. In total, the gaming giant raised $6.61 billion last year.

In mid–January, the open beta of the mobile MOBA from Fast Forward Studio – Planet of Heroes was released. We talked with the head of the studio Ivan Fedyanin about where he was looking for people for the team, why he decided to make a MOBA and how the story campaign is embedded in it.

At the Prague White Nights session, which starts next Monday, 6waves Publishing Director Stephen Lee will speak. He is going to talk about working in the Asian market. For the best questions to Stephen, we give two premium tickets to the conference.

The organizers of White Nights have introduced a new type of ticket – Demo Pass, which allows you to get to the conference exclusively for lectures for € 20.

Search giant Google and MMO game developer NetEase are in talks to launch Google Play on Android devices in China.

Japanese Sega has followed the path of Nintendo in terms of transferring popular franchises to the mobile platform. The new game of the Total War: King’s Return series is a familiar product for mobile: a strategy in the spirit of Game of War.

Word games remain a popular genre on social and mobile platforms. Brazilian Cupcake Entertainment, specializing in similar projects, received investments of $ 1 million.

Sony has published the tops of the most downloaded and sold games on PlayStation consoles for January. ARK: Survivor’s Pack from Studio Wildcard was in the greatest demand last month.

German developer InnoGames reported earnings for the past year. The company’s revenues for the 12 months of 2016 amounted to €130 million.

The story of several indie developers who have returned to work in large companies,” Gamasutra shared. We have prepared a version of the material in Russian. We share.

The age of paying players differs little from project to project, but the gender differentiation of the paying audience strongly depends on the type of game.

30% of game downloads in 2016 were for projects in the action genre. Similar games also hold users much better than puzzles.

MZ, Top Games, Nintendo and Wargaming, among others, promoted their projects at the final game for the title of champion of the US National Football League. Each of the companies could pay more than $5 million for airtime alone.