Links

Links to articles or posts which are insightful, inspirational or fascinating.

Game Design

• A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art
  2015, Blake Reynolds, On why pixel art, despite its awesomeness, might not be the best choice for your next mobile game.
• Ten Years of World of Warcraft
  2014, Raph Koster, On how innovation is not always as important as spit, polish and letting things cook until they are ready to be served.
• Skyrim's Modular Level Design - GDC 2013 Transcript
  2013, Joel Burgess, Nate Purkeypile. On the usefulness of self imposed restrictions and how to manage art-assets in a pipeline suited for large scale world-design. (Alternative location: Gamasutra)
• Making it in Indie Games: Starter Guide
  2013, Derek Yu. Advice from the creator of «Spelunky» about what to focus on when starting out as an independent game maker.
• Focusing Creativity: RPG Genres
  2013, Jordane Thiboust. On the value of feature streamlining, pertaining to the design of RPGs.
• The guide to implementing 2D platformers
  2012, Rodrigo Monteiro. Covers a lot about implementing 2D platform games. Well written and illustrated with recognizable examples for those who are into the classics.
• How I Got My Mom to Play Through Plants vs. Zombies
  2012, George Fan. Excellent GDC talk on game tutorial design. (Text summary on Gamasutra)

Interacting with your customer base

• Divinity: Original Sin is the game Larian Studios waited 15 years to make
  2014, Alex Wawro. On the importance of community beta-testing from a successful Kickstarter

Game Psychology

• Playing With My Son
  2014, Andy Baio. An experiment in forced nostalgia and questionable parenting
• Video games change the way you dream
  2014, Katie Drummond. Are nightmares less scary if you are a frequent gamer?
• Characters and Worldbuilding: Analyzing the Strength of Japanese Games
  2013, Zack Wood. On a world's "sekaikan" and a character's "sonzaikan" with regards to Japanese games and anime.
• Shadow Emotions and Primary Emotions
  2011, Daniel Cook. On generating emotions in games.
• Timmy, Johnny and Spike
  2002, Mark Rosewater. Psychographic profiling regarding «Magic: The Gathering» and its card design philosophy. The principles are in my opinion also applicable to RPGs and other games with avatar customization mechanics. (Update 2006: The author revisited and wrote an updated version)

Business

• Your game studio doesn’t have to survive to succeed
  2019, Tanya X. Short. On priorities, management and the way forward. Also art vs. profit.
• Minimum Sustainable Success
  2015, Daniel Cook. Regarding realistic economic expectations of going indie.
• The Fall of THQ
2014, Tracey Lien. On overcommitting to a market that is no longer on your chosen platform.
• Principles of an Indie Game Bottom Feeder
  2012, Jeff Vogel. About picking a market and serving it.

Management

• Opinion: The unspoken truth about managing geeks
  2009, Jeff Ello. Are you a tech leader or manager and want your geeks working for instead of against you? Internalize this text!

Industry Pitfalls

• We Need Better Video Game Publishers
  2013, Unknown. On how publisher influence in the development process more often than not is detrimental to the final product.
• EA: The Human Story
  2004, Erin Hoffman. The original LiveJournal post in the "EA_Spouse" controversy, a process which culminated in three class action lawsuits against Electronic Arts.