Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! The Game Developers Conference has kept up plenty busy, as you can see below. Elsewhere, Metal Gear Solid V has a release date, and PlayStation 4 sales pass 20 million.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
GDC 2015
- The DeanBeat: The game industry’s struggle with light and darkness
- Women claim their place in the game industry
- Sony’s latest VR prototype proves we’re just waiting on the games
- Blockbuster game publishers describe harassment policies in the modern era of hate
- Independent Games Festival host denounces Internet hate and Gamergate, gets standing ovation
- Intel aims to double the number of women in gaming
- Zoe Quinn and other female game developers speak out against harassment
- Raptr allies with Intel to make mainstream PC gaming a better experience
- Valve’s and HTC’s Vive is the most believable virtual reality experience yet
- Epic Games’ new ‘A Boy and His Kite’ tech demo points to blue skies for the game industry
- Weta Digital partners with Oculus and Epic Games for a new VR experience
- Oculus’ John Carmack endorses Otoy’s VR light field rendering tech
- Oculus technology guru John Carmack explains why he’s spending all his time on mobile VR
- Microsoft to launch new tools that enable cross-platform play across Windows, Xbox, and mobile devices
- Nintendo welcomes change and is open to experimentation for its digital future
- Ubisoft and new HMD developers join Open-Source Virtual Reality group
- The MindLeap virtual reality game system runs on your brainwaves — no controllers needed
- Watch Mozilla preview WebGL 2, the first major update to plugin-free 3D graphics in the browser
- Nvidia shows hands-on demo of Shield set-top box (video)
- Nvidia CEO explains why the Shield set-top box fits in your living room (interview)
- Nvidia’s set-top box aims to do for gaming what Netflix did for movies
- Nvidia announces its $200, 1,080p Shield Android TV Console — launches in May
- Sony has a new Project Morpheus virtual reality prototype — consumer product launches in 2016
- League of Legends developer on fighting with fun, depth, and complexity
- AMD teams up with Oculus on LiquidVR technologies for virtual reality
- Crossy Road earns $3M in revenue from Unity’s video ads
- Unity Technologies ships its next-generation multiplatform game engine
- Mobile game visuals will get better with upcoming successor to OpenGL graphics standard
Pieces of flair
- GamesBeat giveaway: Two awesome gaming headsets
- Watch Portal come to life thanks to Microsoft’s Kinect
News
- First recipients of Epic’s Unreal Dev Grants deserve every penny
- Man dies after 19-hour World of Warcraft session
- Harmonix announces Rock Band 4 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, coming this year
- Logitech tapped players to design its newest gaming mouse
- Phil Harrison out at Microsoft, report claims
- Elite: Dangerous warps to the Xbox One — but not the PlayStation 4
- Two-thirds of consumers say they’d like to shop using Oculus
- EA closes SimCity and The Sims developer Maxis Emeryville
- Microsoft partnering with Motiga to publish Gigantic for Xbox One and Windows 10
- Nvidia announces the Titan X graphics processor, the most powerful GPU available
- Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a standalone $20 prequel to The New Order
- Valve announces Source 2, Steam Link, and Steam Lighthouse VR technology
- Sony’s PlayStation sales top 20.2 million worldwide
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is coming Sept. 1
- ARM launches Enlighten 3 global illumination tool for games
- Google X exec Mary Lou Jepsen leaves to pursue new ‘moonshots’ with Oculus
- Game developers favor Steam and PC over other platforms
- Unreal Engine 4 goes free — but Epic Games still gets its 5% cut of your royalties
- Shinra Technologies gets a new developer to use its cloud-gaming inventions
- Ex-SSI Gold Box devs go ‘back to the future’ with tools to transfer characters across role-playing games (updated)
- World of Warcraft’s new real money-for-gold effort brings more free-to-play to Blizzard’s cash cow
- PC gaming expected to be worth $35 billion in 2018
- Trine 3 announced, check out the gorgeous first trailer
- U.K. retailer Game acquires events and e-sports specialist Multiplay for $30.8M
- Akili is testing its cognitive games as a treatment for autism, ADHD
Mobile and social
- Vainglory is no longer just on Apple devices — mobile arena battler preps for Android beta
- Facebook beefs up its recommendations for mobile games
- DeNA releases first-person shooter Protocol Zero for Samsung Gear VR
- Games dominate App Annie’s annual list of top-grossing app publishers
- Amazon comes to Mobile World Congress looking for more gaming love from developers
- Carmack: Consumer Gear VR will hit before the end of the year with full Samsung media blitz
- DeNA partners with Fyber for mobile-ad monetization
- InMobi’s Appographic Targeting takes personalized marketing to a new level
- Monument Valley takes the top honors at mobile game awards
- Corona Labs mobile game-development platform goes free
- DoubleDown Casino launches St. Patrick’s Day slots game
- 500 iOS games per day: Flooded mobile market is tricky for indie devs
- Warner Bros. gets serious about mobile with 5 new games, including Game of Thrones
- Mobile publisher Storm8 hits a billion downloads for its casual games
- Mobile developer Wooga’s latest hidden-object game Agent Alice finds success
- Paris Hilton chases Kim Kardashian into celebrity mobile gaming
- Google updates Play Services API with new location features for Android apps
- Google unveils a slew of new features for Android game developers
- RockYou raises $23M in funding based on its business of running older games
- Tapjoy unveils ‘complete marketing automation and monetization platform’ for freemium mobile apps
- SpriteBuilder game developer tools introduce three tiers of subscriptions
- Yvolver launches its VIP rewards service for mobile game developers
Previews and interviews
- Asteroids: Outpost isn’t a traditional Asteroids game, and I can live with that … I think
- Magic: Origins sees the card battling series go free-to-play
- Afro Samurai’s latest game is a simpler, more elegant affair
- Zynga’s Dawn of Titans features thousands of soldiers fighting on an iPad screen
- Armikrog’s claymation style is screwing with my head
- Couch multiplayer or online multiplayer? Super Dungeon Bros. combines both — and across platforms
- Stardock’s new Ashes of the Singularity turns you into a hive mind, commanding thousands of ships at once
- Build and unleash your mechs in a new real-time strategy game
- Ubisoft’s therapeutic video game Dig Rush treats ‘lazy eye’
- Supersonic sees big growth for ‘rewarded video ads’ in mobile games (interview)
Reviews