Game Chatter Winter 2019: dates, figures, news & notes
A conference to look forward to
It may not get as much mainstream press as the recent Consumer Electronics Show (where two new VR headsets by HTC were announced, by the way!) but the gamedev conference of the year is coming up: the annual Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco March 18th to the 22nd. It advertises itself, but just in case you don’t know — this conference will be a great opportunity to hear speakers discuss best practices in game design and marketing, network and check out the new talent, and of course, see who wins the Game Developer’s Choice awards.
Predictions for the new year
As with any high-stakes industry, there’s a consistently high level of speculation in game dev news. No one knows for sure what games we’ll be playing next! Among some of the top trends and predictions, however, is the idea there will be an outpouring of “hyper-casual” games, meaning a lot of quick games for mobile, published by one mega-company but built by outsourcing companies — kind of like the gaming industry’s answer to fast fashion. The prospect of 5G technology (and its associated tricked-out phones with unlimited data) that looms overhead, however, could also mean hardcore 3D games built for mobile. The take-away? Your phone is going to be an important marketplace for games. Combined with the turmoil that’s happening as form giant conglomerations and ratchet up the competition, however, might mean that there will be harder times ahead for indie games.
Reactionary
Unity may have made a big mistake by letting go of Improbable, a British startup that runs a cloud-based gaming platform. Unity revoked Improbable’s license at the beginning of this year, saying that they were “in clear violation of the engine’s Terms and Conditions.” However, that has led Improbable to link up with Unity rival Epic Games and announce a pretty hefty publicity stunt: they’ll be putting $25 million into a fund to support game developers who want to make the shift to “more open engines.”
A candle for…
Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA game by Blizzard Entertainment that mashes up characters from Diablo, StarCraft, Warcraft and Overwatch, has been put on the back burner. The official statement by Blizzard says that management has decided to “shift some developers from Heroes of the Storm to other teams.” In graver news, three online games — Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy, and Hero Academy 2, are being taken down after Robot Entertainment concluded the cost of keeping the servers running was not worth it. All three will be officially offline on April 8th of this year.
Uplifting notes to end on
Don’t get too bummed-out by all the neigh-saying and drama that’s happening in the industry quite yet! In December, we were gifted this lovely collection of “embarrassing gamedev crimes” — i.e., game developers fessing up via Twitter to some sloppy and bizzarre work they put into their games before release. It all started when Fullbrig.ht creator Steve Gaynor boldly admitted to witless coding in his first game, Gone Home. And here’s something that will (probably) excite you: there’s talk that Cyberpunk 2077 is coming this year! CD Projekt Red’s much-awaited futuristic RPG is set in a future where a smattering of humans have customizable cyborg parts, but earlier this month, that future is a little more tangible. A document from a Polish analyst company says it will probably be launched in the fourth quarter of 2019 — meaning between September and December!
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