Tadhg Kelly

Tadhg Kelly Contributor More posts by this contributor Games After Gamergate Is The Windows 10 Store The Next Step For PC Apps And Games?

Tadhg is a video game designer, producer, creative director, columnist and consultant. He has held roles at various video game development, technology and publishing companies. Since the early 90s, Tadhg has worked on all sorts of game projects, from boardgames and live action roleplaying games through to multi-million dollar PC projects. He has served as lead designer, senior producer and a number of other roles at several companies including BSkyB, Lionhead and Climax.

He was a cofounder of the social gaming startup Simple Lifeforms before moving on to becoming a consultant in the game design space through founding noted industry blog What Games Are (www.whatgamesare.com). A recent immigrant to the United States, Tadhg has most recently worked at Jawfish Games, OUYA and for some other studios on a consulting basis.

Tadhg is currently consulting out of Seattle for a variety of companies under the banner of Tadhg Kelly Game Design, as well as writing a book named Raw Game Design to be published next year by Focal Press and a weekly gaming column for TechCrunch. You can reach him at tadhgk@gmail.com.

The Latest from Tadhg Kelly

Games After Gamergate

Perhaps the greatest testimonial to those who endured Gamergate is not to remember it. To not talk about it all. So I won't. However one aspect that I will talk about is what it did to game developme

Is The Windows 10 Store The Next Step For PC Apps And Games?

The desktop app revolution never really got started back in 2011, but with Windows 10 it may be reborn.

The Sorry State of “Games Are Art” In 2015

With Apple's banning of games wholesale because of a flag we have yet another example of how games are censored more than other media, how games are devalued and treated as second class media citizens

Design Tips For VR Games

VR's coming whether you like it or not. How best to make use if it?

Why I Cautiously Support the App Store Change

There are very good reasons for Apple's recent change to the App Store's listings, especially for games, as the charts had become over-dominated by incumbents at the expense of newer developers. At th

Incremental Design Won’t Save You

In games most studios follow that “distribution” strategy to a greater or lesser degree. A lot of them are concerned about where to find players, how to hold onto them, how to monetize them effici

How Sony Or Microsoft Could Use Subscription To Win Video Games

The next stage in the console business seems to be one of updating the business model toward one that provides much more value to players. Which of the major platforms will take that step?

Why Games Journalism Should Update Its Thinking

Gaming's media is increasingly under strain from too much coverage of the same subject matter. And yet the biggest single market for games - mobile - remains very poorly covered. Isn't it time for gam

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Microsoft?

It's great at business software and technology, but Microsoft still struggles to make coherent consumer products. The problem seems ingrained and cultural, starting with its constant reversion to ecos

The Author-ity Wedge

“Authority” is an interesting word to contemplate. On the one hand it invokes images of dictators and repression. But it also breaks down as author-ity. A seal of approval, of unspecified accepta

The VR-Smartwatch Continuum

There's a lot of enthusiasm at either end of the spectrum for "go big" virtual reality and "go small" smartwatches and other wearable devices. Is the "game-changing" hype of either justified? Or are t

Fixing “Videogames”

Games don't seem to be taking over the world. Games struggle to gain a wider acceptance equivalent to their footprint. Plenty of people play games but much fewer want to really associate themselves wi

Notes From The Game Developers Conference

This year's GDC featured a wide range of themes and topics, subjects of interest and discussion. It was also a somewhat uncertain and quiet GDC however.

The Lesson of Peter Molyneux

If you pay any attention to the gaming world, it's hard not to notice the unfortunate flameout of Peter Molyneux. Once a respected figure, now synonymous with fanciful promises and untruths, his curre

Is Premium Mobile Gaming Viable?

We can look at success stories and naysayers, but the question of whether a real push into premium on mobile is utterly open. In this post/thought-experiment I'm asking some of the key questions and w

The Reason To Be Cheerful About HoloLens

With the release of the HoloLens, Microsoft put something out there that has a chance of being transformative. Not in the high concept way, but in a general way especially for gaming. But is Microsoft

The Message Is The Product: Solving Mobile Gaming’s Price Problem

The medium is the message, says Marshall McLuhan. If so the message is the product too. In considering the problem of paid games on mobile (conventional wisdom says people won't pay for them) it seems

Reflections On Microconsoles

For a time I believed that microconsoles might change the face of the games industry, but they haven't really worked out. Thoughts on why.

The Perfect Gaming Phone

As a recent acquirer of an iPhone 6 Plus I had thought that a bigger phone would have better battery and be easier on my eyes. However what I hadn't expected was the degree to which playing games on i

An Open Letter To Tim Cook About Game Censorship

An open letter to the CEO of Apple to change the company's mind in how it handles the vetting of game content, as happened this week with Papers Please. Video games are an art form just like movies or
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