game design

Ready Player Me, a platform to build dynamic cross-game avatars for virtual worlds, raises $56M led by a16z

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg was roundly mocked for the bad graphics in his preview of a new expansion of Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse effort. His quick response promising better avatars for t

As regulation heats up, will gaming studios’ gamble on loot boxes pay off?

Loot boxes, a way for players to receive random in-game rewards in exchange for real money, have been disparaged for a while now, and they’re now increasingly subject to government scrutiny.

A hospitable metaverse requires the basic building blocks of virtual life

It’s not easy to build a virtual universe, but it’s certainly something that we can bring closer to reality through proper network infrastructure investments and innovation.

YC-backed Legionfarm lets competitive gamers pay to play with pro coaches

Legionfarm, a YC-backed company, is looking to bring coaches to the competitive gaming world. Esports teams at the very top often have coaches, but the rest of the massive competitive gaming scene has

Loot boxes in games are gambling and should be banned for kids, say UK MPs

UK MPs have called for the government to regulate the games industry’s use of loot boxes under current gambling legislation — urging a blanket ban on the sale of loot boxes to players who

Launching from beta, ProGuides is making money ensuring that gamers never play alone

When ProGuides pulled the covers off of its service earlier this year, the young Los Angeles-based startup intended to give gamers a way to train with professional and semi-pro esports players from ar

Tencent’s new alternative to PUBG is already topping the revenue chart

In a move clearly driven by economic interests and an urgency to meet stringent regulations, the world’s largest games publisher Tencent pulled its mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battle

Tencent replaces hit mobile game PUBG with a Chinese government-friendly alternative

China’s new rules on video games, introduced last month, are having an effect on the country’s gamers. Today, Tencent replaced hugely popular battle royale shooter game PUBG with a more go

Esports Overwatch League heads to hipster Brooklyn for its finals

What could be more perfect than moving the inaugural championship finals for an esports league from its Los Angeles home to Brooklyn? For Overwatch League, the esports conference created by fiat from

Overwatch finally adds Deathmatch and it kind of sucks

I haven’t played another FPS besides Overwatch in months, which makes me qualified to state that Overwatch is the best FPS on the market. That said, until today, it was lacking a deathmatch mode

What UX designers can learn from 1990s Japanese video games

I’m writing this from a slightly saddened perspective, revisiting my favorite SNES RPGs and realizing something: I’ve been spoiled by modern UX design. The sentiment is pretty universal.

Designing Next-Gen Virtual Reality Gaming Experiences

It wasn’t until I conquered my first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda at my friend’s house that I decided to throw a convincing tantrum at my parents about why I also desperately needed my own Ninte

Why And How To Hire A Game Designer

I am a game designer but I don't envy the task of potential employers or partners in trying to find someone like me to hire. Game design is very difficult to assess from the outside, to understand wha

The Seven Constants Of Game Design, Part Three

In the last of this three part series on the constant factors of game design we're talking all about the role of the player as character (or not) and powerful draw of purpose.

The Seven Constants Of Game Design, Part One

In the first of a two part series exploring game design, this article discusses the idea that games operate within a universe of defined constants, meaning traits to do with play that stand independen

The Numinous Veil Of Ignorance

In watching the latest drama unfold over Facebook and its experimentation with users, I'm moved to argue that sometimes you can be too honest. For game makers especially sometimes it's better for user

Finding Game Design

"Game designer" sounds like a cool job, but often game designers actually do a much more ordinary job. Design is also less and less respected as naught but theory within the industry, which I think is

What Games Are: The Unfulfilled Promise Of Videogames

Growing up in the age of computers and technology we can almost taste the promise of videogames. We don't just like to play videogames, we like to imagine what they might be and how they might influen

What Games Are: The Win Imperative

Many readers will be familiar with the idea that games and reward go together. Yet reward by itself isn't rewarding. The reason is that it's not the reward that's interesting, but rather what it signi