Some great game industry links
March 12th, 2008 Practical information

Here I will list a whole pile of websites that are useful to the game industry professional. Some I have mentioned before, but putting them all in one place is pretty convenient. This is information overload.

N4G is a game news aggregator. The stories can be submitted by anyone but are vetted for relevance, commented on and scored for popularity. This gives an excellent news snapshot with the added advantage of measuring the level of public interest.
MCV is the website of the British video game trade newspaper. Lots of information relevant to everyone in the trade. They will send you a daily digest.
Gameindustry.biz is the online only competitor to MCV. They will send you a daily newsletter.
Gamasutra is the American game industry website.
Gamerankings, like the title says, is an amazing compendium of game information centred around their reviews. An essential tool.
Metacritic is a more sophisticated game ranking with the individual scores weighted according to their credibility.
VG Chartz, lots of useful guestimated facts and figures. The site is dragged down by a puerile fanboy forum.
Some great development blogs. Find out what the people who actually make the games have to say. This is the gold standard for informed industry comment.
ELSPA is the main UK trade industry organisation. Their main concern is political lobbying which is why the UK government is so good towards the game industry.
How to get lots of money given to you for moving your video game business to Quebec. This site is much visited by European companies!!
Popurls is a metasite of metasites so gives you a breathtaking overview of the internet on one page. So informative that it is addictive.
Geekipedia is Wired magazines’ brilliant guide to our technology age. Essential education for many.
Develop, the online site for the game development community magazine.
Improving Game Marketing: The Game Purchase Process From A Consumer’s Point Of View. An interesting paper.
Fascinating article on game marketing and the press.
Some incredibly incisive commentary on game marketing and game quality.
David Perry’s game industry map gives a geographical perspective to the whole industry.
MMOGCHART is the standard industry reference for what is happening in the MMO world.
The Chaos Engine, the private forum for game industry development professionals. Absolutely essential reading if you want to know what is going on.
Videogame journos network. Does exactly what the name says.
SoftPressRelease.com. Blast your press release out to the waiting press at low cost.
Games Press, the resource for games journalists.
A good list of game developers and publishers with links to their websites and product lists.
Bruceongames. The game industry blog from a marketing and publishing perspective.

There is enough information there for even the keenest budding game industry professional. Please add any great industry sites you may know using comments. Bloggers and journalists feel free to copy this anywhere you want.

Some great game development blogs
February 27th, 2008 Practical information

Most of the knowledge available to keen gamers about the gaming industry can be of a pretty low quality. This is because that knowledge is third or fourth hand. As a very minimum it has been “spun” by a marketing department (I have done loads of this) and then “interpreted” by a journalist. But there is a way round this, keen enthusiasts can get their knowledge directly from the horses mouth, if they read the right blogs.

Whilst there aren’t many blogs from the publishing side of the video game industry there a quite a few from the development side. And they are excellent. These are the guys who actually make the games that everyone plays, so they know what they are talking about. And when they analyse a game they do so with an authority no magazine could match. These guys are the complete opposite of the fanboy, they are intelligent, informed and incisive. There are quite a few in my blogroll but here are a random selection:

Mainly About Games. Informative and well written it has a nice personal feel to it.
Dopass.com. Short entries not just about gaming. Funny at times.
A path through possibility. Irregular updating but well worth a read for some incisive commentary.
Japanmanship. An incredibly good read of a Western developer’s life in Japan.
Magical Wasteland. Refreshingly irreverant.
Survival Horror. Does what it says on the tin.
Gamedev.net. A big and serious site with a lot of good content.
Seven Degrees of Freedom. Very nice diary style blog.
Random Encounters in Imaginary Realms. Just cherry picks the good stuff.
Cheeky. Sparse and interesting development diary.
Peter Mackay’s projects and development diary. Quake on Gamecube.
Life In The Rain. Often long interesting personal articles.
T=Machine. Wide ranging blog with much that is happening at the sharp end online.
Black Company Studios. Semi diary semi event driven articles. Nice.
.mischief.mayhem.soap. A serious game developer’s blog.
JakeWorld Blog. The life of a game developer.
Gamefeil. Games, comics, diary.
Scientific Ninja. Technical stuff here.
Devbump. Aggregation of gaming articles.
Nimblebit. Game development diary. Lots of technical stuff.
It’s Bezness time. Bedroom developer diary.
I love it, I feel like Sisyphus. On start-ups, game development and programming.
Bruceongames. Game industry from the publishing perspective.

For anyone with any interest in games the above blogs are just pure gold. Japanmanship, for instance is written by a game developer who works for a Japenese games company, lives in Japan and speaks Japanese. If you want to understand the game industry in Japan there is no finer source of knowledge. It amazes me when fanboys with a millionth of his knowledge and experience argue with him on forums.

Note to bloggers, journalists etc, feel free to copy and paste the above list or even the whole article to anywhere you want.