4 ms·

Ask HN: Hackernews for game developers?

I recently got into game development and am wondering if there are any forums, people or tech focused websites worth following for interesting game dev news. For reference, I follow game developers like Jonathan Blow (Braid + The Witness + Jai Language), ThinMatrix (Equilinox), TheCherno (Hazel Game Engine), Carter Anderson (Bevy Game Engine).

MichaelCain221 5y ago
- BarkerOswin 5y ago
markus_zhang 5y ago
I'd also recommend follow indie long-time legends such as Jeff Vogel. Jeff Vogel is the kind of indie developers most should follow. He never released anything that reaches millions of computers, but his consistency beats most of the game development studios out there, including professional ones. I believe his business model and development strategy should be copied by anyone in the Indie business. Basically he targets a niche market and does so well that he can always rinse older products into remakes and re-remakes. His player base is not huge but is very loyal.
- SuboptimalEng 5y ago
  I saw his talk on GDC (Game Developers Conference) about this exact topic - it made it to my bookmarks list! It's called Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way[0] for anyone curious. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    Yeah he is really good at game development but he is even better at game business handling than most of the people out there (including me). I think he also shared some of the revenue numbers and you can see they are good, but never good enough for retirement. That's the best an average indie developer can get IMHO.
    - muzani 5y ago
      I buy all the Spiderweb games but rarely finish any. He's sadly top 5% though with an incredible work ethic and great games. Most won't be able to make a living off the craft.
      - markus_zhang 5y ago
        I do the same. Actually I only started playing the first game. I guess most Indie developers will go out of the business after or even before the first release, so sad :(
skibz 5y ago
I enjoy reading https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ (formerly Gamasutra)
- SuboptimalEng 5y ago
  I'll take a look at this. Wish there was a searchable version for this website like there is for HN[0] tbh. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/
  - skibz 5y ago
    You could use the HN's "from" function to see past submissions for gamasutra.com and gamedeveloper.com, or try using Google's "site:" operator. eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gamasutra.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gamasutra.com and https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agamasutra.com+postmortem https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agamasutra.com+postmor...
crate_barre 5y ago
Not sure if it’s still the same, but it used to be gamasutra. Looks like they rebranded: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/

MichaelCain221 5y ago

BarkerOswin 5y ago

markus_zhang 5y ago

I'd also recommend follow indie long-time legends such as Jeff Vogel. Jeff Vogel is the kind of indie developers most should follow. He never released anything that reaches millions of computers, but his consistency beats most of the game development studios out there, including professional ones. I believe his business model and development strategy should be copied by anyone in the Indie business. Basically he targets a niche market and does so well that he can always rinse older products into remakes and re-remakes. His player base is not huge but is very loyal.

SuboptimalEng 5y ago
I saw his talk on GDC (Game Developers Conference) about this exact topic - it made it to my bookmarks list! It's called Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way[0] for anyone curious. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  Yeah he is really good at game development but he is even better at game business handling than most of the people out there (including me). I think he also shared some of the revenue numbers and you can see they are good, but never good enough for retirement. That's the best an average indie developer can get IMHO.
  - muzani 5y ago
    I buy all the Spiderweb games but rarely finish any. He's sadly top 5% though with an incredible work ethic and great games. Most won't be able to make a living off the craft.
    - markus_zhang 5y ago
      I do the same. Actually I only started playing the first game. I guess most Indie developers will go out of the business after or even before the first release, so sad :(

skibz 5y ago

I enjoy reading https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ (formerly Gamasutra)

SuboptimalEng 5y ago
I'll take a look at this. Wish there was a searchable version for this website like there is for HN[0] tbh. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/
- skibz 5y ago
  You could use the HN's "from" function to see past submissions for gamasutra.com and gamedeveloper.com, or try using Google's "site:" operator. eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gamasutra.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gamasutra.com and https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agamasutra.com+postmortem https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agamasutra.com+postmor...

crate_barre 5y ago

Not sure if it’s still the same, but it used to be gamasutra. Looks like they rebranded: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/ https://www.gamedeveloper.com/