''Game Developer'' was a magazine for

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

creators, originally started in March 1994 by

Miller Freeman, Inc A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents ...

as quarterly, later bimonthly, and finally monthly. In each issue, industry leaders and experts shared technical solutions, reviewed new game development tools, and discussed strategies for creating innovative, successful video games. Monthly postmortems dissected the industry's leading games, from AAA console to social and mobile games and beyond, and columns gave insight into deeper development practices from across all disciplines, from design, to programming, to art, to business, and audio. It was closed in 2013 as part of a restructuring at parent company UBM Tech (part of

UBM plc UBM plc was a British business-to-business (B2B) events organiser headquartered in London, England, before its acquisition by Informa in 2018. It had a long history as a Multinational corporation, multinational media company. Its main focus was ...

) that included the closing of all print publications owned by that company.

The magazine contained articles on professional

game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the software development, process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a video game developer, developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. ...

topics relating to

game programming Game programming, a subset of game development, is the software development of video games. Game programming requires substantial skill in software engineering and computer programming in a given language, as well as specialization in one or mor ...

, art, audio,

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

, and production. Monthly columns from industry veterans offered in depth discussion on a variety of topics. It had articles by notable

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...

figures and reviews on

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

s, tools, and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

packages. The back page "Soapbox" was also a popular feature but moved to sister site to Gamasutra circa 2004. It was replaced by a splash art page called "Thousand Words" and then replaced again with a regular column "Arrested Development." ''Game Developers most popular feature was probably its monthly "Postmortem" column which discusses the recent development of a

with the top five each of "What Went Right" and "What Went Wrong". It provided a frank, first-hand account of the lessons learned in the development process. The first Postmortem was featured in October 1997 and written by Andre Vrignaud on ''

Dark Sun Online ''Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands'' was an early massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. in 1996 for Windows 95. ''Dark Sun Online'' was based on the licensed Dark Sun ...

''. Starting in 1998, ''Game Developer'' recognized exceptional game development tools with their "Front Line Awards" which were given annually. Winners included software (such as

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

and VTune),

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...

s (

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres ...

), middleware (

Havok physics Havok is a middleware software suite developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides a physics engine component and related functions to video games. In September 2007, Intel announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok ...

), hardware (

GeForce 3 The GeForce 3 series (NV20) is the third generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units (GPUs). Introduced in February 2001, it advanced the GeForce architecture by adding programmable pixel and vertex shaders, multisample anti-aliasi ...

), and books ('' Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice''). ''

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...

'', the sister publication

web site A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...

of ''Game Developer'', acts as an online resource for game developers, as well as a job posting board for employment in the

field. It was not part of the closure that resulted in ''Game Developers cessation and continued some features from the magazine. ''Gamasutra'' rebranded itself to ''Game Developer'' on August 26, 2021.

References

{{Reflist

External links

''Game Developer'' Magazine official site

Archive of all issues
at

GDC Vault The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

Front Line Awards official site
Monthly magazines published in the United States Video game magazines published in the United States Defunct magazines published in the United States Informa brands Magazines established in 1994 Magazines disestablished in 2013 Magazines published in San Francisco Professional and trade magazines Video game development

Contents

See also

References

External links