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Uber Eats waives delivery fees for over 100,000 independent restaurants
In response to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the restaurant industry, Uber Eats is waiving delivery fees for over 100,000 independent restaurants across the US and Canada. It's the latest move by gig-economy businesses like Uber, Lyft and Grubhub to help alleviate some of the financial challenges that the coronavirus outbreak presents.
An independent report on Facebook’s alleged liberal bias tells us nothing
Conservatives have long lamented that Facebook has a liberal, or anti-conservative, bias. Since the 2016 election, the company has been grilled on the issue by the White House more than once. In an attempt to clear the air, Facebook enlisted an independent third-party to decide once and for all if it does indeed have an anti-conservative bias. Last year, it asked former Republican Senator Jon Kyl and his team at Covington & Burling LLP to conduct a review of the company's policies. The results are in, and for the most part, they tell us nothing.
Mark Zuckerberg apparently tried to buy Panic, the creator of Playdate
Buried in Edge Magazine's exclusive feature on Playdate, is an interesting revelation. Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg once expressed interest in buying Panic, the developers behind the new handheld, hand-cranked console. Perhaps even more intriguing, Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser didn't respond. He didn't want to be part of another Silicon Valley software company gobbled up by a giant.
Indie charmer 'TumbleSeed' will arrive on Nintendo Switch May 2nd
Okay, so you've had your Nintendo Switch for awhile. Ganon's corpse is but a speck in the proverbial rearview mirror and hunting for the last remaining shrines in Breath of the Wild isn't all that interesting. What's a person to do? Well, that's where indie games come in. And for the purposes of this article, we're talking about TumbleSeed specifically. The charming rogue-like about climbing a mountain as a tiny future-flora will be released to Nintendo's latest console May 2nd. That's only a few weeks away!
The only video game developer in Mississippi
Mathew Weymouth lives one hour away from the birthplace of the blues, that humid, fertile swampland known as the Mississippi Delta. He grew up along the state's southern coastline, and over the years he absorbed tales of legendary local artists including "The Mad Potter," George E. Ohr, and the painter Walter Inglis Anderson. The Delta fertilizes creativity like it spawns towering cypress trees, and Weymouth is a product of his environment. He's an artist, but with a technical twist. Weymouth is a self-taught video game developer with big plans for his local community. He wants to build a "gaming incubator" in southern Mississippi, a creative haven for the area's youth, artists, musicians, filmmakers and programmers. It's basically a high-tech neighborhood center where people can work together to create video games and other works of art. But there's one major problem with this idea: He might be the only serious video game developer in the state. "Here, it's literally just this dead zone in the middle of the United States for technology," Weymouth says.
'To the Moon' and back again: Making a sequel after indie success
Kan Gao's life changed remarkably in 2011. That's the year his studio, Freebird Games, released To the Moon, a tender role-playing game about two doctors who travel through a dying man's memories to grant him a final wish. To the Moon launched quietly, but it had a resounding impact on the gaming industry -- it won a nomination at the 2012 Independent Games Festival and picked up other awards, including the headlining spot on my own "Best of 2011" lineup. Last year, To the Moon even showed up on a list of Engadget readers' favorite video game soundtracks. To the Moon's success has allowed Gao to focus on developing original games full-time. Still, it's taken five years to officially reveal his next project, a To the Moon sequel called Finding Paradise that's due to hit PC, Mac and Linux in late 2016 or early 2017.
'GameLoading' documentary charts the rise of indie gaming stars
The indie game community has exploded in the last few years, especially as development tools and digital distribution channels have become more accessible. StudioBento filmmakers Lester Francois and Anna Brady wanted to document the movement and, in 2013, raised almost $58,000 on Kickstarter to make a new movie. Now, almost two years later (and a second Kickstarter) GameLoading: Rise of the Indies has finally arrived. It was filmed over three years and features prolific developers such as Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable), Rami Ismail (Vlambeer) and Zoe Quinn (Depression Quest). You can grab it now through the GameLoading site, as well as iTunes, Steam, PSN and Xbox Video.
PewDiePie talks management, considers starting network
If you made more than $4 million a year handling all production elements of your own content, wouldn't you consider venturing outside an established network? YouTuber Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg has entertained the idea after communication issues with two prominent networks, as detailed in an interview with Icon Magazine. Kjellberg hired a lawyer to help free himself from a lifelong contract with Machinima, where he says management ignored his rise to stardom. He then signed with Maker Studios, a network that Disney purchased earlier this year for $950 million, as reported by The New York Times. Kjellberg cited a problematic lack of communication during his time with Machinima, but aside from answering requests for help, he added that working with Maker hasn't really changed things. With his current contract expiring in December, Kjellberg seems poised to start his own network: "I'm in touch with a couple of people who I think would be so right for this," he explained, adding that he's eager to start such a project and would like to help other YouTubers in the process. Despite Kjellberg feeling that "all the networks have been arranged in such an incredibly poor way," he did not outright confirm his departure from Maker once his contract expires. Whatever direction Kjellberg decides to move in, we imagine his bros will follow. [Image: Pewdiepie]
eMusic ditches major labels as it hopes to rule indie song downloads
Many digital music stores scramble to get every song they can, but not eMusic -- it's willingly headed in the opposite direction. The download service has announced that it's dropping music from the three major labels (Sony, Universal and Warner) as of October 1st. After that, it will sell nothing but true-blue independent songs. The company explains that it wants to create the "most extensive catalog" of indie tunes in the world, giving it a way of standing out in a sea of mainstream stores like Google Play and iTunes.
ID@Xbox developers achieve Unity
The Unity engine, known for powering independently-developed games like Slender: The Eight Pages and Oddworld: New N Tasty, has come to Xbox One. Any developers signed on as part of the ID@Xbox program with an Xbox One dev kit now have access to the engine completely free of charge, Unity (the company) announced via its blog. The build available now is version 4.3, but Unity 5.0 is the goal. "Unity 5.0 will eventually be our recommended version for all Xbox One development," the blog states. "However, we will continue to make updates for the Unity 4.3 version of the product including XDK upgrades into 2015 to ensure teams that have already built to this version of the product can ship." That's good news for several high-profile Xbox One games that are already using Unity, including Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. [Image: Moon Studios]
Nintendo's indie spokesman leaves company
Nintendo's digital distribution business development manager Dan Adelman, who was the indie outreach specialist for the company, has left the company. Adelman was banned from Twitter by Nintendo last year for showing sympathy for gamers frustrated by region locking, something that didn't fall within the company's strict messaging. Gamasutra detailed it quite well in April, properly pointing out, "It's Nintendo's policy not to privilege the individual. It's Nintendo's policy to keep messaging corporate, not personal." "I had been strongly encouraged to stay off of Twitter-or at least say only things that were clearly safe-so after the region-locking comment they just said I needed to stop completely," Adelman told Kotaku. "When people started complaining that I wasn't active on Twitter anymore, it was suggested that a PR person could just post in my name. I thought that was about the worst idea I'd ever heard, so I left it as is and let the silence speak for itself." Adelman will remain in the industry and assist indies in areas of business development and consulting.
PlayStation 4 indie devs are already using Project Morpheus
Becoming an independent PlayStation 4 developer is easy, Sony's Adam Boyes tells us: "You just have to sign up." The PlayStation VP of publisher and developer relations was explaining what the company has done to woo indie devs. Half the job was just making developer programs more accessible. "Before GDC last year we didn't even have a website where you could go and find out about it, but now we have a very well thought out process." Boyes says that anyone who qualifies as an independent developer can get a free (loaner) developer kit, too -- a similar deal applies to Project Morpheus.
'To Leave' flying to PlayStation, hopes to put Latin American games on the map
Mechanically, To Leave is a very simple game, requiring players to hop from one safe location to another, avoiding hazards along the way. What elevates it beyond those mechanics, at least in my very brief experience with it, is its bold art style and soundscape. A simple platformer becomes the story of a young man escaping from the misery of his life, desperately clinging to a door as it flies through a bizarre dream world. There's no telling if that will be enough to carry a full game, but it makes for a very good first impression (watch the trailer if you haven't already). For Estefano Palacios, To Leave is much more than the sum of its parts. Palacios is creative director of Ecuadorian studio Freaky Creations and, for him, To Leave is a shot at earning respect for Latin American games and developers. To Leave is headed to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 as part of an incubation program that Sony instituted to court Latin American developers. Palacios believes – and Sony agrees, it would seem – that the region deserves more recognition. Speaking with Joystiq at GDC, Sony account manager Mike Foster, who is in charge of the incubation program, tells me it came to be in 2007. A member of Sony's developer support group, who happens to be Guatemalan, wanted to "explore the developer landscape in Latin America," says Foster, "because nobody really knows what's going on down there. It's quiet."
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Free for All: An interview with Ever, Jane's Judy Tyrer
Ever, Jane caught my eye as soon as I read about it. I wish we had access to more non-combat MMOs, or MMOs that attempt to do something so different that they are hard to categorize. I have to say that I had never read a word of Jane Austen -- the author whose books Ever, Jane is based on -- but I didn't care. If anything, the interesting gameplay described by Judy Tyrer, the creator of the game, made me want to pick up a book or two. Of course, the game is barely in a playable state at this time and will likely be in development for a time longer. Still, the MMO genre needs games that takes chances, or we'll all find ourselves stuck on some hamster wheel of grind. I asked Judy a few questions and she surprised me with some of her answers. She's been making games for a long time, so hopefully you'll be hearing more from her here on Massively for a while! Let's get to the interview.
Activision Blizzard completes buyback from Vivendi Universal in multi-billion dollar deal
Activision Blizzard recently bought back a controlling stake in itself from Vivendi Universal. The reacquisition was a joint effort by the company itself and an investment group that includes Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and Chairman Brian Kelly. When the dust settled, Activision Blizzard picked up 429 million shares and other assets for around $5.83 billion, while the investment group snagged 172 million shares -- an almost 24.7 percent stake -- for approximately $2.34 billion. The deal leaves a majority of the remaining 690 million shares in the hands of the public, while Vivendi is hanging onto 83 million shares, or about 12 percent. For his part Kotick is optimistic about the firm's independence, even stating that he expects that the company's developers will benefit from a "focused commitment to the creation of great games." Let's just hope that this newfound concentration bodes well for the company's historically doomed subsidiaries.
Activision Blizzard is going independent, buying out Vivendi for $8 billion
Gaming giant Activision Blizzard announced it's buying out most of majority shareholder Vivendi's stake, at a total price of about $8.2 billion. Activision will pay about $5.83 billion in cash to Vivendi for 429 million shares, while an investment group led by CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly will pick up 172 million shares for $2.34 billion, leaving Vivendi with 83 million shares, or about 12 percent of the company. The publisher of titles like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft (and Guitar Hero before it ran that into the ground), Activision reported $1.05 billion in net revenue for Q2 and raised its full-year revenue outlook slightly, although full results won't be available until August 1st. As Joystiq mentions, Vivendi has been unsuccessfully trying to sell its part of the company for nearly a year, hopefully this transaction works out the best for everyone. By everyone, we mean people still waiting for StarCraft: Ghost.
Gunpoint success allows dev to become independent, Mac and Linux ports on the way
Writer and developer Tom Francis originally planned his game, Gunpoint, as a showcase piece to earn him a job at a game development studio, but after seeing the success of the title so far he says he doesn't need to join another studio. As you can see above, Francis hit his initial goal for the game from preorders alone, and sales have only gone up since then, to the point where Francis now says designing the game was "so commercially successful that I'll never need" to work for someone else. Since the only real monetary cost of the project was a $30 purchase of Game Maker 8 a few years ago, Francis says Gunpoint "recouped its development costs" in just one minute and four seconds. That's after three years of work, of course, but the point remains that Gunpoint was very successful indeed. The next priority, says Francis, will be to port Gunpoint to the newer Game Maker Studio, where it can then be released for Windows, Mac, and Linux. He's looking to hire someone for this task, so he can get moving on actual updates and another project eventually. It sounds like a tough job, essentially taking over the core game's development for other platforms. "But as the graphs above should suggest," says Francis, "I can pay."
Octodad: Dadliest Catch heading to PS4 [Update: Trailer]
Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game about an octopus posing as a human father – yeah, it's weird – is coming to PlayStation 4. The news was delivered during Sony's E3 press briefing by Adam Boyes, Sony's VP of third-party relations. The game comes as part of a big indie push from Sony, which includes the ability for independent developers to self-publish on PlayStation 4. Octodad: Dadliest Catch will make its "exclusive console debut" on PS4, alongside several other independent games. It will launch first on PC, Mac and Linux, via Steam and direct purchase.
The Soapbox: How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign
The past few years have seen an absolute revolution in the games industry, with an explosion of studios securing funding through crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. In a time when banks worldwide are tightening their belts, Kickstarter represents a lifeline for indie developers and a way for the bigger studios to work on their own projects free from the need for outside investors or publishers. But with the growing number of projects seeking funding each year, developers are facing stiff competition and the rising challenge of running a successful campaign. Most developers don't release all of their stats or write up advice and insights following a successful crowdfunding campaign, and those who do are often lost on obscure blogs that don't appear when you Google for advice. But I'm in the unusual position of both being a games journalist and having successfully Kickstarted a small game project (unrelated to MMOs and my work on Massively). Six months ago, I ran a campaign for my new sci-fi 4X game Predestination, and in the process I learned some valuable lessons on what works and doesn't work on Kickstarter. We've since published the campaign stats and gone on to help a few other campaigns hit their goals. In this article, I run down the lessons I learned the hard way during the Predestination Kickstarter campaign and give some advice for developers hoping to get funded.
Unity makes mobile tools free for small devs
Unity has announced that it's making its mobile game development tools free to use for most independent and small studios. Unity has always been a popular engine both for mobile game development and for cross-platform game creation, but up until now, you had to pay about $800 to actually publish Unity-created apps on the iOS or Android stores. Those basic add-ons have now been made free, so anyone can now download Unity, and then use it to publish an app for iOS or Android without paying a fee for the engine. Unity still has pro versions available for sale to both iOS and Android developers, and anyone making over $100,000 per year with their releases is required by Unity to go ahead and purchase a pro license. So there are still some limits on exactly how this all works, and if your iPhone app does hit it big, Unity still would like its due. But starting off for free should open the door for even more indie devs to get in and try Unity, and make for even more and better games on the App Store.
