Fastest Game In The WestBrandon Sheffield, Director, Necrosoft Games

Who am I??

Editor-Emeritus, Game Developer magazine

Senior Contributing Editor, www.gamasutra.com

Game Writer

Director, Necrosoft Games

The state of Western Game Development

Who are these Western developers? (salaries, strengths, weaknesses)

What technology are they using? (social/mobile/console/PC)

Trends in tech – what problems are we fixing?

Social/mobile trends

Overall trends in the Western game industry

Average Salary data from 2001-2010

Average Salaries across all disciplines in 2011

Production strengths and weaknesses

Triple-ATech

Triple-A Tech

Social gametechnology

Mobile support across platforms

Social and Mobile tech

Tech Trends: Free Tools

IDEs- Visual Studio Express- Xcode- Eclipse- Flashdevelop

Music/Sound- Audacity- Linux MultiMedia Studio- Bfxr

2D art- GIMP- Paint.net- Pixen- GrafX2- Inkscape- Shoebox

3D Art- Blender- SketchUp- Meshmixer- Makehuman- Arbaro

Libraries:- ccMixter- OpenGameArt- freesound- pdsounds

Other:- TargetProcess (project management)- Lightworkds (video editor)- Notepad++ (coding)- Tiled (Tile maps)

Sweeping up the problems of the last gen

Going big while scaling small

Telemetry, game analytics

Voxels

Random generation of assets

Sculpture modeling

Web development pipelines

Security and back ends

Tech Trends: Big topics

mid-core - trying to get dedicated users.

layoffs / contraction

post-release marketing

Social/Mobile trends

General Trends: IndiesSmall teams, many just out of college, skipping the traditional industry

Increasing success where Triple-A fails

Game jams

Game bundles

General Trends: Crowdfunding

General Trends: Steam

General Trends: f2p comes to game middleware

General Trends: ErrataThe power of retro

Psychology, economics, and game design

Games are free speech! (But don't forget IP law)

Games as art and history

Thanks!Contact info:

Brandon Sheffieldwww.necrosoftgames.com

brandon@necrosoftgames.comTwitter: @necrosofty