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[jonaz.dk]

The State of Unreal will be streaming live from GDC in 19 hours from this time of writing

There is also the public Unreal Engine 5.2 roundmap to give a look.. might presume some of the things mentioned here till be featured in the stream.
https://portal.productboard.com/epicgam ... engine-5-2

[jonaz.dk]

Visual Studio Debugger++

[jonaz.dk]

Epic knocked it out of the park with The State of Unreal.

Just a few clips and examples:

[jonaz.dk]

Level up your gamedev character

[jonaz.dk]

Starting a gamedev business

[jonaz.dk]

SDF modeling plugin coming to Blender

[jonaz.dk]

@Mads & Friends won an IGF award for Excellence in Audio for The Forest Quartet.

Grats!

Speech (with audio this time)

[jonaz.dk]

RIP Mr. Gordon Moore

[jonaz.dk]

A bit of Amiga celebration.. oh boy takes me back! ❤

LukHash - Amiga

[jonaz.dk]

Developing a live game that never truly left Early Access with Deep Rock Galactic

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/gdc2023/d ... k-galactic

[jonaz.dk]

Just a quick good luck to all the MSP people who was let go! (I heard 40!)
So that's a lot! About half the company.

Public figures from 2022 indicates that things was going pretty well! Even after a significant drop from 2021.
But who knows.. maybe 2023 has not been shaping up very well at all.
Speculating there that MSP2 might have been a hard transition. Or technically I think it's running in parallel. So it will split the player community... that is usually not a good thing for something community driven.
Also factors where I could see the player base drifting their general attention towards 'might' include dreaded platforms like TikTok and Roblox even. (There are plenty of pink fluffy universes in Roblox). Neither are small forces to be reckoned with in concern to young people's time.
That is my best outsider guess as to what could case a significant drop in users. That in turn would trigger a down sizing of the company. It could likely be a combination of all these factors. Very possibly there are also similar platforms competing for the same audience out there. Not something I follow very closely.
But who knows what the actual cause is.. just guessing here!

I hope you will all land somewhere good!

And I hope the rest of the company left will not suffer too much with this large blow to staffing.

Best of luck guys!

Cheers!

[ZeroHero]

All the best to everyone who has been affected by this. It cannot have been easy for anyone involved.

[jonaz.dk]

Blender 3.5 released

[jonaz.dk]

The Silent Age from DK House on Fire is free on the Epic Store! (great game btw!)
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/the ... age-eb6972

Spilprisen nominees 2023
https://spilprisen.dk/en/nominees-2023/


Nordic Game Conference coming up!
NG23 SPRING
23-26 May at historic Slagthuset in central Malmö, Sweden
https://conf.nordicgame.com/

[jonaz.dk]

Claus Lykke, CEO of MovieStarPlanet shed a little light behind the layoff round.

As suspected it was indeed the financial situation leading up to this. And not just making the company a leaner and more profitable business in general. Though this is the consequence for the immediate future of the company now as they have to adjust for current reality.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/claus-ly ... er_desktop



**DISCLAIMER**
Don't take the graphs too seriously.. it is only google search traffic. Doesn't include what is happening on platforms like mobile and downloadables outside of that. But also don't underestimate it either.. I generally think it's a pretty good indicator if something has legs in the real world.

MSP had some REALLY good years from from 2010 to 2020. After which things really started to falter in global interest for the chat /dressup (with a bit of game mechanics) universe. BlockStarPlanet was given a bit of life but never reached MSP in popularity.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... b0lf&hl=en


Things like Roblox (yes pretty terrible company) and indirectly the likes of TikTok (Chinese operated.. no don't install it) has been a crushing force. And anything going up against humongous entities will be in trouble. (Even still Roblox is not a profitable company.. so something have to give there.. perhaps Fortnite will take the throne back at some point as they change to a UGC platform?! Let's see!)


Honestly I don't really think there will ever be a large future for MSP (The old golden days has come and gone). MSP2 should probably not have been a repeat of what wasn't working any longer. But rather a completely new take on something fresh. But that is only a world of speculation. The Flash based platform of MSP was certainly not going to last for very long as Adobe killed off Flash. And MSP only lived on as a Downloadable/mobile app.

We can only hope the future will align better for MSP!
If the cost cutting is enough.. and it probably is?! For a while at least, It might not be impossible to cater to a niche audience.

And still all the best and good luck to all the people affected by the layoffs! <3
Cheers to new adventures!


A look at other local online platforms like Kogama and Crey in comparison with MSP2 also tells a foreboding tale.
So that's a bit worrying there as well!
Crey doesn't look very healthy from the latest 2021 numbers I can observe.. so not the most positive outlook there. And once their investor money has been burnt on the long runway.. I'm not really sure it will fly on it's own accord.
Multiverse (Kogama) is holding on with the minimal crew for now.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... gama&hl=en

(Fixed MSP2 was entered as a search term and not as Video Game.. they have a small spike no shown previously. Not that it changes anything big)

All companies are certainly facing future challenges!

Crossing my fingers and hoping the best for all!
But sadly Mr. Reality is knocking his evil paws on the door.. good things needs to happen to curb the trend for all of them. I hope they have a plan!
One thing could be to 'if you can't beat them, join them' and create their own brands and universes inside the existing major platforms like Roblox and now maybe Fortnite.
Might work! Might not! These big brands with a scaled down crew might be able to pull it off. Or at least small experiments could be made in this regard fairly cheaply, to see if this was a way to explore or not in the face of stiff competition.

But that's just an idea! No guarantees!

Cheers! And best of luck to all you out there!

And yeah.. sorry for the doom and gloom.. but that is just reality as I see it. :_(
And yes I hope I am wrong!

**Adding to ending on a positive note here on the MSP layoffs is STARTUPS!! Mass layoff is usually a really good breeding ground for fertilizing people's dreams and ambitions. And just getting that little nudge into doing that startup idea they always dreamed of. It can be a really great spark to get it all kickstarted. I've heard a little something is already cooking in one place. But let's see where it lands.
Remember when Microsoft closed PressPlay.. we got two incredibly successful companies in return.
Let's hope for a repeat!

And just letting you know.. yours truly is having the time of his life here his own startup at Bitfire Games.. though this one was not born out of a sudden necessity in the same way. But rather of a life long dream and a little boredom.

[jonaz.dk]

Oh maaaaan!
Another doom and gloom post.. stop doom-baiting me will you!

Heroes and Generals is shutting down their servers. Unlimited gold until Thursday, 25th of May 2023 at 11:59PM UTC.
https://heroesandgenerals.com/2023/04/b ... nal-event/

Sadly I can only say that things has run its course and I am not surprised with the cards they have shown the world.
Well (sorta) good run for all these years! Obviously things could have gone much better in many ways over the years. It looked like a ride with some highs and lows from the outside and the game has been on a downward trend since around 2016. But a lengthy run for sure!
I hope there won't be too many negative consequences for devs in the current company. But it cannot be counted out. If they even can't keep the servers alive it's not the best sign.
So good luck to everybody! And cheers to new adventures if you find yourself in an unfortunate situation soon.


The Kickstarter is not done yet.. but SUPER obviously, in it's current form it never stood a flying chance even from before the beginning. With a tenth of the goal or maybe even a bit less it would have fared much better I'm sure. This is a pretty big oversight and not really understanding the KS ecosystem. Oh well.. what can you do.

If the Kickstarter was a sign of the new owners of the H&G IP, TLM Games really needed the money to finish the game or it was more a sugar on top thing will remain unknown for now. Neither scenario is comforting for the future of the game H&G2. If there will be a future for the project indeed.

Also the community will feel extremely burned and TLM Games has tainted the IP for many years ahead. From mixed reviews to the closure and an uncertain future for H&G 2. It is all of their own doing sadly (besides the mixed reviews which already there). Community trust will be at an all time low. It will be VERY hard to recover from this one if not impossible.

They have not announced they are canning H&G 2.. not yet least. Let's hope they can still make it happen somehow. There are obviously other ways. Maybe they have larger self funding and/or investors around the corner. Who knows!?
But recovering from this and getting additional investment onboard seems like a very uphill battle. Who in their right might would throw money after such a thing. It is truly sad to watch!
I certainly still think there is a market for infantry and vehicle based FPS WW2 games. But TLM Games doesn't seem like the company to be equipped to handle it. Other companies with deeper pockets and better smarts should certainly see an opportunity here.
And if the KS is truly a sign of they didn't have the money to develop and launch the game themselves, the outlook is certainly bleak.

So the immediate future might take a few more devs from former Reto-Moto studio off the working field for a little while. It's not certain but a realistic scenario.

Kicktraq also reveals pretty large amounts of pledges was withdrawn by the backers as trust in the project was veining.


And again military salutes and best of luck to anyone affected! I hope you land well if things goes even more south.


Meanwhile for players who enjoy WW2 games with a larger meta game on top with logistics and production. I recently spotted Foxhole. Looks pretty neat! (And best of all it's not F2P)



**Adding: Just did a little reading up on TLM Games/Partners.. and no it doesn't really sound like it is a company strapped for cash and needing a Kickstarter to finish the game.... like not at all! Without knowing their financial situation in detail.
So the whole exercise to my immediate analysis sounds like a SUPER douche-bag ploy to pressure desperate H&G loving players into backing the Kickstarter as their game was under the very real and now realized threat of being shut down.
Seems more than dodgy to me!
So it sounds even worse now! Not just a situation fueled by incompetence and years of neglect. But down right manipulative and evil.... oh boy!
Could be wrong! But that's what it looks like to me now.

**Further adding: Even in a low cash scenario I would find i quite unlikely they they couldn't even keep the servers running. So even there it looks like a douche-bag ploy to pressure H&G players into pledging for the Kickstarter.
I would stay far away from anything related to TLM Parters/Games and Mr. Hawley. (haha.. he even looks like and has the name that rings with Crowley.. pure evil I tell you!)

[jonaz.dk]

April 2023 free Unreal Engine marketplace assets


More here:
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplac ... 0&tag=4910

[jonaz.dk]

Woop woop! The Magical Mixture Mill from Glowlight Games has released on Steam Early Access!

Grats!

[jonaz.dk]

DK Game spotting

Discounty from Crinkle Cut Games.

[jonaz.dk]

DK project spotting!

Bloody Pigs™ 1996 developed by (solo I think) Dennis Jensen. Who was part of KnightOut.



Steam page + demo

[jonaz.dk]

Upcoming alpha test of the DK crypto fuled game Ember Sword.

[jonaz.dk]

A longer PVP gameplay look at Tempest Rising developed by Slipgate Ironworks™, 2B Games, 3DREALMS and published by THQ Nordic, 3D Realms.

[jonaz.dk]

Splitting Point: how Field Trip Z got 45M players on Roblox this year
https://gameanalytics.com/blog/splittin ... m-players/

[jonaz.dk]

Unity roadmap for 2023 | Unity at GDC 2023

[jonaz.dk]

NURBS modeler Plasticity hits version 1.0



More on:
https://www.plasticity.xyz/