App Annie: Mobile app demand surging, gaming revenue set to surpass $120B

Research from App Annie reveals the extent of a surge in demand for mobile apps, driven predominately by gaming.

Mobile game revenue is expected to increase 20 percent this year to surpass $120 billion.

A year into a pandemic, it’s of little surprise to hear that consumption of any form of entertainment has increased—but such a year-on-year increase continues to be staggering given the existing size of the industry.

For comparison, global mobile game...

13 January 2021 | App Stores

Cross-platform graphics API Vulkan is now ‘ray-tracing ready’

The Khronos Group has announced that Vulkan’s SDK, tools, and drivers are now “ray-tracing ready” for developers.

Vulkan is an open-source and interoperable alternative to graphics APIs like DirectX, OpenGL, and Metal. Ray-tracing, meanwhile, is touted as the next big advancement in the visual fidelity of graphics, especially for games.

“4A Games was one of the earliest adopters of hardware-level ray-tracing by developing the first real-time raytraced global...

16 December 2020 | API

DirectX creator Engstrom dies aged 55, leaving behind a game-changing legacy

DirectX creator Eric Engstrom has sadly passed away at the age of 55, following a career which helped to shape the gaming industry as we know it.

Engstrom created the DirectX gaming APIs in 1994 – alongside Alex St. John and Craig Eisler – to simplify Windows game development and make it the stellar platform it remains today.

The APIs were originally developed for Windows 95. Game developers at the time were reporting they preferred MS-DOS for its low overhead and...

14 December 2020 | API

Report: The gaming industry has become one of the UK’s top employers

The UK’s gaming industry has mostly shrugged off a wider pandemic-induced slump to become one of the country’s top employers.

Global recruiter Robert Walters and data provider Vacancysoft have published a report called ‘Gaming: Perfect Play for Growth’ which highlights the continued strength of the UK’s video game industry.

The UK is home to some of the most iconic video game studios in the world including the likes of Rare, Codemasters, Rockstar North,...

11 November 2020 | Careers

GameRefinery’s AI auto-tags features and visuals for iOS developers

GameRefinery has boosted its game analytics platform with a new AI which automatically generates tags highlighting features and visuals.

The new system can auto-generate up to 100 tags per game and is currently being used for over 100,000 iOS games in Western markets including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

GameRefinery claims its new AI can automatically identify 51 features and 45 visual styles. This enables it to quickly tag games that its human...

30 October 2020 | AI

Employment in the UK’s booming gaming sector is set to triple

The UK’s gaming sector is booming and bringing with it huge economic opportunities, according to an upcoming report.

Recruitment agency Robert Walters is set to release its report – Gaming: the perfect play for growth – next month, but has provided some early findings.

The UK’s gaming sector is currently valued at around £4 billion and ranges from innovative indie developers to renowned studios like Rare, Codemasters, Rockstar North, Criterion, and Creative...

30 September 2020 | Gaming

Developers can now peek under the hood of the Amnesia games

The developers of the legendary Amnesia horror series have made their code open source to help teach and inspire others.

Code for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is now available in full on GitHub.

In a blog post, developer Frictional Games wrote:

“This doesn’t mean that the game is suddenly free. It just means that people are free to use the source however they want as long as they adhere to the GPL3 licence. The game and all of...

24 September 2020 | Gaming

Switch developers are reportedly being told to prepare for 4K

A report suggests Nintendo is telling some developers to prepare their Switch games for 4K.

Rumours of a 4K-supporting "Switch Pro" have circulated almost since the original console launched.

Nintendo has always prioritised innovation over the most powerful specs like PlayStation and Xbox. However, the Switch launched notably underpowered—even for 2017 standards.

The Switch's display is just a poor quality 720p LCD when 1080p smartphones have been available...

9 September 2020 | Gaming

Microsoft launches Xbox Academy to inspire the next-gen of game developers

The next generation of gaming is coming, and the Xbox team is doing its part to inspire new talent.

Xbox Academy will help to teach participants about the basics of game design and development, in addition to using popular tools such as Unity.

Gaming was valued at $151.55 billion globally in 2019 and is expected to reach a value of $256.97 billion by 2025. Just this week, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt called gaming "the future of storytelling" (while eating an extra spicy...

7 September 2020 | Careers

Epic calls out Apple in ‘Nineteen-Eighty Fortnite’ video following App Store removal

Epic Games has released a 1984 (or "Nineteen-Eighty Fortnite")-style parody of Apple's own famous video after Fortnite was removed from the App Store.

Apple removed the hit game after Epic attempted to circumvent the App Store's built-in payment systems. Not long after, Epic started the #FreeFortnite campaign and released this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euiSHuaw6Q4

Epic is among the increasing number of companies, developers, and even lawmakers that are...

14 August 2020 | App Stores