Type of site
|
News and information for video game developers |
---|---|
Owner | UBM TechWeb |
Created by | Unknown |
Website | gamasutra.com |
Alexa rank | 10,435 (January 2015[update]) |
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on all aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb (formerly a part of CMP Media), a division of Unite Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer.
Gamasutra has five main sections: the News where daily news is posted, the Features where developers post game postmortems and critical essays, Blogs where users can post their thoughts and views on various topics, Jobs/Resume where users can apply for open positions at various development studios, and Contractors where users can apply for contracted work. The articles can be filtered by either topic (All, Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet, Independent, Serious) or category (Programming, Art, Audio, Design, Production, Biz/Marketing). There are three additional sections: a Store where books on game design may be purchased, RSS where users may subscribe to RSS feeds of each section of the website, and a section that links to the website's Twitter account.
While it does post news found on typical video game websites, Gamasutra is known for providing online resources to aspiring and professional game developers on the disciplines of games, including design, audio, public relations, and art. Gamasutra encourages professionals to publish blogs in order to share their expertise with other developers. Analysis articles are popular reads as writers spark discussions on game design and the various trends of the industry. The editorial staff also takes part in conducting interviews with developers and hardware designers, such as Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, Nintendo 3DS designer Hideiki Anno, and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw.
Project postmortems, articles which developers recount the successful and unsuccessful elements of a specific game's development, are the most celebrated features on the website, as they provide direct insight in all aspects of game design and educate other developers of various risks and important tips. Many postmortems have been published, ranging from independent games such as Okabu and The Path to major studio projects such as Okamiden and BioShock. There are currently over 150 collected post-mortems dating back as far as 1997. There have been unusual post-mortem articles published, including “A Story of GameLayers, Inc.” that reveals the tumultuous development and eventual cancellation of a Firefox toolbar-based MMORPG, and “What Went Wrong? Learning from Past Post-Mortems” that details the most common mistakes that developers make as admitted in the articles.