Each weekend we'll be rounding up a selection of the most interesting articles related to mobile and the games industry at large.
This week, Mobile FreeToPlay's Adam Telfer delves deep into the latest star in location gaming, Jurassic World Alive, and analyses its improvements over the Pokemon Go formula.
Elsewhere, Pokemon Go Fest excises its past demons, there's a look at how the games industry is improving gender diversity, and No Man's Sky developer Sean Murray tells all about the Hello Games team's experience on the ambitious title.
See an article you think we should share? Email PocketGamer.biz Craig Chapple at craig.chapple@steelmedia.co.uk to add it to our weekly round-up.
You can find previous editions of The Weekly here.
Can Jurassic World Alive stand up to Pokemon Go?
"Jurassic World Alive seems to have taken the original Pokemon style battling system and built it out so that it actually can function as a 1v1 PvP RPG battle with a healthy meta. Instead of dinosaurs having clear explicit strengths and weaknesses (ex. Water dinosaurs and weak against flying dinosaurs?) they’ve gone for a system where dinosaurs have much less obvious strengths and weaknesses. There’s no explicit rock-paper-scissors strategy, and it makes for a better game."
Pokemon Go Fest 2018 excised the ghost of Chicago past
"Go Fest 2018 was a pivotal moment for the game - and it delivered. Niantic had felt like it needed to return, to prove it had learned from last year and finally give Chicago a great event. There's never been a better time, either - as the game's popularity resurges and this year's mainline Pokémon games for Switch blur the lines between GameFreak's original vision of the franchise and Niantic's billion dollar re-imagining."
How the industry is making efforts to reduce the gender gap and support women in gaming
“It took to the point of me really being pushed out into the spotlight that made me be reflective that I had kind of avoided being visible,” Reddy says. “I hadn’t realized how important it was to be visible and what kind of impact that would have.” Reddy says it’s led to more diverse people reaching out to visit the studio and realize the opportunities available."
No Man’s Sky developer Sean Murray: ‘It was as bad as things can get’
“The internet is really good at knowing when somebody has made a mistake,” says Murray. “It’s not necessarily the best at determining the most appropriate response, but it’s really good at knowing when somebody has messed something up. We definitely messed up a whole bunch of communication. I’ve never liked talking to the press. I didn’t enjoy it when I had to do it, and when I did it, I was naive and overly excited about my game. There are a lot of things around launch that I regret, or that I would do differently.”
Meet the gamers willing to spend hundreds of thousands living their video game fantasy
"Markee has sold “millions and millions of virtual products” during his career, making around $150,000 (£113,000) per month in gross sales at the height of RMT. He recalls it 'got really crazy' when he was making $500,000 (£380,000) a year in sales of virtual gold and game codes in Ultima Online."
Alt-right troll to father killer: The unraveling of Lane Davis
"Lane wasn’t exaggerating. Like so many others, he had joined the late-Obama-era culture wars through Gamergate, the often radical online campaign that claimed to be concerned with ethics in gaming journalism. And he was there from the start, actively participating in a chatroom called Burgers and Fries, members of which more or less astroturfed the start of the movement through well-placed hashtags and well-timed confrontations. Here, Lane would have learned how a small group of dedicated people could compel an enormous, participatory audience by wielding an ever-expanding conspiracy theory about liberal influence."
Digital laundry: How credit card thieves use free-to-play apps to launder their ill-gotten gains
"Money laundering through the Apple AppStore or Google Play isn’t a new idea and has been done before. In the 2011 the Danish part of the Apple App Store was flooded with expensive suspicious applications. More than 20 out of 25 of the most downloaded applications were from China. The price of the apps ranged from $50-$100. For example, one of them “LettersTeach”, was intended for children who are learning English letters, yet it cost nearly $78. This pointed to money laundering then, however, what we encountered now is much more sophisticated."
How the sausage was made: Designing Sausage Sports Club
"Every design decision made along the way was based on a few design pillars I set at the start of the project. It’s not necessary to do this, but defining pillars is useful in deciding what game you’re trying to make and in giving some semblance of objectivity to making design decisions. When faced with any question in designing your game, you can always check whether they support these pillars."
The Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
"While there are tools to find lesser-known streamers, most people starting out without built-in audiences from other platforms or supportive friends and family end up staring at a big, fat zero on their viewership counter. This lonely live stream purgatory can last anywhere from a few days, weeks, months, sometimes even years, depending on your luck. According to people who have gone through it, lacking an audience is one of the most demoralizing things you can experience online."
The makers of Nintendo's latest hidden gem worry people missed it
"I bet the players who like Dillon and the setting actually are pretty secretive about it,” he said, proposing an earnest if imperfect metaphor. “I would like more people to know about the game. It’s not like a popular restaurant, so there won’t be a sudden crowd or a long wait time or anything."
How to take seven years to ship a beta
"Before development be sure to have an unclear image about what kind of game you are making. This will lengthen both your engine development time and your game design time."
