Some intensely sad news to end the week on. The legendary artist who was instrumental in the development of no fewer than three art forms (manga, anime, video games), Akira Toriyama, has passed away suddenly. He was 68 years old. He was still actively working, and was “in the middle…
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Contracts are a tricky thing, especially for indies. On the one hand, having a publisher can be enormously beneficial, as they provide resources, marketing, PR and more. More than a few indies would never have had hit games were it not for the support of a publisher. But there’s a…
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News by Matt S. I want to cry. I seriously want to cry. I was all set to publish A Week on the Water this weekend. The game was just about finished, all the text and programming was in there, and it was actually looking really good. And then, somehow,…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. While certain other game shows (yes, PAX, you) seem to think that organising live events during a pandemic is a responsible thing to do, the leading event on the Japanese calendar, Tokyo Game Show, is being more cautious. It’s devastating to me because I get a…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. One of the better voices for indie games (especially the micro-indies), Playism, is shuttering its online store, costing those indies one of the better opportunities that they had to get some real visibility in an increasingly difficult digital marketplace. According to a note on the Playism…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Devastated. Tokyo Game Show has been my thing for the last half decade (or is it more, now?). It’s the one event I go out of my way to attend, and it means a lot to this site too, because we get all kinds of interviews…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. All good things come to an end. For Dead or Alive 6 it seems like it came to an end far too soon, with Koei Tecmo announcing that the new DLC that was released this week will be the end of it. I know, I know,…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Japan’s CERO – the organisation that provides age ratings to video games – has announced that it will be closing for a minimum of one month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is absolutely the right thing to do (STAY. AT. HOME. FOLKS), it…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Devastated. Koei Tecmo’s excellent Dead or Alive 6 looks like it has become a commercial drain, and the company has announced that following an update in April it will no longer produce new DLC, characters, or other content for the game. Given that the previous Dead…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. Just a few weeks ago I went to Warehouse Kawasaki in Kawasaki city – a city sandwiched between Tokyo itself, and Yokohama. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for many years, based on what I had heard of it, but never previously had the opportunity…
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