50 things for game developers
The books, blogs, and resources I wish I knew about sooner
It has never been easier to make games. Many have uttered this very sentence, but it’s worth repeating.
Game engines like Unreal, Unity, Godot and 3D tools like Blender are free to download. Each have massive communities surrounding them with vast ecosystems of educational content. The Unreal Source Discord server, an independent community for discussing Unreal Engine, has over 120K members. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of tutorials on YouTube on how to make 3D models in Blender. The Blender donut tutorial, one of the more popular entry points for aspiring 3D artists, has 9.5M views.
There are countless books, courses, and videos covering the artistic and technical aspects of making a game. But when it comes to the more slippery disciplines of the craft and the industry surrounding it, there’s a real lack of resources. At least, that’s what I thought when I first set out to make games.
I felt there had to be a trove of best practices and information hidden behind the walled gardens of the big AAA and even indie studios. And this was partly true. It has taken me a good deal of digging over the years to find resources covering the business of games including topics like strategy, marketing, and finance, as well as deeper aspects of game making like game design, systems design, narrative design, and level design.
The games industry is still relatively young, and the contemporary flavor of the indie ecosystem began in just 2017 with the launch of Steam Direct. Prior to this, launching a game on Steam was more of an opaque popularity contest. Developers had to campaign for votes in an effort to compete for acceptance through Steam’s Greenlight program. Now anyone can put a game on Steam for a one time fee of $100.
It turns out trying to learn about the business of games is much more of a minefield than I first understood. Joost van Dreunen explains in his book One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games:
Studying the business of video games is a fool’s errand. After spending the past two decades analyzing this industry from different angles and in different contexts, I’ve learned as much. For one, few people outside of this entertainment business will take you seriously. Even now, when seemingly every teenager in the world plays Fortnite and hordes of people armed with their smartphones scour their hometowns for digital Pokémon, many still regard video games as an odd phenomenon. Had I built a career around Shakespearean literature or low-power radio, I reckon, I would have at least been considered intellectually exotic enough to be respected. But studying games? That’s just a waste of time.
Worse yet, even people from inside the industry may treat you with disdain. As in many creative industries, the incessant presumption is that artists and designers create all the value. They are the anointed ones. The unfortunate fools who handle the business side of things are an inconvenient compromise necessary to reach a broader audience. Marketers are mercenaries, and the analysts and economists are soulless bean counters who add little magic.
It is perhaps because of this circumstance that the average person’s understanding of the business of video games has remained rather limited. Few understand the industry’s inner workings at large, including many of the people whose very livelihood depends on it. In my day job as an industry analyst, for example, I deal with financial investors and hedge fund managers. I frequently am dumbfounded by the seemingly inverted relationship between the large amounts of money an investment fund commits to buying shares in publicly traded game companies and the lack of understanding of the business of interactive entertainment. Despite commanding billions in assets and the ability to move markets, insight into this creative industry among most investors tends to be rudimentary at best.
For independent game developers, especially those who self publish, the art and business of games is tightly intertwined. Ignore the business side of things and you’re destined for failure. The era of indie developer as renegade artist, as seen in 2012’s Indie Game: The Movie, is over. The market is just too competitive. When the documentary came out there were around 30 games released on Steam per month. Now, it’s up to almost 2000 per month.
A common mantra among seasoned indie developers is that the best thing you can do to get better at making games is to make more games. But what about getting better all the other stuff?
This list contains 50 hand-picked resources covering all the things you won’t learn from just making games. Drop a comment below, reply to this email, or DM me here or on X if you have anything I didn’t include that you think I should check out.
These are in no particular order…
One Up by
and his newsletter contains the most clearheaded thinking about the games industry that I’ve come across. The prologue, which I quoted in part in my intro above, is worth the price of the book alone.Sid Meier's Memoir, Meier famously said games are a “series of interesting decisions” in this GDC talk which is also worth a watch.
GameDiscoverCo newsletter and database by
, the newsletter is worth the $19 per month on its own but along with that you get access to the best Steam data and analytics tool out there (I use it all the time).You have to read all of
books including Blood Sweat and Pixels, Press Reset, and Play Nice.The popular GDC YouTube channel contains many great talks by people in all kinds of different positions in the industry. There’s also the GDC Vault, which contains the full archive of GDC talks, but carries a pretty hefty price. It’s worth browsing if you can gain access through your company or school.
SteamDB for comprehensive Steam stats, this is nicely paired with the GameDiscoverCo back end mentioned above. It’s more of a firehose of every possible piece of data pulled from Steam. The concurrent users chart is a good page to periodically check in on.
- by , a fantastic weekly newsletter that dances the fine line between game making and game marketing in a way that’s hard to find anywhere else. See Is Making A Great Game All That Matters.
Masters of Doom, a fun read that tells story of the founding of id Software and the creation of Doom, with many lessons still relevant to indie developers today.
How To Market A Game blog, courses and discord server. This was the first resource that really opened my eyes to the vastness of the Steam market and how to navigate it. The Wishlist & Visibility Masterclass is a must for any new indie developer.
Derek Lieu on how to make a trailer, the only resource you need for getting better at making your own trailers.
Steam Revenue Calculator, sales data for games on Steam isn’t publicly available, but you can get a rough idea of how much money a game made using this tool.
Streamforge is a good for finding streamers who might like your game. Streamer coverage has been one of the more effective ways to “market” your game (although maybe we’re reaching a saturation point). The best features are paid, but depending on your position it could be worth the cost.
Matthew Ball’s book The Metaverse is a must read, particularly the newer edition which contains a history of Epic Games along with sections on AI and XR. His comprehensive report on the State of Video Gaming and many other essays are essential materials as well.
Gamecraft Podcast, I blasted through the first two seasons when I first found this. An incredible deep dive into the history of the games business by Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins.
- by , his three part series on how to connect with players is fantastic and should be widely read by indie developers.
- by Jeff Vogel who is the longest running independent game developer having founded his studio Spiderweb Software in 1994.
- , the newsletter by game designer, Founding Chair of the NYU Game Center, and creator of Universal Paperclips, is a must subscribe. His recent book, The Beauty of Games, is a much welcomed update to the thinking about games as art.
Developer’s Dilemma by Casey O'Donnell, I just started this one after seeing in mentioned in One Up. It sits nicely alongside Jason Schreier’s books covering the processes of making a game in detail from pre-production through production.
Gavin Eisenbeisz’s YouTube channel, the creator of Choo-Choo Charles and recently announced Cuff Bust. His video on retention and virality is a highlight.
Matthewmatosis’s YouTube channel contains thoughtful video essays on a wide variety of games. I’ve found them to be helpful in reminding me to “think like a player”. He also recently released his own game called Logic Bombs.
Wookash Podcast is one of the best game-related programming podcasts.
Game Feel by Steve Swink is my favorite game design-related textbook.
Gamemakers Toolkit, a popular YouTube channel that covers a wide range of game design topics.
Game Balance book by Brenda Romero and Ian Schreiber, this filled a lot of gaps for me when it comes to thinking about game balance especially for more systemic games.
- is a good follow for keeping up to date with what’s going on in the industry especially on the AAA side of things.
- , similar to the the above, a good place to stay on top of industry news.
An Architectural Approach to Level Design by Christopher Totten is an essential read for every game designer.
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, related to the above, contains lots of ideas relevant to level design.
The Fourth Curtain podcast which features interviews with many designers, I liked the recent one with Kim Swift who worked on Portal and Left 4 Dead.
Jonas Tyroller’s YouTube channel, his video on “design as a search algorithm” is a highlight.
Thomas Brush’s YouTube channel features consistenly interesting interviews with a wide range of indie devs.
GameDev Business Handbook, useful for anyone who needs a 101-level introduction to starting and running a game studio.
Run Studio Run which is more broadly for creative agencies and studios, but contains relevant info for running small game studios.
Ben Thompson’s Console and Competition article on Stratechery succinctly summarizes the history of the games industry starting with OXO from 1952.
Timothy Cain, creator of the Fallout series and co-director for The Outer Worlds, has an incredibly comprehensive YouTube channel where he discusses every possible topic related to game development that you can imagine
How To Make A Video Game All By Yourself by Matt Hackett, a nice little pocket reader that contains some good tips and cautionary tales aimed at first time developers.
Exploring Roguelike Games is a comprehensive history of roguelikes that’s useful for developers making a game in the genre or more generally making simulation or systems-heavy games.
Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers is the best resource on systems-driven game design.
Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom, this book is more aimed at programmers, but is useful for anyone interested in better understanding how to structure the underlying systems of a game.
Derek Yu’s blog which includes a very good four part series on indie game development.
Many of the Boss Fight books, too many good ones to list out. My favorite is Derek Yu’s on the making of Spelunky.
The Making Prince of Persia which includes journal entries and sketches from creator Jordan Mechner.
Pop into one of The Game Doctor’s daily Twitch streams, the way he thinks about tutorialization and player expectations is refreshing.
The Eggplant podcast including the recent series on UFO 50, covering all 50 games in the compendium, and the Into the Depths series. Playing all 50 of the UFO 50 games is a good self directed course in game design in and of itself.
The Gamedev Book covers the gritty details of making games from Wlad Marhulets, the creator of the 2D puzzle platformer Darq.
Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel is an absolute goldmine.
Ask Iwata collects a bunch of ideas from the former Nintendo President and CEO, “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”
Console Wars is a comprehensive history of the console-dominated era that serves as an important resource for understanding the big players in industry.
Rules of Play is a massive tome that I imagine is often assigned as a part of game design programs at many colleges and universities. It’s a good book to have on the shelf.
The Art of Game Design should also be on your bookshelf.