Thanks to the time-restricted nature of a game jam, they opted to buy a 3D slot machine asset off of the Unity Store (a marketplace that lets game makers pay modelers and animators for unrestricted use of various 2D and 3D assets) for $15. They teamed up during the 2013 Global Game Jam to push something out that resembled the 'race to the bottom' they saw on mobile platforms. Some of the takeaways that came at the experiment's end. In one casual chat about the sheer weight of that business reality, the duo came to a conclusion: 'We could do better. They then looked at iOS and Google Play marketplaces and saw that 'freewares, clones, and junk' dominate the general selection, let alone the actual money-making charts. They looked at the meager income they were making doing it the 'right' way, as had been established by the old publishing guard. Both attracted awards, recognition, good expo showings, and publishers. (In a past life, I gave that game a good review at the now defunct tablet-only magazine The Daily.) The other, Ziba Scott, had put together a fine mobile-friendly puzzle game, Girls Like Robots.īoth games operated in a pay-once, play-forever model without microtransactions.

One of them, Alex Schwartz, had helped get the solid mobile swiping-action game Jack Lumber off the ground. In 2013, two video game makers had been trying for years to make it in the burgeoning mobile games space. In their case, eschewing all of that worked a little too well for their comfort level. Years later, with that data (and money) in hand, the makers of this game-making machine, which focused entirely on 'garbage' free-to-play slot machines, used GDC as a wake-up call to an industry where the 'right' messages often revolve around listening to players, sidling up to publishers, and racking up critical acclaim. In their case, that work was the procedural generation of smartphone games.Ī single 'game jam' event led to a data machine that ultimately pumped out a decent amount of cash: $50,000 over a couple of years. SAN FRANCISCO-This year's Game Developers Conference saw two game makers emerge with a possible chapter in a future dystopian sci-fi novel: the story of making money by letting robots do the work.

Google tries to reassure gamers about Stadia speed and latency concerns.

A dev trained robots to generate “garbage” slot machine games-and made $50K.

Valve Software dreams of analyzing your brainwaves to tailor in-game rewards.

How id Software went from skeptical to excited about Google Stadia streaming.

We put our hands all over the weirdest game controllers of the year.

Create your own slot machine