Willem Delventhal

New episode drop! 🚀 I sat down with Ben Kvalo, Founder & CEO of Midwest Games, to discuss supporting underserved developers, his journey into the industry, the Madison game community, some favorite projects, and the challenges of starting a new company. We also got into the importance of networking and building genuine connections, persistence, the advantages of working with a publisher, the future of games, and even Skee-Ball.🔮 Available on all the pod players or below on the GDA YouTube channel. 🎧 Game Dev Advice #gameindustry #gamedev #gamepublishing https://lnkd.in/g4intV_s

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Gamified Apps appear to be the future, and generally hold my interest longer than most f2p games today. Has anyone tried or interested to try and build something new, specifically around gamified health & fitness apps? Would love to hear your experience or interest to explore something. Drop me a DM. #gamifiedapplications

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This is Not Fortnite Usual this Is Unreal Engine Fortnite Creative BlackPoint Studios In North Carolina Game we are developing on Fornite. (Blackpoint BR) As the Regional Director for Blackpoint Studios and someone that genuinely has a passion for all facades of video games and Esports is cool to the see the growth of developing a video game using Epic Games Unreal Engine Fornite Creative eventually. People all over the state will give us feedback on the game and we will listen to the feedback and develop game even better. Our goal is to get an Epic Games MegaGrant & additional funding to devlop (Blackpoint BR) on the Unreal Engine. Helping develop infrastructure and definitely need opportunities have helped build the confidence in Epic Games & Fortnite & the value of experience it can bring to a city, county, state a nation, internationally, globally. If didn’t develop the Jump Ahead Esports competitions and go Chicago to the Esports Trade association I wouldn’t be in this position. Developing video games on Fortnite that will be on PS5, PC, Xbox, Steam, Nintendo. One day Blackpoint is going to be a global video game studio creating that longevity the video game industry, and Esports industry needs. #GlobalGoals #EpicGames #UnrealEngine #Fortnite #Economics #Blackpoint #VideoGames #Esports #Billions #PS5 #PC #xbox #Steam #GameDesign #FortniteCreative

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BR1: INFINITE is a real money shooting game based in USD. Pay $1 to spawn and earn $1 for every elimination in-game, servers range from $0 - $10, (i.e. if you play in the $0.25 game mode it costs $0.25 per spawn and you earn $0.25 per elimination). Think about it as the overlap of the 'ante up' nature of poker, crossed with traditional shooting games. Functions are designed not just for gamers, but for game investors who will never play the game but instead manage athletes. - Stake athletes entries in games and automatically get a fixed % of their earnings. - Rent out in-game assets that give players an increased earnings bonus in-game. Here's a sneak peak from the beta, what do you think? 👇

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🎮 LinkedIn, I have an important question for the #gamingcommunity… This has come up in several conversations over the past few months, and I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you're in the region or planning to set up your game studio here, what’s the best approach to secure funding? 🤔 💰 How do we reach Series A funding in Dubai? 🎯 Who are the key investors to approach, and which ones are already active in the region? I’ve spoken with a number of people recently, all working on different types of games, and this question keeps popping up. 📢 Who are the right people to connect with for this journey? From my experience, here are some things to consider, but I’m curious if I’m missing anything: 🏛️ Government Support: Dubai’s gaming industry is booming! Organizations like the DUBAI FUTURE FOUNDATION and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority provide grants and support to startups. 💼 Regional Investors: Investors focused on tech, gaming, and entertainment like MENA Venture Investments, Wamda Capital, and BECO Capital are active in the region and may be interested in gaming projects, particularly in mobile or AR/VR. 🌍 International Players: Global investors like Tencent and Epic Games Ventures have shown interest in the Middle East. Expanding your search beyond the region could unlock significant opportunities. 🎟️ Networking Hubs: Local events like Dubai World Game Expo and Dubai Esports and Games Festival are perfect for connecting with potential investors and key industry players. 🚀 Clear Vision: Investors here are looking for strong monetization strategies and scalability. Make sure your pitch highlights how your game can grow in the long term. 💡 What do you think? Feel free to add any insights or suggestions I might have missed in the comments! 👇 #funding #investment

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Voodoo's Cup Heroes already scaled to $60K a day 🤑 in IAP only and 100K downloads a day. The game has been constantly growing from its soft-launch in February making probably more than $3 Mil. in last 30 days altogether. This seems as another major Hybridcasual hit for Voodoo, as it already overtook Block Jam 3D and its on its way to catch up to Mob Control. Ironically it has the Mob Control math gates ➗ core built into it, which seems as an obvious choice to iterate upon. 2 months before its launch there was Bag Fight in Voodoo's portfolio, a game that iterated upon the Backpack hero successful Steam game. Cup Heroes took its top visualization and 2 phase core setup and replaced the inventory merging mechanic with the tried and tested Mob Control gates. But don't be fooled, the biggest and the most important iteration is actually the rogue lite skill randomizer. Here skills are picked at the end of each wave as there is no level in the game. You also need to pay the balls currency to get them, in contrast to the usual setup, where these are given for free, each time you level up. This offers a lot of places for ad placements, and I mean a lot 😅, with possibilities to refresh the skills, get a specific skill for and ad, get all 3 skills for an ad, revive, etc. On top of it you also have interstitials popping in your face. The core gameplay itself is also very interesting as the combat happens automatically on top of the screen with no player input. After you kill the enemies and they drop some balls you need to select where do you want to drop them, so that mathematically, they will multiply as much as possible, so you can then buy skills with them in the last 3rd step, then the core repeats. Join us as we talk about all of this with Felix & Matej 🦩 😎. Data based on Sensor Tower, thanks for the support 🤗 📺 Watch on YouTube: Link in the comments 🎧 Listen on Spotify: Link in the comments 🗣 Join the discussion on our slack channel: https://lnkd.in/eZXJ2Une #gamedev #gameindustry #mobilegames #gamedesign  #mobilegaming #mobilegamedevelopment #useracquisition #gameproduction #games #gamedevelopment #mobiledeveloper  #userexperience #hypercasual #hybridcasual

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Whatup LI fam- I gotta story to tell. What if I told you that a man that had -No recognizable background in gaming. ❌ -No history of competitive esports. (Tournament appearances, let alone wins) -No history of being esports talent (Caster, Host, Etc) 🎙️❌ -No history of tournament organization (T.O., Governing body) 📃🎮❌ Would come into the gaming space and raise more than 100M in funding for a gaming company in under ONE YEAR. 🤯 What if I had told you in that same year he'd have a biography written about him and how he "FOREVER changed the esports industry". 📚 What if I told you Diddy wrote the foreword in this book. 🖊️ What if I told you everything I say next is coming from an INSIDE source because they tried to hire ME as the Marketing Director? ✅ With all your years in the gaming space. Genuinely trying to help people and the industry grow.....What would you think? Now. What if I never told you? There's more to this story and I'm gonna tell you more soon enough. #Esports #Gaming #Culture #Industryplants #Playvs

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📊 Games & Numbers (04.09.24 - 17.09.24) 🎮 PC/console games ◾️Sales of Black Myth: Wukong surpassed 18 million copies in just two weeks. This was reported by Daniel Wu, one of the founders of Hero Games, the largest shareholder of the game's developers. According to him, the game's development cost $70 million and took 6 years. ◾️Street Fighter 6 sales reached 4 million copies across all platforms. The total sales of the series as of the end of the first half of 2024 stand at 55 million. ◾️Sales of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 are approaching 3 million copies, earning more than all other Warhammer universe games combined in 2023. ◾️Harrison Froschke, Senior Product Manager at Blizzard Entertainment, revealed on his LinkedIn the revenue of Diablo IV. The game has surpassed $1 billion in earnings, with $150 million coming from microtransactions. Blizzard had officially reported that the game earned $666 million in its first 5 days of sales. ◾️More than 1 million people have played Citizen Sleeper. The studio and publisher (Fellow Traveller) proudly shared this on their social media. ◾️Released on August 15, shapez 2 has already sold 260,000 copies. In the first week, the game was purchased 70,500 times. It launched with 330,000 wishlist entries. ◾️Earth Defence Force 6, released in September 2022, has sold 550,000 copies in two years. 📱Mobile games ◾️According to Appfigures, the gross revenue of Royal Match has reached $3 billion. The previous billion was achieved in January this year, and the game has surpassed 300 million downloads. ◾️Sensor Tower reports that The Last War: Survival has earned over $900 million since its release. 30.4% of that amount came from the US, 22.9% from South Korea, and 12.4% from Japan. The RPD (revenue per download) in South Korea is $53, the highest among all countries. Additionally, The Last War: Survival accounts for 30% of the revenue from strategy games in South Korea. ◾️In its first year, Monster Hunter Now has earned over $225 million, according to data from AppMagic. ◾️Trivia Crack by Etermax has been downloaded more than 800 million times. It took 11 years to reach this milestone. ◾️Using AppMagic, mobilegamer.biz found that games from Netflix Games have been downloaded more than 210 million times. The leader is GTA: San Andreas with 25.2 million downloads. ◾️Infinity Nikki by Infold Games has surpassed 14 million pre-registrations. The game, in addition to mobile platforms, will also be released on PlayStation 5 and PC. All the links to the sources are here: https://lnkd.in/dnGv8H-c

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Another stack of resources and layoff support compiled by the incredible Mayank Grover! If you need support or have some to offer, connect and boost that vis so every ship can benefit from the tide. 🙌🌊🙌 #gamedev #games #layoff #support #job #resources #mentors

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Sumo Digital announced a 15% cut in its workforce, roughly impacting 250 individuals. Among these 250 individuals was the team of Timbre Games, which also confirmed that the studio was being shut down. Timbre Games was founded in 2021 and made a part of Pipework Studios. Although Timbre had yet to launch any games, its website indicates that it was in the middle of two game projects. Unfortunately, game developers face more loss than the parent company when something like this happens. Who knows how Timbre's team might be coping after putting in millions of efforts to build the games and losing everything in a single blink? In their support, this is list 2 of some of the Timbreeos who were impacted by the closure. Every bit from the community counts, so requesting you all to help this reach recruiters and game studios currently hiring. Sophie Mallinson — In 2017, she was Arkane Studios' (Lyon) Narrative Designer who worked on Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Wolfenstein: Youngblood. By 2019, she had become a Principal Narrative Designer for Arkane's Deathloop. It is quite interesting to note that after Arkane, she went on to work for EA on Star Wars and later for EA's own studio - Maxis Studios on The Sims Series. Nadia Lohan — With over a decade's worth of experience in Production, before Timbre, Nadia was a Producer at Blackbird Interactive and worked on Minecraft Legends. Notably, she has experience in the VFX industry and coordinated for blockbusters like Mulan, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Maleficent. Vivek Ramkumar — Here's a talented Game Designer who has worked on titles like Sleeping Dogs and Tryst, built his own first-person indie game, and has experience in LiveOps Design. Prior to Timbre, he was a senior Technical Designer for Relic Entertainment. Gerritt Turner — Before Timbre, Gerritt worked at Wizards of the Coast on a lot of Magic: The Gathering's writing, designing and overall creative. They even have an experience in Brand Writing for Hasbro. Yuliia Bocharova — Prior to Timbre, she was a Lead 3D Artist for Blackbird Interactive and worked there for 3+ years. You should check out her ArtStation portfolio: https://lnkd.in/gKEwykG5 Vincent-Gabriel Canadian — A talented VFX Artist who has worked for Studios like Frima, Behaviour Interactive, and Nesting Games. Vincent specializes in real-time VFX for video games! #layoffsupport

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This release serves as evidence of a trend predicted by us. They days of behemoth poker platforms with an endless sea of playable alternatives are over. To be relevant, poker needs to conceptually and technically be spliced into different experiences - each with its own set of USPs and motivations for playing. And then those separate games need to be distributed accordingly. Just like individual slots. That they are PvP experiences doesn't change this.

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E98: Level Up Your Gaming Studio: Unlocking the Power of Performance Improvement Plans Listen here 👉 https://lttr.ai/AWfSe #PerformanceImprovementPlans #GamingStudio #WeekSEpisode #Pressstartleadership #FreeEbook #pressstartleadership #Leadership

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Supercell's Squad Busters released a major update last week. All of the consumables including MEGAs, 3 types of keys and rerolls were removed from the game 😱. Baseline revenue of around $250K a day increased to $500K during the update. The DAU that was on decline now finally stabilized on around 1,5 Million DAU and is slightly increasing. Here is a summary of what you need to know 😎: All of the consumables were considered “pay to win”, by the community as they gave players, who use them a really big competitive advantage over other players ⚔. All of the MEGAs were turned into actual character skins together with the introduction of new cosmetic only currency style tickets. The game now puts much more emphasis into cosmetics now with the introduction of Super Rare skins 💎, which have their own emotes. The Lucky Find 🍀 comeback mechanic was iterated, now it gives a random fusion from your team instead of a MEGA unit, and can happen more often. This iteration is also a return to the standard roguelite feature set, as this gives the player a clear boost to finish his current build instead of getting a completely new character. In Survivor.io 🧟‍♂️, there are chests that drop from elite monsters, which exactly do this, an upgrade to a skill that the player has already acquired, in order to help him finish his build towards the end of the game. Rerolls now can be used 3 times per match by default. The other interesting iteration was done on the chest 🎁 multiplier mechanic, which was time based and now can be turned on and turned off based on players choice. It gives 2x, 3x and 4x multipliers on characters given through chests after the battles. I think this is just the first of multiple major changes that we will see down the line. I guess that the next change will concern different rewards for PvP wins making it more viable as a strategy towards win condition and adding a more impactful metagame layer in order to improve the D30 retention of the game. Join us as we talk about all of these with Matej 🦩, no ads no Felix this time 🐼. Data based on Sensor Tower Thanks for the support 🤗 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dmUi2JMu 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/da9dcen3 🗣 Join the discussion on our slack channel: https://lnkd.in/eZXJ2Une #gamedev #gameindustry #mobilegames #gamedesign #midcore #moba #multiplayer #mobilegaming #mobilegamedevelopment #useracquisition #gameproduction #games #gamedevelopment #mobiledeveloper #userexperience

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Governments Target Gaming Addiction with Time Limits & Spend Curbs Is gaming getting out of hand? Governments are exploring: * Time caps to limit gaming sessions (like China's 1 hour rule for minors) * Spend restrictions to curb in-game purchases Read here: https://lnkd.in/dPeGfejh #GamingAddiction #DigitalWellness #GameCloud #LolzSoft

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In 2024, approximately 8,800 individuals within the video game industry have been laid off, following a previous year's record-breaking figure of 10,500 job losses. If you have been affected, know this: 1. It is not your fault 2. Since you are reading this on LinkedIn, you can take steps to make it easier for you to be discovered by those hiring. Recruiters on LinkedIn may use a sourcing tool called "LinkedIn Recruiter". LI Recruiter is designed specifically for recruiters and hiring professionals to find, connect with, and manage potential candidates on the LinkedIn platform. To improve the chances of you showing up to anyone using LinkedIn Recruiter, therefore reaching out to you, apply the following: ➤ On your profile, go to Open to ⇢ Finding new job ⇢ Recruiters only ➤ Adjust your LinkedIn headline to the following format to help out with search engine optimization: Current/Target Role | Keywords and Top Skills| X Factor | Big Win Thanks Richard King for sharing details on the LinkedIn Recruiter tool. If there are other suggestions, would love to hear them. As always, work with the algorithm, not against it.

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Web3 skeptics keep asking: "What’s the point of owning gaming assets?" Here’s my answer: 🎮 Imagine selling your CoD skin for $2,000. 🎮 Imagine your Fortnite grind funding your rent. 🎮 Imagine your 100+ hours of gaming turning into actual wealth. The old gaming model is DEAD. The future belongs to players who own their grind, their loot, and their in-game economy. The shift is happening right now. Are you ready to embrace it? 👇 Drop the gaming grind you’d love to monetize in the comments. Let’s hear your story. #BlockchainGaming #Web3Revolution #PlayToOwn #GamingEconomy

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Looking to get into to our lovely world of esports? Well, here are three things to consider before you do: 1️⃣ Don't come for the money. Ever. While it may sound from the outside that this amazing and hyped industry is going to be your new cash cow, it most likely isn't. Firstly because esports is in a maturity phase, where it's about building sensible business growth, rather than unlimited spending. There's tons of opportunity, revenues and risk willing capital coming back into the space, but that risk doesn't translate into a frenzy of bad decisions - it's about smart spending, and keeping the P&L in check is a major component for any esports entity. And secondly, you'll fail if you only focus on getting good money for yourself. Esports is built from grassroots, community and passion - you need to have true grit and ambition to come and make a long lasting difference to get something out of it, and salaries are much lower than in other hyped industries. 2️⃣ We don't need more advice - we need people who execute. There's a million exciting things to do in esports, and we are lovely interconnected ecosystem of various stakeholders and nuanced mechanics. It's easy to come from the outside and think you've seen the holy grail, but 99% of the time it ends up being a generic idea to a problem that needs to be solved over time, through strategic partnerships and smart collaborative development - and people that don't know how to actually get there, will only cause more work for the people already trying to fix the problems. Don't get me wrong, it's great with outside perspective to try new approaches, but it's a real case of show, don't tell. Boots on the ground leadership is a real commodity in this space. 3️⃣ Truly engage with the industry - don't just pretend Goto an event - feel the excitement of the arena. Understand why League of Legends is different than Counter-Strike, why Roblox isn't just one game and how an actual competitive esports circuit works. Understand the publishers behind the games, the money flow, the people, the teams and the history. Capable people from other industries coming in, and truly taking note of wanting to learn what this is and how it keeps evolving, will severely leapfrog others trying to make a career happen in esports. Seek advice, goto conferences and figure out the sweet spot in where you can apply your specific skillset in a way that can apply the maximum value. We're on a constant growth journey, and the more we develop the more people we will need - and I promise it's going to be worth your while if you stick around. I love esports and I love where it's all heading, and I have never been in a more vivid and engaging industry with this many fun opportunities and smart people from all over the world where ever you may go. Truly a playground for the dreamers out there. Let's get to work! 🚀 #esports #gaming #people #recruitment #entrepreneurship

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Last week, we hosted an Economy Roundtable featuring industry expert Phillip Black, focusing on the mechanics behind Jackpot Party's remarkable success in the competitive casino app market. The discussion produced several key insights on the app's sustained growth and innovative monetization strategies. Phillip Black highlighted a particularly interesting aspect of the app's economy: the use of safety net in-app purchases (IAPs) that encourage players to spend to zero frequently, creating a cycle of engagement and monetization. We also discussed the challenges of implementing battle passes in casino apps. While popular in other genres, battle passes in casino games require careful balancing to avoid cannibalizing IAP spend. Lastly, Phillip educated us on how mature casino apps like Jackpot Party can leverage multi-armed bandit algorithms to continuously test and optimize IAPs. This data-driven approach allows developers to identify and promote the most successful offerings, ensuring the game's economy remains dynamic and responsive to player preferences. For subscribing members, this discussion was recorded and our next one is already schedule for later this month. DM for details. #GameEconomics #MobileGaming #CasinoApps #MonetizationStrategy

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Last week, we learned that gaming giant Zynga apparently abandoned its web3 project: Sugartown. What happened? There was no press release or other notice aside from the tweet below, but the founders of Sugartown hyped up Zynga’s divestment here as a “historical moment” and a great acquisition. I think otherwise. The whole reason I liked Sugartown was the fact that Zynga was involved. But, similar to Dimensionals, this is yet another case study of web2 executives that have no clue what they’re doing in web3 gaming, aside from following the hype-train. In August 2023, Zynga announced the project and built up anticipation for a free mint, which was slated for September 2023. Here's why I think they left: 1.) They did a free mint. In general, free mints are a bad idea. These typically invite the wrong kind of holders (primarily, value extractors), as well as lots of bots that scoop up most of the supply. In addition, by giving these assets away for free, they missed a big revenue opportunity that a proper sale can bring in. 2.) No new product, plus token gating. After their free mint, Zynga then hyped up their product launch. I’m sure many in the industry like myself were hoping they were going to do something big and new. Unfortunately, not. What Zynga did was apparently launched a bunch of shelved games in their back-catalog that they weren’t using and put them all under this Sugartown brand. Or at least I think that’s what happened from what I saw on YouTube. I wouldn’t know because THEY TOKEN GATED THEIR GAMES!! For those that don’t understand, this means that you had to own one of their NFTs to play their games, meaning they limited access to their less than 9,999 holders; which is a massive mistake. Any entrepreneur can understand that you don’t want to limit your user base. Period. You need an accessible version of your product for everyone, even if there are aspects of that you want to limit to particular users & NFT holders. 3.) Due to their decisions above, they boxed themselves in, leaving them with no path to revenue. They could've cashed in if they developed a fresh new game here with proper monetization, as we know they have the expertise to do so. And, they could've cashed in with a proper mint, or even launching a token. But, they didn't sell anything, they didn't launch a token, and they didn't create any new game or IP. Overall, I think this was a huge missed opportunity for Zynga, and a net loss for the web3 gaming space. I can't but help to think they were horribly misled here by people that don't understand crypto gaming. Ps, I’m sure there were other reasons they divested this project – there’s lots of legal concerns in crypto – but there’s currently no official statement from Zynga so we’re only left to speculate. #gaming #web3gaming #zynga _____ Follow Joseph Rubin for more on gaming & tech. 🎮

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