This book unveils the secrets of extraordinarily successful games and hands you a smarter way to create exceptional engagement and convert it into revenue. It teaches you detailed LiveOps techniques that show you how to keep your game appealing through engaging events, personalized experiences, and smart monetization. You’ll discover the "3 LAPs of Operations" framework—a dynamic, question-driven process that you can implement to systematically boost retention and achieve your game's financial goals. The book delves into the intricate business of live service games, explaining how to enhance your operational efficiency with precise toolset implementations and analytics. While some studio leaders merely talk about "riding the trend", this approach is far too passive. Embrace the shift towards people-driven game development, where your players evolve from mere consumers into active co-creators. This transformation allows you to construct your own trend, known as People's LiveOps, where you engage your most devoted fans and offer them opportunities to earn a living through their creations. Essential for professionals in live service games, this book is also invaluable for aspiring talents and seasoned experts aiming to enter or excel in the gaming industry.

Learn how to create compelling game storylines. Four experienced narrative designers from different genres of game development have banded together to create this all-inclusive guide on what it's like to work as a writer and narrative designer in the video game industry. From concept to final testing, The Game Narrative Toolbox walks readers through what role a narrative designer plays on a development team and what the requirements are at every stage of development. Drawing on real experiences, authors Tobias Heussner, Toiya Kristen Finley, PhD, Ann Lemay, and Jennifer Brandes Hepler provide invaluable advice for writing compelling player-centered stories and effective dialogue trees to help readers make the switch from writing prose or screenplay to interactive. Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition includes updated content reflecting the industry’s latest developments. In addition to revised and updated chapters, this new edition features two additional chapters covering more advanced topics that are applicable to the lessons learned from the original chapters. Accompanying every chapter are exercises that allow the reader to develop their own documentation, outlines, and game-dialogue samples for use in applying for industry jobs or developing independent projects.

Game Design Deep Dive: Free-to-Play (F2P) continues the series’ focus on examining genres with a look at the history and methodology behind free-to-play and mobile games. The genre is one of the most lucrative and controversial in the industry. Josh Bycer lays out not only the potential and pitfalls of this design but also explores the ethics behind good and bad monetization. This book offers: A comprehensive look at the practices behind the most popular free-to-play and mobile games A detailed talk about the ethics of F2P, and one of the few honest looks at it from both sides of the argument A perfect read for designers, students, or people wanting to educate themselves about the practices of the genre Joshua Bycer is a Game Design Critic with more than seven years of experience critically analyzing game design and the industry itself. In that time, through Game-Wisdom.com, he has interviewed hundreds of game developers and members of the industry about what it means to design video games.

Unlock efficiency in software development by learning microservices with C#, .NET and Azure Key Features Benefit from step-by-step project-based guidance on how to develop a full-fledged microservices application Gain extensive knowledge of microservices by covering essential concepts, tools, and methodologies Use essential Microsoft Azure cloud-native services and as alternatives for on-premises environments Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionPragmatic Microservices with C# and Azure introduces .NET Aspire for microservices, focusing on defining an app model, utilizing service discovery, and integrating with Azure's native cloud services. Written by a Microsoft MVP and seasoned software architect with over two decades of experience in .NET, this book will help you get to grips with robust service development using .NET features like minimal APIs, gRPC, and SignalR for real-time communication. Aside from covering essential aspects of DevOps, including testing methodologies such as unit, integration, and load testing, you’ll also explore logging and monitoring including OpenTelemetry using tools like Azure Log Analytics, Application Insights, Prometheus, and Grafana. You'll learn about asynchronous communication leveraging queues and events through Azure Event Hub and Apache. Throughout the book, theoretical aspects will be complemented by practical skills gained from building and deploying a fully functional microservices-based application. By the end, you’ll possess a deep understanding of microservices architecture, hands-on experience with various .NET technologies and Azure services, and the ability to design, build, deploy, and manage microservices applications effectively in both on-premises and cloud environments.What you will learn Understand the advantages and practical applications of microservices Utilize the cloud-ready .NET Aspire stack and tools for efficient development Create robust RESTful APIs using ASP.NET Core minimal APIs Implement seamless database integration with both relational and NoSQL databases Containerize microservices with Docker for better scalability and management Deploy microservices to the Azure Container Apps environment and Kubernetes for robust cloud solutions Implement logging, metrics, and distributed tracing to ensure reliability and performance Who this book is for This book is for software developers, architects, and engineers who are interested in adopting microservices architecture using the .NET framework and Microsoft Azure. Both intermediate and advanced developers who have a foundational understanding of C#, ASP.NET Core, and cloud computing concepts will find this book helpful.

In the last decade our mobile phones have been infiltrated by angry birds, our computers by leagues of legends and our social networks by pleas for help down on the farm. As digital games have become networked, mobile and casual they have become a pervasive cultural form. Based on original empirical work, including interviews with workers, virtual ethnographies in online games and analysis of industry related documents, Global Games provides a political, economic and sociological analysis of the growth and restructuring of the digital games industry over the past decade. Situating the games industry as both cultural and creative and examining the relative growth of console, PC, online and mobile, Aphra Kerr analyses the core production logics in the industry, and the expansion of circulation processes as game services have developed. In an industry dominated by North American and Japanese companies, Kerr explores the recent success of companies from China and Europe, and the emergent spatial politics as countries, cities, companies and communities compete to reshape digital games in the networked age.

Arm yourself with the practical skills and cutting-edge insights necessary to successfully design captivating games across a variety of genres and platforms with the help of this part-color guide Key Features Master the skills, processes, and techniques essential for working in a professional setting Grasp the core principles and processes of level design, world building, and storytelling Design, implement, and refine high-quality features and mechanics for contemporary video games Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionIf you’re in search of a cutting-edge actionable guide to game design, your quest ends here! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with expert guidance from veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms. The second edition of this book remains dedicated to its original goal of helping you master the fundamentals of game design in a practical manner with the addition of some of the latest trends in game design and a whole lot of fresh, real-world examples from games of the current generation. This update brings a new chapter on games as a service, explaining the evolving role of the game designer and diving deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever. From conceptualizing a game idea, you’ll gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games, exploring the craft of producing original game mechanics, and eliminating anticipated design risks through testing. You’ll then be introduced to level design, interactive storytelling, user experience and accessibility. By the end of this game design book, you’ll have learned how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing free-to-play games and games as a service, and significantly improve their quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.What you will learn Define the scope and structure of a game project Conceptualize a game idea and present it to others Design gameplay systems and communicate them clearly and thoroughly Build and validate engaging game mechanics Design successful games as a service and prepare them for live operations Improve the quality of a game through playtesting and meticulous polishing Who this book is for Whether you are a student eager to design your very first game or a game designer looking to expand your skill set, this book will help you master the fundamentals of game design across all stages of game development. With a focus on best practices and a pragmatic approach, Practical Game Design offers insights into the art and craft of game design from two senior game designers, with insider knowledge that even veterans will find valuable. While prior experience with game development is not absolutely necessary, having basic knowledge of popular video games will prove helpful.