Dara Kong

At the heart of EVERYWHERE is ARCADIA! ARCADIA is our building tools, self-publishing system, and library of assets and community-made content. Check the basics of building in ARCADIA out in the video below! #gamedev #UGC #gamedevjobs

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Building apps with embedded analytics shouldn't be complicated. Meet Synthia, the Compose SDK AI assistant by Sisense. 🛠️ Here’s what makes Synthia a game-changer: 1️⃣ Real-Time Assistance: Get immediate guidance, from onboarding to advanced troubleshooting. 2️⃣ Plain Language Support: Understands your questions without technical jargon. 3️⃣ Seamless Integration: Built into your existing workflow, enhancing productivity and speeding up development. Want to see how it works? Start your 30-day free trial: https://bit.ly/4dGzK7j #ArtificialIntelligence #SaaS #DataScience

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Exciting news for app builders! Check out this insightful blog post on the new Compose SDK AI Assistant by Sisense. Seamless integration and enhanced capabilities are just the beginning. Dive in to see how you can elevate your app development game!

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After over 10 years as a Technical Director in the video game industry, I’ve realized that real progress often comes from questioning old habits and exploring new frontiers. I’ve worked on everything from small indie gems to AAA blockbusters, taught budding devs, and guided teams through complex technical challenges. Now, I’m ready for a fresh adventure, maybe in a new feild, or maybe still in gaming, if it sparks my curiosity. The size of the company doesn’t matter; I’m driven by the thrill of tackling tough questions, working with curious minds, and never stopping my own growth. I’m also up for relocating anywhere, new horizons keep me inspired 🛩. If you’re looking for someone who blends hands-on tech expertise, leadership experience, and a thoughtful approach to innovation, let’s chat. I’d love to see how I can help your team tackle its next challenge 🙌 #NewHorizons #TechDirector #OpenForOpportunities #KeepGrowing #HeadHunter #VPTech #TechnicalProducer #OpenForWork

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What's happening in our industry is the combination of a lot of factors. But I firmly believe that team sizes are too big. Dev cycles are too long. Scopes are too large. As long as our industry only has a taste for massive bets, we will continue to see many massive failures. IMO we need to get back to 3 year dev cycles, core team sizes of 40-70, boosted by contractors or codev teams as they move into the last 12-18 months of development. We need to make games that aren't trying to be everything to everyone. We need to accept that making "the next Fortnite" is a lot harder than just making a good game, because you're not selling someone a new game in that case, you're attempting to replace their community. We need to make games with smaller teams of experienced and fast developers, hunt for hits, then bet big on expanding the hits when they're found.

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Not mentioned in this post, but you could also not ask for a better manager and advocate than Emily!

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It is awful. Truly awful. Around 15% of Intel Corporation's staff (meaning over 15,000 people) are facing layoffs this year. I want to provide as much support as I can about this happening. I know that Intel is not a games studio, but the amount of support they are giving games studios is not to be under-estimated. When I worked at other games studios in the past, we had wonderful working relationships with them, getting support through driver optimisations, supporting technical tests, even offering to feature our games on their network and providing exclusive access to gamers to our closed alpha or closed beta tests. This kind of relationship was special. Regardless of which areas of Intel are going to feel layoffs, with 15% of the workforce, that will be felt everywhere in the organisation. Those of you who worked even remotely in gaming, please make use of my resources below: 🥇First, reach out to us at People Can Fly Studio, we have many roles open right now in Canada, the UK, Ireland and Europe, please check them out here: https://lnkd.in/eWpV5PbA 🥈Next, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past months I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines, and I would urge you to check them out, if anything just to see what would be available to you: https://lnkd.in/eWvkdYjk You can find over 6,000 jobs there. 🥉 Third, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ I urge you to check out the areas in particular about CV support and mentoring, as these will help you no matter what industry you are hailing from or are looking into going next. 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #intel #layoffs

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TONIGHT AT 6:30 PM join us for an improvised version of PVP Circuit and help us rebuild our local community brick by brick. I still can't believe I get to work in the video game industry. My 6-year-old would laugh, and then cry once she realized what it means to work in the creative technology sector. That's why IMO everyone could use some levity during these unprecedented times. Join us for a fun evening to raise funds for the Trevor Project. Event link >>> https://lnkd.in/g7tBuP6d Frequently Asked Questions: What if I can't attend the event? - If you can't make it, please consider purchasing a ticket to help us raise money for charity or get one on behalf of someone impacted by layoffs. What if I want to join but can't justify the cost? - If you want to join but find the cost prohibitive, DM me and we'll make it happen (see point above). Do I have to pitch at the event? - No, you don't have to pitch if you prefer to observe. It’s a great way to see how it's done. Will there be another event like this? - We plan to host our community again, but I can't specify if this event will be the focus. #gamesindustry #event #comedy <3

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DeamPlus Games Earned $12M+ IAP Revenue Amids “Hoa Hoa Hoa” Season 🍂 Game of Vampires: Twilight Sun, an empire-building RPG, is the ultimate vampire fantasy brought to life. 🌘 Gothic castles, luxurious dark interiors, a spooky atmosphere — and a ton of pop-culture references! From Twilight and The Vampire Diaries to Blade and The Addams Family — this game is packed with nostalgic nods that resonate with players through its ASO, ad creatives, and character design. 🧛‍♂️🏰 The right timing and a touch of luck drive this success even further: with the game’s global launch, the unexpected revival of the Twilight franchise came into play! Millennials are fueling it with nostalgia, while Gen Z is having fun with those cringy moments the old movies have. ✨🧛‍♀️ For a deep dive into this phenomenon and the insights game developers can draw from it, check out Diana Levintova's fantastic article for AppMagic. Halloween couldn’t be a better time to dive into the industry insights, spooky vibes, and, of course, “hoa hoa hoa” 🎃👻 Link in the comments! 👇

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Pusoy Zingplay gift code: How to receive and use correctly Pusoy Zingplay Gift Code - Don't miss to pay attention to the gift code found in Pusoy Zingplay! Find out where to receive it. #PusoyZingplayGiftCode #Pusoy_Zingplay_Gift_Code

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ICYMI Tales of Kenzera: ZAU received a patch that includes a couple accessibility improvements. Additional difficulty options are available and can be adjusted at any point, and players can skip chase sequences. Check out the Electronic Arts (EA) Accessibility Portal to learn more. Proud of game developers at Surgent Studios for considering accessibility often. It's a journey where there is always room for improvement. Let's keep making games more accessible together 🤟❤️ #GameAccessibility #InclusiveDesign #AccessibilityMatters https://lnkd.in/gpqGw8XB

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Inclusive design, as defined by Google, involves methodologies that create products accessible to people of all backgrounds and abilities. My exploration of this concept began with conversations with Women in Games deepened through insights from Jenna "Jennissary" and Améliane F. C., and expanded during a memorable podcast episode with Community Clubhouse Worldwide. This episode (coming soon!) which is community focused features an amazing panel that included the insightful Anna Wright. The benefits of adopting inclusive design are clear: it opens our games to a broader audience, enhances the user experience, and expands market reach. Yet, its implementation is not as widespread as one might expect. This realization sparked a question: Why isn't inclusive design more universally embraced within the industry? It's a question I'm keen to explore further, as we consider the vast potential that inclusivity holds for gaming. #inclusivedesign

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Finished updating some of my games. I wanted to "future-proof" them because some of them didn't work correctly on different computers or felt too slow. https://lnkd.in/gqjkhjBw Wanted to fix problems because of different computers. Fixed velocity for different computers and better spawns so you don't get overwhelmed in the first few seconds https://lnkd.in/gx7wNZYD Wanted to give faster game feel. Made shop cheaper and screen smaller. https://lnkd.in/gbCNxf_6 Make game easier and more likely to see special enemies. Special enemies spawn earlier and have less asteroids to not overwhelm player. Didn't need to update this one because I thought the screen wrapping was wrong but it actually wasn't. https://lnkd.in/gXz7K22Y Tried to make game more difficult. Made enemies spawn quicker because they spawned really late before. Also made bride faster so https://lnkd.in/g_H7irrB Wanted it to actually be a mini game collection instead of just 2 games. Added 2 more mini-games and instructions for the controls and sped up spawns for "trash game".

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Awful news today with Skydance Interactive having gone through a round of layoffs last week. My dear friend Scott Fine announced the news today, sharing the news and the profiles of those affected in a heartfelt post: https://lnkd.in/ex4BnyrX To those impacted please check out the following resources: 🥇First, reach out to us at People Can Fly Studio, we have many roles open right now in Canada, the UK, Ireland and Europe, please check them out here: https://lnkd.in/eWpV5PbA 🥈Next, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past months I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines, and I would urge you to check them out, if anything just to see what would be available to you: https://lnkd.in/epvmzDW6 You can find over 6,300 jobs there. 🥉 Third, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ I urge you to check out the areas in particular about CV support and mentoring, as these will help you no matter what industry you are hailing from or are looking into going next. 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #skydanceinteractive #layoffs

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Laws of game Dev (Proposed) #6: Do your own ports In this day there is significantly less reason for any teams to not be doing their own console ports. Once upon a time porting meant: - Acquiring rare and very expensive console dev kits and their even more expensive and rare profiling hardware version. - Rewriting large chunks of your engine in custom assembly after learning a brand new CPU's instruction set. - Learning completely new pipeline of custom compilers, converters, packaging, burners, OS's, quite often it involved building entirely new workflow per console. - Writing a completely new rendering path for a custom (read 10 years behind) and under performing graphics chips with limited memory. - Doing instruction pipelining in your head because compilers were 1 offs and had the optimization abilities of the DMV, or CPU didn't even have L2 cache. - Trying to transfer your audio engine over to the least expensive chip they recycled from returned Sony camcorders. - Packing and compressing all your data into a single 1GB continuous files so entire game could be read off a DVD with only 3 seeks. - Testing against 100's of unique TCR's and packaging your submission just right to not get a tech Failure. These were the days when the port team was 1/3 - 1/2 the size of the original team and it was were you sent the hardcore or the people you were trying to managing out. Crunching full sized PC games down to something that would even fit and run well on consoles was not exciting or glamorous. It was just waking up every day and eating glass until all the bugs had been filed on the new SDK, the code was a sea of #ifdef's and you stripped enough out that the game is no longer effectively a slide show. Today things are very different:   - All consoles are supported by Linux or Windows.   - The CPU / GPU is almost all AMD.   - The memory delta is no longer 20x but now 2x.   - Middleware is a thing on consoles.   - Most commercial engines natively support all platforms, their workflows, submissions and TCR's. Thus the majority that is left for the developers now is:   - Select new platform in project type.   - Make the games' input system still feel intuitive on controllers.   - Pick a bunch of LOD and detail setting until game runs at desired FPS.   - Hack on the UI until it fits inside TV safe zones & still looks good.   - Maybe add in support HDR. It is no longer entire teams but often just a few people can now kick out the console versions if the game is designed with porting in mind.   And there is the crux of the issue, if the team making the game has never done the ports, they will not understand the impact their decisions are making on it. These teams often do create hack projects that are significantly harder to port than they should be. Thus unless your working on a custom engine that has never been ported to the platform, train your team up and have them do their own console ports.

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Want your XR app to have the best user experience? Performance monitoring tools are key to identifying bottlenecks & optimizing performance. Here's how to leverage them effectively 🧵 1/ First, establish KPIs to track for your XR app. Frame rate, GPU utilization, memory usage, load times are all critical metrics. The right tool will monitor these in real-time as users interact with your app. 2/ For VR, aim for a stable 90 FPS to avoid motion sickness. AR apps should target 60 FPS. Monitor frame rates under various conditions (low power mode, heavy usage) to gauge real-world performance. Tools like Intel GPA are ideal for this. 3/ GPU utilization is another key metric, especially for graphics-heavy XR apps. You want the GPU working hard but not constantly maxed out. Tools like Unity Profiler or Unreal Insights identify GPU-intensive areas to optimize. 4/ Memory management is crucial in XR to avoid crashes & stutters. Track memory usage/leaks over time with tools like Visual Studio or Xcode. Look for assets/areas using excessive memory and optimize resource loading. 5/ Don't forget to monitor load times, especially for asset-rich XR apps. Use profiling tools to see what's causing long loads - large textures, unoptimized models, too many objects, etc. Optimize based on these insights. 6/ Regularly test on a range of devices to gauge real-world performance. Automated performance tests help identify regressions. Many tools can test XR apps on farms of physical devices for comprehensive insights. 7/ Lastly, don't just rely on tools - actively seek user feedback on app performance. Prompt users to report any slowdowns, stutters, or instability they encounter. Combine this qualitative data with quantitative metrics for the full picture. 8/ Optimization is a pain and a half. But, the upfront effort pays dividends in user experience and engagement. Work on it until no-one mentions stutters or frame drops.

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Paradox Interactive announced today that Double Eleven, the developer behind Prison Architect 2, will be stepping away from the project after nine years with the Prison Architect franchise. Good news first, construction on Prison Architect 2 isn't being halted! Co-development studio Kokku, who's been working on the game since 2023 and previously collaborated with Double Eleven, will take the lead in bringing the sequel to completion. The news comes with a hint of complication. While Prison Architect 2 passed certification, negotiations between Paradox and Double Eleven for continued development reached an impasse. Technical hurdles, particularly with memory usage and minimum specifications, emerged during final testing. Paradox, likely wary of past performance issues (think Cities: Skylines 2), emphasizes their commitment to delivering a high-quality sequel that honors the Prison Architect legacy. Kokku, a Brazilian studio with a history of co-development and outsourcing on major titles like Horizon Forbidden West and Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War, is now at the helm to ensure Prison Architect 2's smooth launch. The Prison Architect series, which began in 2015 with the original simulation/management game, is still on track for a 2024 release with Prison Architect 2. While the development team has shifted, fans can rest assured that work on this highly anticipated sequel continues. (source: https://lnkd.in/dWtBvDhN)

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I've been slowly chipping away at this video the last several months as a way to channel my feelings around the state of the games industry. I translated the list compiled by Obsidian into video format (https://lnkd.in/gG_c63G4), and even though I only gave 2-3 seconds to each layoff, the video ended up OVER ELEVEN MINUTES LONG. FROM 2024 ALONE. I encourage anyone in the games industry to watch the video in its entirety and to sit with the gravitas of the situation. We all have had friends be impacted or been impacted ourselves - many studios shuttered their doors after decades of being open, and several studios had layoffs MULTIPLE times this year. We're about to go into the hiring freeze until the new year and the holidays are going to be extra rough for many of our peers. I hope we collectively land on our feet in 2025 and are able to turn the tides in our favor again and that you all find gainful employment in the new year. I think now, more than ever, it's important for us to continue to make our art and tell our stories. Thank you to all of you for all the work you do.

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