Buildbox CEO, Jonathan Zweig, and Design SVP, Doug Manson, call in to address questions about the company, its game development products and services, and concerns raised in the development community about recent revenue changes for developers.
GameDev
Jesse Attard of Tactic Studios
Tactic Studios developer and CEO, Jesse Attard (BioShock, BioShock 2, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (2006)), calls in for a podcast chat about the studio’s new Portal-style puzzle adventure game, Claire de Lune. We discuss his transition from major AAA teams to heading up an indie studio, parenting at publish time, best pandemic home office purchases, and more.
Christopher Arnold of Crowned Daemon Studios
Christopher Arnold of Crowned Daemon Studios calls in to talk about the studio’s mental health-focused game, Syntherapy, the inspiration behind its development, and its reception in the community.
Our 5 Unanswered Questions for Buildbox
Game dev folks across social media expressed surprise this week as Buildbox announced an upcoming overhaul of its pricing tiers, including a new tier that will leave creators with just 30% of their game revenue. CodeWritePlay covered both the announcement and comments from Buildbox CEO, Jonathan Zweig, that seemed to raise even more questions.
Since that time, Zweig reached out to CodeWritePlay offering direct contact information as well as a discussion about the company’s strategy moving forward. This post is an open record of questions forwarded and received on Wednesday evening, unanswered as of Sunday afternoon.
Buildbox to Claim up to 70% Of User Revenue Soon
“Buildbox is not an engine and we don’t compete with game engines.”
Jonathan Zweig, CEO, Buildbox
Buildbox CEO Jonathan Zweig took to Twitter Tuesday to defend changes to the company’s pricing structure and, apparently, reject Buildbox’s own brand messaging in a series of Tweets that raised many unanswered questions. Here are the changes, Zweig’s comments, and a theory about what might be coming next.
Revisiting the GameDev Workflow Problem
I strongly believe in writing every day—until you publish a book. Now I think it’s pretty important to do something else for a little while. Like a lot of developers (I suspect), I enjoy starting little prototypes from scratch pretty frequently. This seemed like a great way to decompress from months of writing and editing, and so far it’s been very effective! I decided to toy with a 2d retro-inspired scene that could theoretically lead to another run at the cartridge-collecting game idea I’ve been so obsessed with for years. It led to a very pleasant weekend during which I did not obsessively jump from the Amazon book charts to the Kindle dashboard to the search listings and then back to the Amazon charts again.
Michelle Franklin of Recombobulator Games
Accomplished writer Michelle Franklin of Recombobulator Games calls in to discuss cats, floods, and Space Boat, a shiny upcoming narrative adventure game being developed by a team of triple-A industry survivors with credits on Mass Effect 3, DeadSpace 2, Hannah Montana, and more.
GDC Showcase Check-In
Welcome to GDC Showcase week! This is your first podcast check-in from the event. Hear about the sessions so far, including great chats with the legendary Warren Spector and Sucker Punch Productions co-founder Brian Fleming, then get tips for the event and what to keep an eye on for the rest of the week!
Warren Spector on Conspiracy Theories: “I’m Not Sure I’d Make Deus Ex Today”
GDC Showcase is upon us! A combination of live events and pre-recorded presentations with live speaker chats is underway from the 15th through 19th, and the week kicked off with a somber moment from Warren Spector.
Reminder: Terraria Dev’s Google Story Is Not Unusual at All
Terraria co-creator Andrew Spinks is the latest high-profile victim of Google’s ban-first, answer-questions-never approach to creators on its platform, but the problem goes back over a decade.