Books

Devolver Digital has launched a new publishing label focused on indie games inspired by movies, TV shows, comic books, and other entertainment intellectual properties

Yandex has a production center called "Plus Studio." Yesterday, on September 19, this center announced that video games have become another of its strategic directions

Developer Garry Newman announced that his sandbox creation, Garry's Mod, has been immortalized in the Guinness Book of Records. It has sold more copies than any other game released exclusively on PC.

Valve has updated its rules for text descriptions on Steam game pages. The changes should help players “make educated purchasing decisions.”

Mikhail Khripin, a LiveOps expert at Balancy, has prepared a free guide on working with in-game stores. This is a 43-page document that thoroughly covers the elements and nuances of setting up such stores. In turn, we are sharing an excerpt from the book in Russian. It focuses on increasing conversion rates

Valve has unveiled a series of updates regarding the management of game demos on Steam, aimed at enhancing their visibility to potential players. Among the most significant of these changes is the ability for developers to create distinct store pages for their free demos, which can feature screenshots, trailers, and detailed descriptions of the demo's content. These demo pages will automatically link to the full game's store page, encouraging users to wishlist or purchase the game. According to Valve's announcement, creating these pages is optional, and developers can remove them at their discretion. To activate a demo page, developers must provide a complete written description, along with relevant screenshots and tags. This feature is also available for demos that are already on Steam

Valve continues to improve the Steam platform, with the latest update focusing on game demos. The new features offer a complete overhaul of how they work and behave on the store.

There will be more video games based on books. Soon, developers will be able to purchase licenses from the publishing group "Eksmo-AST" for game adaptations of its books

App2Top talked with Roman Gordy, co—founder of the Arbonum service, about the results of relocation in the gaming industry and the most popular geo among Russian developers.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with the gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams. Next up is an interview with Vladimir Obruchev, head of the gaming department at Bombora Publishing house.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with gaming (or related to the gaming industry) teams. Next up is an interview with Kirill and Roman Gursky, managing directors of the gaming business of the GEM Capital investment group.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 together with the gaming (or related to the gaming industry) teams. Next up is an interview with Roman Lukyanov, managing partner of the Semenov&Pevzner law firm.

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 together with the game teams. Next up is an interview with indie developer Vladimir Beletsky from the Morteshka studio, famous for the role-playing game based on Russian fairy tales Black Book.

Demand for literature related to the gaming industry has increased in Russia, LitRes reports. In January-October 2023, the service bought 20% more books on such topics than in the same period last year.

The All-Russian Reading Day was held on October 9. On this occasion, Astrum Entertainment asked more than 2,300 gamers what they read and games based on which books they would like to see.

The initial sales of the action RPG Atlas Fallen were below forecasts, according to Focus Entertainment. Focusing on the “good quality” of the game, the company expected better results.

The book “Skyrim. The history of the creation of a great game.” It is dedicated to both aspects of development and the world of the game. The author of the work was the French journalist Franck Extanasié.

The Russian retail received “Introduction to the design of gaming systems. A step—by-step guide to creating balanced games,” Bombora Publishing house reports. This is a book about development for beginners (it contains the very basics of work). We share an excerpt.

Lesta Games decided to prepare a series of books based on their games. We are talking about illustrated albums in which the company will tell in detail about the history of ships and tanks.

Bombora Publishing House has sent to print the Russian translation of “Level Up! A guide to creating cool video games.” Published in the West in 2010, the work is now considered one of the main desktop books on game design. Its author is the American developer Scott Rogers, who worked on the Maximo dilogy, the first God of War and Darksiders, as well as many other titles. The translation was prepared by the writer Alexandra…

Bombora Publishing House announced the departure of Jeff Ryan‘s book “Super Mario. How Nintendo Conquered the World” (in the original — Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America). In the center of the narrative is the story of the development of the American daughter of Nintendo and the story of how the Japanese company itself was rebuilt into a gaming giant. We publish the first chapter of the book.

Bombora Publishing house reported that the book “Peter Molyneux appeared on Russian shelves. The story of the developer who created the “god simulator” genre. It is written by the French gaming journalist Raphael Lucas. In it, together with Molyneux himself, he traces the entire path of the game entrepreneur and developer from the first sales to the current work at 22Cans. We publish an excerpt.

The first edition of the continuation of the book “Kojima Genius” (in the original The Kojima Code) has been shipped to Russian retail, ” Bombora publishing house reports. It’s called “Genius Strikes Back” (in the original A Stealth Game). The author is the same — Canadian blogger Terry Wolfe, who became interested in amateur theology after video games. As for the book, it is devoted to a speculative theory about possible competition between Hideo Kojima…

The Bombora publishing house announced the appearance on the Russian shelves of the book “Fallout. Chronicles of the creation of the legendary saga“. The book is written by Erwan Lafleuriel, editor-in-chief of IGN France. It is primarily dedicated to the world of the game and aspects of its plot.

In February, the official comic book for the Shadow Fight franchise appeared on the bookshelves of the CIS. We talked with Nikita Korzhavin, Nekki‘s business development director, about how the comic was being worked on and what task it solves for the game franchise.

At the end of last year, AST Publishing house published a book by indie developer Slava Gris, “Make a video game alone and Don’t Go Crazy.” We liked the book so much that we decided to write about it, and at the same time share one of its chapters on our pages.

The Bombora publishing house announced that the book “The Witcher. The history of the franchise. From fantasy to cult game saga” by the authorship of game journalist Raphael Lucas. It primarily tells about the problems and successes of CD PROJEKT in the development of games in The Witcher series. But there was also a place for stories about the creation of the book cycle itself, the filming of film adaptations and the formation of the…

Bombora Publishing House has translated the Russian book “Power Up! How Japan breathed new life into the gaming industry.” Its author Chris Kohler wrote about the history of the development of the Japanese game dev and the impact he had on the global gaming industry. Kohler prepared his book based on many interviews with cult developers like Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima.

The book “Programming in Unreal Engine 5 for a beginner igrodel appeared on sale. Fundamentals of the Blueprint Visual Language”. This is the work of two Russian authors: Olga Maksimenkova, Candidate of Technical Sciences and researcher at the HSE, and Nikita Veselko, Product Owner at the IThub games studio.

We continue the series of interviews in which we summarize the results of the year together with experts and top managers of the gaming industry (and related ones). This time we talked with Kirill and Roman Gursky, the leaders of the gaming direction of the GEM Capital investment group.

The Bombora publishing house has a replenishment in the collection of game works. The book “The Creation of the Bioshock trilogy. From Delight to Colombia.” It not only gives an excursion into the history of the development of the famous franchise, but also tells in detail about the details of the BioShock universe and the meaning inherent in them.

Next week, the Bombora publishing house is going to release a work on another franchise — The Pokémon Generation. How the game saga that gave us Pikachu was created.” This is the story of the development and development of the cult Pokémon series, which covers not only games, but also anime, manga and many other projects.

On the eve of the New Year, App2Top opens the traditional interview series “Results”, in which we interview top managers of the gaming industry (and related ones) about how the year has passed for their company and industry. This time we start the cycle with an interview with Roman Lukyanov, managing Partner of the Semenov & Pevzner law firm.

The distributor is going to release books about the gaming industry every month. The first book will be Limited Run: The Complete Run, in which the company will talk about its games published in 2015-2016.

According to the Bombora publishing house, the work of Brighton Robert Denton Bryant and Giglio Keith (Keith Giglio) “Kill the dragon! How to write brilliant scripts for video games.” The book is positioned as a guide to the world of video games, which will help you understand how to write game scripts better.

In June, a new book about game design from the American indie developer Robert Zubek will be on sale. It is called “Elements of Game Design” and is an introductory guide. In it, the author not only explains the theory, but also offers practical exercises. We tell you more about the book and share the first chapter.

The Bombora publishing house is going to release in Russian “Resident Evil. Resident evil of the gaming industry”. This is a book about the formation of an iconic survival horror franchise. We tell you what’s under the cover, and share a small excerpt.

Bombora Publishing House is preparing to release the book “Baldur’s Gate. A journey from the origins to RPG classics.” This is a detailed history of the formation of the Baldur’s Gate franchise, in which there was a place for board games. We tell you what the book is about and share an excerpt from it.

A new book about game design is on sale. It’s called “I want to go to gamedev!”. This is a guide for beginners in the gaming industry, which explains who a game designer is and what his work consists of. We talk about the book and share a small excerpt from it.

Bombora Publishing House has released the Russian book “Oculus. How to create the best VR company in the world and lose everything?“. First of all, this is the story of the rise and fall of the eccentric Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Rift virtual reality helmet. But there is also a part about the sale of his company to Facebook Corporation. We talk about the volume and publish an excerpt from it.

The publishing house “Peter” this January released on the shelves “500 years later: Final Fantasy VII“, a book on the history of the creation of one of the most commercially successful and highly valuable parts of the series. We tell you about the book and share a small excerpt from it.

We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Roman Garbar, Tenjin's marketing director.

We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Roman and Kirill Gursky, the leaders of the gaming direction of the GEM Capital investment group.

App2Top.ru continues the annual series of materials “Results of the year”. In it, we interview top managers and experts of the gaming industry about how a year has passed for their business. Next up is an interview with Roman Lukyanov, managing partner of the Semenov & Pevzner law firm.

Last September, David Polfeldt, former managing director of Ubisoft Massive, released his book about the gaming industry — “The Universe of Video Games. A documentary blockbuster from the developer of The Division, Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations”. Previously, it could only be read in English, but now it is also published in Russian. The Russian-language edition will be available on October 15. We tell you what is hidden under the cover, and share…

The analytical platform devtodev has written a book about 25 metrics that are used in video games. It is called “Game metrics”. The pages contain a description of the metrics themselves and methods of working with them.

One studio launched by a journalist has become more. The founder and host of the “Disgusting Men” podcast, Peter Salnikov, announced his retirement from development. In his Book Burner Games studio, he will create a tactical role-playing game. By the way, the team is open to investment proposals.

The sequel to “Blood, Sweat and Pixels” by Jason Schreier is being prepared for publication in Russia. A new book about the dark side of video game development will go on sale on September 28.

Another project of Russian developers is conquering the world. The adventure card game Black Book has surpassed the mark of 100 thousand copies sold in 20 days since its release. Four times faster than the Desolate survival at the time, but still not as fast as some other domestic titles.

Creative director of Xsolla Andrey Podshibyakin has finished work on the book “Igrozhur”, which he began writing 17 years ago. It will go on sale in two months.