The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Pokémon GO tends to perform in peaks and troughs, which reflects in the update cycles of the game. According to Priori Data, it saw a decline of 19.61% in net revenue in 1Q20, compared with 4Q19, across Apple App Store and Google Play combined. This is not unusual for the first quarter, given seasonality and the high consumer spending associated with the fourth quarter across most markets. Pokémon GO had a similar net revenue decline of 22.8% in 1Q19 versus 4Q18.

In fact, the game appears largely untouched by the COVID-19-induced lockdown so far, with healthy net revenue and continuous growth throughout 1Q20. What’s more, the game hit peak monthly active users (MAUs) for the year so far in March, at 16.9m, which suggests that users are increasingly unfazed by quarantine regulations. Despite a marginal dip in April, net revenue is set to reach its 2020 peak in May at just shy of $50m.

In early March, Niantic announced changes to its location-based AR games, including Pokémon GO and Wizards Unite, which would make them easier to play from home. For Pokémon GO, these measures included:

• Distances needed to walk to hatch an egg were halved, Pokéstops dropped gifts more frequently, and the wild Pokémon spawn rate was increased
• Players could purchase Pokémon-attracting incense more cheaply, and it would last for twice as long
• The PvP feature Go Battle League no longer required players to walk, or pay, to enter
• Players could organise their own tournaments without needing to physically scan each other’s QR codes

 If any game category was at risk from the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the location-based AR genre. This demonstrates the importance of flexibility, and of responding quickly to potentially game-changing events. User engagement with the games sector more broadly has benefitted considerably from lockdown.

The US and Japan are the most substantial markets for Pokémon GO, with the combined territories accounting for 65% of app store net revenue in 1Q20. The virus only started gaining traction in these countries later in the quarter. As a result, the measures taken to enable at-home play will likely offset any notable decline in engagement through 2Q20.

Sumo Group has acquired work-for-hire development studio Lab42 for an undisclosed fee.

Based in Leamington Spa, Lab42 has worked on a wide range of projects for clients like Sega Publishing Europe, Klei Entertainment, Aspyr, and Ripstone, including titles such as Yakuza 0, Sonic Mania, and Terratech.

The studio also holds the exclusive license to the World Snooker Tour brand, and was the sole-developer on sports sim Snooker 19.

Sumo already owns a number of studios including Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture developer The Chinese Room, LittleBigPlanet 3 maker Sumo Digital, and God of War: Remastered co-developer Red Kite Games.

It explained the addition of Lab42 will strengthen its presence in Leamington Spa, where Sumo Digital currently has an office, while also bolstering its development team.

“The opportunity to buy Lab42, a business that is highly respected in the industry and well known to key members of our team, was both timely and compelling,” commented Sumo Group chief exec Carl Cavers.

“The addition of a 29 strong, established, proven and talented team will help keep our organic growth ambitions on track, through the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as previously reported, has created some recruitment challenges.”

Companies to collaborate to reinvent the end-to-end commerce experience globally; FedEx Surround announced today as first solution

MEMPHIS, Tenn., and REDMOND, Wash. — May 18, 2020 — FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Monday announced a new multiyear collaboration to help transform commerce by combining the global digital and logistics network of FedEx with the power of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud. Together, FedEx and Microsoft aim to create opportunities for their customers through multiple joint offerings powered by Azure and Dynamics 365 that will use data and analytics solutions to reinvent the most critical aspects of the commerce experience and enable businesses to better compete in today’s increasingly digital landscape.

“FedEx has been reimagining the supply chain since our first day of operation, and we are taking it to a new level with today’s announcement,” said Frederick W. Smith, chairman and CEO, FedEx. “Together with Microsoft, we will combine the immense power of technology with the vast scale of our infrastructure to help revolutionize commerce and create a network for what’s next for our customers.”

This new strategic alliance represents a long-term commitment between the companies to fuel innovation, collaborate on product development and share subject-matter expertise. Today, FedEx networks link more than 99% of the world’s gross domestic product across 220 countries and territories, and Microsoft Azure is trusted by more than 95% of Fortune 500 companies. By combining the breadth and scale of the FedEx network and the Microsoft cloud, businesses will have an unprecedented level of control and insight into the global movement of goods.

“Now more than ever, organizations are counting on an efficient and capable supply chain to remain competitive and open for business,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.  “Together with FedEx, we will apply the power of Azure, Dynamics 365 and their AI capabilities to this urgent need, building new commerce experiences that transform logistics for our mutual customers around the world.”

Announcing FedEx Surround — driving digital illumination of the physical world

FedEx Surround, the first solution resulting from the FedEx and Microsoft collaboration, allows any business to enhance visibility into its supply chain by leveraging data to provide near-real-time analytics into shipment tracking, which will drive more precise logistics and inventory management. While most carriers are reactive to global logistics dynamics with limited visibility options built into a package’s journey, FedEx Surround will provide near-real-time insights — down to the granular level of ZIP code, for example — to shine a digital light on the progress and movement of physical inventory.

The benefits offered by FedEx Surround will extend to any business with a supply chain and particularly those that depend on highly time-sensitive deliveries. For example, a hospital may urgently need a package to help save a life, or a part may need rapid transport to a manufacturing facility to avoid an operational shutdown. In each instance, the near-real-time data insights provided by FedEx Surround offer a significant advantage to not only the organizations using the platform but also the people they serve.

FedEx Surround can also collect multiple data points gathered through the enhanced scanning and proprietary IoT technology of FedEx and analyze them using Microsoft’s broad suite of AI, machine learning and analytics solutions. This will provide participating businesses with not only enhanced visibility of a package’s location during its journey, but also knowledge of global commerce conditions and external challenges in near-real-time, such as severe weather or natural disasters, mechanical delays, clearance issues, and incorrect addresses. This unprecedented level of data-driven insight will give FedEx Surround customers the opportunity to intervene early and act to avoid logistical slowdowns before they occur to reduce friction and costs. And with every package that ships, FedEx Surround will analyze past trends to identify future opportunities for streamlined shipping, creating a stronger and more resilient commercial ecosystem.

Information regarding FedEx Surround availability will be shared beginning this summer, and customer access will be rolled out in the months ahead.

FedEx and Microsoft expect to announce additional solutions as part of their collaboration in the coming months, which will leverage even more Microsoft technologies, including Dynamics 365. This includes reimagining commerce experiences for businesses to offer consumers more integrated ways to shop, and faster and more efficient deliveries.

Those interested in more details, including visual assets, should visit www.fedex.com/transform.

About FedEx Corp.

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services. With annual revenues of $70 billion, the company offers integrated business solutions through operating companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively, under the respected FedEx brand. Consistently ranked among the world’s most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its more than 475,000 team members to remain focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities. To learn more about how FedEx connects people and possibilities around the world, please visit about.fedex.com.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

FedEx Media Relations, (901) 434-8100, mediarelations@fedex.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements, such as statements relating to FedEx and Microsoft managements’ views with respect to future events and financial performance. Forward-looking statements include those preceded by, followed by or that include the words “will,” “may,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “estimates,” “targets,” “projects,” “intends” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical experience or from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the rate of future e-commerce growth and our ability to successfully compete in the e-commerce market, our ability to successfully introduce e-commerce solutions in the expected time frame, customer acceptance of the FedEx Surround platform and other factors which can be found in FedEx Corp.’s and Microsoft’s respective press releases and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made. FedEx and Microsoft do not undertake or assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

We’ve got our hands on a brand new trailer for Liberated, star of December’s Indie World Showcase presentation. The video reveals that the game will be launching for Switch on 2nd June.

If you’re a regular reader of the site, you’re probably pretty clued up on this one by now – we recently shared a gallery of new, exclusive screenshots and an interview with the developer which talked about the game’s creation – but we’ll give you a quick recap just in case.

The best way to do that? A feature list, of course:

– Side-scrolling action – Intense adventure brimming with gunfights, stealth, puzzles, and platforming action.
– Cyberpunk Near-future – Social networks, facial recognition, fake news, citizen credit systems. A familiar world in which technology empowers control over the people.
– Order & Revolution – A story of authoritarianism—how it is born in a democracy and consumes it. Liberated men and women rise against the new world order, but at what cost?
– Multiple Perspectives – A dramatic story told through unique points of view. Play as individuals locked in a clash of ideals. This is not a simple tale of good versus evil, and you must witness what transpires from many points of view to parse the truth.

Have you been keeping an eye out for Liberated’s release? Think you’ll give it a go next month? Let us know in the usual place.

© Nintendo Life

It’s been said in the past that Perfect Dark protagonist Joanna Dark was modelled on historical figure Joan of Arc, but we’ve been speaking to the guys behind the game and they’ve put us right on that score – and have revealed exactly who inspired the design of the famous secret agent.

“I think that’s the thing that just sounds good,” admits David Doak – who worked on the game before leaving Rare to establish TimeSplitters studio Free Radical Design – when quizzed on the whole Joan of Arc thing. “I can’t remember whether Joanna Dark or Perfect Dark came first. I think Joanna came first, but as I recall, the Joan of Arc thing was a kind of retro-fit. Joanna Dark sounded like a nice name, and then, ‘Ooh, it sounds a bit like Joan of Arc. That’s quite good.’ As opposed to it fitting the other way around.”

Brett Jones – who did so much to shape the design of the character – explains that he was inspired by media he was consuming at the time. “We’d all been enjoying Ghost In The Shell and the Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd film – a lot of influence from those,” he says. “We were heavily influenced by early anime stuff. Even Joanna’s costume is almost directly ripped from Ghost In The Shell. Also, the leather outfit was inspired by Mrs Peel from The Avengers, and the dragon dress actually used the dragon design from Killer Instinct.”

Joanna’s movements were provided by motion capture artist Laurie Sage, but her face was modelled on someone different. “She was completely based on Winona Ryder,” Jones admits. “I was collecting images of faces, had a massive collection of reference images and we just picked her. She had this great pixie haircut and fulfilled the look of what we wanted Joanna to look like.”

Ryder is perhaps most famous for her glittering movie career in the late ’80s and early ’90s, where she starred in hit films such as Beetlejuice, Heathers, Dracula, Reality Bites and Edward Scissorhands, but more recently she has enjoyed a resurgence thanks in part to her recurring role in the acclaimed Netflix series Stranger Things.

Perfect Dark turns 20 this month. Make sure you read our exclusive ‘making of’ feature if you haven’t already.

The Unreal Engine 5 demo on PlayStation 5 was the culmination of years of discussions between Sony and Epic on future graphics and storage architectures.
The Nanite and Lumen tech powering it will be fully supported on both PS5 and Xbox Series X and will be awesome on both.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 15, 2020

Want to create your own webserver in a single line of Python code? No problem, just use this command in your shell:

$ python -m http.server 8000

The terminal will tell you:

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000

To shut down your webserver, kill the Python program with CTRL+c.

This works if you’ve Python 3 installed on your system. To check your version, use the command python --version in your shell.

You can run this command in your Windows Powershell, Win Command Line, MacOS Terminal, or Linux Bash Script.

You can see in the screenshot that the server runs on your local host listening on port 8000 (the standard HTTP port to serve web requests).

Note: The IP address is NOT 0.0.0.0—this is an often-confused mistake by many readers. Instead, your webserver listens at your “local” IP address 127.0.0.1 on port 8000. Thus, only web requests issued on your computer will arrive at this port. The webserver is NOT visible to the outside world.

Python 2: To run the same simple webserver on Python 2, you need to use another command using SimpleHTTPServer instead of http:

$ python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

If you want to start your webserver from within your Python script, no problem:

import http.server

import socketserver PORT = 8000 Handler = http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler with socketserver.TCPServer(("", PORT), Handler) as httpd: print("serving at port", PORT) httpd.serve_forever()

You can execute this in our online Python browser (yes, you’re creating a local webserver in the browser—how cool is that)!

This code comes from the official Python documentation—feel free to read more if you’re interested in setting up the server (most of the code is relatively self-explanatory).

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory, let’s get some practice!

To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!

Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?

Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

Join the free webinar now!

Epic games just made a trio of announcements today that are going to be absolute game changers for the game development industry.

Unreal Engine Free To Use Up To $1M Gross Revenue

This one is huge!  Retroactive to January 1st, 2020, Unreal Engine has been changes so developers only pay royalties after their first MILLION dollars in revenue!

Starting today, you can download and use Unreal Engine to build games for free as you always have, except now royalties are waived on your first $1 million in gross revenue. The new Unreal Engine license terms, which are retroactive to January 1, 2020, give game developers an unprecedented advantage over other engine license models. For more information, visit the FAQ.

Wow!

Unreal Engine 5 First Look

Epic also gave us a first look at Unreal Engine 5, showing off the two major new features, Nanite and Lumen.

Nanite is describe as:

Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see. Nanite virtualized geometry means that film-quality source art comprising hundreds of millions or billions of polygons can be imported directly into Unreal Engine—anything from ZBrush sculpts to photogrammetry scans to CAD data—and it just works. Nanite geometry is streamed and scaled in real time so there are no more polygon count budgets, polygon memory budgets, or draw count budgets; there is no need to bake details to normal maps or manually author LODs; and there is no loss in quality.

While Lumen is:

Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes. The system renders diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in huge, detailed environments, at scales ranging from kilometers to millimeters. Artists and designers can create more dynamic scenes using Lumen, for example, changing the sun angle for time of day, turning on a flashlight, or blowing a hole in the ceiling, and indirect lighting will adapt accordingly. Lumen erases the need to wait for lightmap bakes to finish and to author light map UVs—a huge time savings when an artist can move a light inside the Unreal Editor and lighting looks the same as when the game is run on console.

Preview releases of UE 5 should arrive early 2021 with a final release later in the year.  You can see UE5 in action in this video.  Additionally UE 4.25 was just released as you can see here.

Epic Online Services Launched

First announced in GDC 2019, Epic Online Services are finally available.  This is a collection of free online tools that are battle tested using Fortnite.

Friends, matchmaking, lobbies, achievements, leaderboards, and accounts: we built these services for Fortnite, we launched them across seven major platforms – PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Now we’re opening up Epic Online Services to all developers FOR FREE in a simple multiplatform SDK!

Learn more about all of these announcements in the video below.

[embedded content]

GameDev News Engine Unreal

<!–

–>

Now I always remembered being absolutely obsessed with Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda growing up in the 90’s, but after recently uncovering a few boxes of my childhood school papers at my family’s place, the word “obsessed” took on an entirely different meaning. These boxes contained plenty of random essays, math tests and writing guides, but they also held hundred of drawings, stories, and projects themed around the worlds and characters of my favorite video games of the time. Little did I realize that I used nearly every creative opportunity I could to express my love for the games that brought me so much joy in my younger days. Even if that just meant drawing Pikachu in as many different ways I could think up.

I’ve gone ahead and put together an in-depth video highlighting some of the more noteworthy grade school papers and projects from my childhood, ranging from simple drawings of Pikachu, an Oracle of Ages board game, a reimagined version of Ocarina of Time’s story and much, much more. Please, bear in mind that I’ve never been a great artist, so you can probably imagine how cringe-worthy some of these projects must be, but I thought it would be an absolute waste not to share some of these with the world, purely on how silly and wholesome some of them are.

When I first lifted the lid on those boxes and realized what was inside, all I could think about was how much of a chore it was going to be to go through all those papers. But what I didn’t prepare myself for was how much fun I was going to have, laughing at my old spelling habits, and slightly regretting cutting up a perfectly good Zelda strategy guide for a project. I hope this brings you a few laughs, and if it sends you on a quest to go searching for your own nostalgic essays and etchings, I’ll know I’ve done my job right.

Did you have any particular habits growing up that stemmed from video games? Do you have kids, siblings, or relatives that just won’t stop drawing Mario, Pikachu, etc? Feel free to share your stories down below!