Last week I mentioned that I was reading Tokyo These Days, a manga about the production of a manga magazine. I have paired this, somewhat accidentally, with Shirobako, an anime about the anime production process. I’m four episodes in and there’s almost no drama to it that isn’t drawn directly from the difficulties of that production, to the point where the main tension of episode three hinges upon an FTP server being down. Wonderful. Sunday will be for watching a bit more of that, then, and avoiding the heat.
Ever wonder if the oversaturated trailer showcases of not-E3 and demos of Steam Next Fest actually produce a return for developers? Simon Carless’s always interesting newsletter GameDiscoverCo dug into the numbers to discover the top announcements of not-E3 and who won Next Fest. These events clearly work for some – in particular those with huge marketing budgets announcing the ninth mainline entry in a beloved 30-year-old series – but standing out has never been more difficult.