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[Guillaume]

Hey guys,

Does anyone here have a subscription to Game Developer Magazine? Anyones can say anything about the quality and relevance of it?

[Montoli]

I... um.  I only read it for the articles.

Honest.

[LemonScented]

Never had a subscription myself, but I've worked at companies that had subscriptions - usually they'd leave the latest copy lying around on a table in the reception area. I've not really sat down with a copy in years, so it might well have changed, but when I first read it, I was kinda "meh". Develop magazine (the paper version of http://www.develop-online.net/) is a better all-round read IMHO, although Game Developer seems to be particularly good at doing interesting postmortems. Even with that being said, you can get a bunch of good postmortems (some of them might even be the same ones) via Gamasutra.

I think it mostly exists as reading material for job applicants waiting in reception at interviews, and might occasionally be read by very bored developers who actually work at the company that has the subscription. A lot of it is (or was, when I last read it) focussed on AAA development rather than indie stuff. It's by no means a bad magazine (compare and contrast with something like MCV, which is just drivel), but I don't see how a subscription to it would give you anything you wouldn't get from frequenting some of the better-established websites that are out there.

[Chris Z]

Agree that the postmortems are the best part.  I wouldnt say its not for indies, there are quite a few good technical and art articles.  Adam Saltsman even had an article on there recently on procedural worlds.  The only thing that might not be terribly useful to indies are the tons of product ads and reviews.  Even if you are a 3D dev, a lot of the tools are overkill on the indie scale.  I still like to read the reviews though since some of the tools are interesting.

[deWiTTERS]

I had a subscription but I canceled it a few years ago. Too much focus on large scale projects and not so much info for us small developers (especially if you're doing 2D). Sometimes there would be some interesting stuff in there, but in my opinion not enough to keep paying for it. So the quality is good, but the relevance not so much.

If you like the articles at gamasutra.com, then it might be something for you.

[sugarbeard]

Game dev mag is pretty alright. But as it's been said, I only got it for the post mortems really. Also the annual salary survey is always neat to look at, but I think they're releasing those free online now, right?

Someone needs to start a more widely available indie game mag / zine.

[Guillaume]

Someone needs to start a more widely available indie game mag / zine.

[radioact1ve]

Someone needs to start a more widely available indie game mag / zine.

http://www.indiegamemag.com/

[Guillaume]

We were thinking of something rather technical, oriented at indie developers (ie. low budget, small teams, etc).

The magazine on the site you posted seems more like something meant for players than developers.

[MalcolmLittle]

I've always liked Game Developer because it is often an article and topic based publication that doesn't get too technical (which happens to be the number one criticism against the magazine). I'm a journalist and I like to read proper articles with proper angles, but that's me. The magazine is in many ways what its reader base wants it to be; the game creators and programmers that want more technical articles are welcome to submit them to the magazine.

The cost of the digital version of magazine is quite reasonable and I've been a subscriber for the past few years.

[namre]

I don't have a subscription but I remember getting the free version of it (I think it was last month's issue) and I found it a really nice read. The issue covered topics about starting out with game development, student games that got big, as well as tutorials on how to do plixel.

I haven't read other issues, but the one I've read was enjoyable enough.

[Rob Lach]

I get it and I like it a lot.

Also you can get it for free if you're a developer, but I forgot how I managed to do that.

[Montoli]

If you are a developer, you basically just sign up (I think you can do it on their website?) and say "Yes, I'm a developer, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

You have to fill out an online survey thing once a year, and say "please keep sending these to me!" but otherwise, they just show up after that.

[nihilocrat]

I work at a place where they leave copies around and it's pretty much how everyone here describes it. Postmortems + technical articles that are kinda more oriented towards larger companies and projects, but occasionally have stuff useful for indies. I think it's a pretty cool magazine, though I'd like it to be more technical. There are plenty of magazines, blogs, websites, etc. out there for nontechnical topics, the tech side is often not exposed due either to secrecy, laziness, or (apparently!) public disinterest. As a programmer, learning about other peoples' tech makes me several orders of magnitude better equipped to solve problems because they might be ones I've read about in one of these magazines.

[Montoli]

Hey Nihilocrat - I don't know if they're still good, (but they keep making'em, so SOMEONE must be buying them...) but I know the "Game programming Gems" books used to be GREAT for that kind of thing.  I learned all sorts of crazy programming tricks from those.  So if you're feeling dissatisfied from the offerings in Game Developer Magazine, and want to find more places where programmers discuss crazy solutions to game-specific problems, you might want to give them a glance!

[LemonScented]

I've bought all the Game Programming Gems books. The first 2 or 3 were brilliant for learning new stuff (I first discovered them when I was at university and I got a LOT out of them), but the later ones are a bit more specific - so whereas the earlier books might have stuff like "here's how you do A* pathfinding", the later ones are more like "here's how you do hardcore memory caching optimisation for A*" or whatever.

They're good books, but I don't know if I've had enough use out of the later ones to justify the cost. Mostly they just sit on a shelf and only get looked through if I'm thinking about coding something I haven't written before. Ultimately, I'd go with the same verdict as I do with Game Developer Magazine, which is that Google tends to be cheaper, more specific to your needs, and more up-to-date.

[supershigi]

I don't even know why I have a subscription to it... but it keeps coming to me, haha.  I actually don't really get that much out of it.  Every now and then there will be an interesting article or postmortem, but for the most part it's a bit underwhelming.