Almost 30,000 people visited GDC 2024

Manor Lords, the hotly-anticipated medieval city-builder that recently became the most-wishlisted game on Steam, has gained 500,000 prospective players in the past three months - far more than its solo developer's girlfriend predicted it would ever gain.

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During this week, Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook sold 196,410 shares of the company’s stock. Based on the average sale price of the transaction, the total value of these shares is $33.2 million, which is a massive payday for the CEO of the world’s most valuable company, but he will not pocket the entire amount.

Piranha Games has released the first gameplay trailer and screenshots for MechWarrior 5: Clans, its September 2023-announced standalone tactical action game, as well as confirmed PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series as its previously announced “PlayStation” and “Xbox” platforms.

Close to a colossal 4,000 PS5 and PS4 games are on sale in Sony’s epic Spring Sale, which is rolling out at the time of writing and scheduled to run through 24th April. A second phase of deals will be added to the current crop on 10th April, potentially making this one of the biggest PS Store promotions in history.

Neural networks have grown substantially over the recent years from the iteration of the first Generative Pre-trained Transformers. As NVIDIA has refined their latest graphics cards and Tensor Cores, the capabilities of those networks has been greatly improved in recent years. Traditionally just text-based inputs, NVIDIA has been leveraging TensorRT for deep learning and audio interpretation. In two separate hands-on demonstrations with Inworld AI technology at GDC 2024, we had the opportunity to try and turn both Ubisoft’s NEO NPCs and NVIDIA’s Covert Protocol.

More than 30,000 attendees registered to visit the 2024 Game Developers Conference.

An attendee of GDC 2024 says that her drink was spiked at a hotel bar, but authorities refused to investigate the matter. Snow Rui, president of the game publisher Hooded Horse, says that she was met with "complete indifference" from emergency services, with police reluctant to investigate and the hospital she was admitted to refusing to run tests for commonly used date rape drugs.

Not quite gone are the days of the zombie survival simulator. Although there are still titles coming out, the releases seem staggered more and more among the wider breadth of multiplayer titles. NetEase Games is looking to change that dynamic with Once Human, a free-to-play online multiplayer title in the same vein as titles such as Tom Clancy’s The Division. We recently went hands-on with the Unreal Engine 5 title on PC thanks to two NetEase reps (Derek Qiu, Head of Overseas Operation, and Peng Sun/Victoria, World and Content Designer) who sat down to talk with us for a brief interview at GDC 2024.

Recently Pocket Gamer Connects celebrated its tenth anniversary as part of the annual flagship event Pocket Gamer Connects London. However, we're not stopping there, as next up is The Very Big Indie Pitch at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2024.

For a certain subset of angry gamers planted behind their keyboards, March 18 was just another day in the digital outrage mines.

It’s been a busy month for gaming enthusiasts. As last week’s Game Developers Conference wrapped up in San Francisco, PAX East kicked off for a fun weekend in Boston. We were on hand for the East Coast show, exploring the show floor to check out some upcoming games.