Game Developer was a magazine for people who make video games. It began in March 1994 by Miller Freeman, Inc. as a quarterly publication, then became bimonthly, and finally monthly. Each issue included advice from industry leaders and experts, who shared technical solutions, reviewed new tools for game development, and talked about ways to make creative and successful games. Monthly postmortems analyzed top games in the industry, including major console games, social games, mobile games, and others. Columns provided information about detailed aspects of game development, such as design, programming, art, business, and audio. The magazine stopped publishing in 2013 as part of a company change at its parent company, UBM Tech (part of UBM plc), which also ended all printed publications owned by that company.

Contents

The magazine included articles about topics related to making video games, such as programming, art, sound, quality checks, design, and production. Monthly columns written by experienced professionals offered detailed discussions on different subjects. It also featured articles by well-known people in the video game industry and reviews of books, tools, and software used in game development. A popular section called "Soapbox" on the back page was moved to a related website called Gamasutra around 2004. It was later replaced by a page with artwork named "Thousand Words," and then by a regular column called "Arrested Development."

The most popular feature in the magazine was its monthly "Postmortem" column. This section discussed recent video game development by sharing the top five reasons for "What Went Right" and "What Went Wrong" during the process. It provided honest, firsthand lessons learned from creating games. The first "Postmortem" appeared in October 1997 and was written by Andre Vrignaud about the game Dark Sun Online.

Starting in 1998, the magazine honored outstanding game development tools with annual awards called "Front Line Awards." Winners included software (like Photoshop and VTune), game engines (such as Unreal Engine), tools used in game development (like Havok physics), hardware (such as GeForce 3), and books (like Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice).

Gamasutra, the online version of the magazine, serves as a resource for game developers and a job listing site for careers in game development. It was not affected by the magazine's closure and continued some of its features. On August 26, 2021, Gamasutra changed its name to Game Developer.