This is a really interesting topic: kids today do not necessarily play games the same way people my age (38) did.

Here is a thread with a ton of research on this topic. It's about how younger players are growing up around Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, mobile games, Discord, and live-service platforms. For a lot of them, games are not just "games," they are social spaces. They are places to hang out with friends, talk, create, watch, compete, and exist online.

And I think that matters a lot for developers because the kids of today will be the gamers of tomorrow!

It is very easy to assume that the way people like myself grew up playing games is the "normal" way. Singleplayer campaigns, boxed games, consoles, local co-op, finishing one game then moving to the next. But for younger players, the default might be completely different. The game might be endless, social, user-generated, always updated, and deeply connected to their friend group. Since, again, kids today are tomorrow's adults, that means the games industry and what finds success might change significantly in the coming decades.

As developers it is important to understand how kids play games so we can make better decisions for the future. That does not mean every game needs to become Roblox or Fortnite. But it does mean developers should pay attention to changing player habits instead of assuming the market will always want the same things we wanted when we were younger.

That’s part of the reason why I do my Top 10 New Steam games every month, it’s so I can keep track of what genres are hot on Steam so I know what players are currently wanting to play.

ENDING SOON!

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The Publisher of the Week this time is Tirgames assets, who makes a bunch of environments and props in various styles from modern to sci-fi.

Get the FREE Stylized Downtown Street which is a nice stylized street with shops, benches and trees.

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This is a fun little tool for anyone with an out-of-control Steam backlog.

An indie developer made Dustpile, a free Tinder-like app for your Steam library. You connect your public Steam profile, it pulls in your games, and then you swipe through them: right for "I'll play it," left for "skip."

That’s a pretty clever UX idea!

A lot of players (myself included) have hundreds of games sitting in their library, many of them never played or barely touched. At that point the hard part is not "do I have something to play?" it is "how do I even choose?" Turning that decision into quick swipes actually makes a lot of sense.

In my case it included Paleo Pines, The Escapists, Spintires and more. Definitely games I'd love to play that I forgot I already owned!

It also includes useful filters, like games you never played, games under 2 hours, under 10 hours, or games you started and dropped. So instead of staring at your endless Steam list feeling overwhelmed, you can quickly build a shortlist.

This is just a small fun web app, but I like the idea! Sometimes the best interface is not more information, it is a faster way to make a decision.

How many ways can you build a clock? Turns out, many!

This website has tons of examples of different clocks with very unique very inventive designs.

I'm a big fan of the one titled Geometic Proof, very interesting looking.

This binary one is also super cool.

This one like a radar is also pretty inventive.

All of them have their code available so you can learn how they were actually built.