In game development, understanding player behavior is the key to tuning fun mechanics, creating compelling art direction, and smoothing out programming hiccups that might manifest as roadbumps to the player experience.

It’s a complicated process to understand the human mind, and in game development, it’s usually bundled under the field of “User Experience” (otherwise known as UX). One expert in the field, Celia Hodent, wants to take the time to educate you on the best practices for augmenting human psychology into your UX practices in her December 3rd GDC Masterclass.

Hodent’s instruction will go beyond her numerous GDC talks—she’ll be taking the day to teach you what she’s learned about human psychology in a classroom setting, mixing one-on-one instruction and exercises with the professional insight she’s picked up as a consultant and working at Ubisoft, LucasArts, and Epic Games.

As an attendee, here are some of the takeaways you can expect to gain from Hodent’s course:

• Learn how to significantly improve the experience of the game you are developing as perceived by your target audience.
• Improve usability and engagement.
• Understand the main characteristics and limitations of the human brain (in terms of perception, attention, memory, motivation, and emotion), and how they impact game development.
• Learn what makes a game engaging (in terms of motivation, emotion, and game flow) and how to foster these components in your game.
• Have a clear and concrete understanding of what having a UX mindset and developing a UX strategy entail.
• Course includes a complimentary copy of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design

But that’s not all. Hodent wants to make sure you have the best tools to apply what you’ve learned when you return to the field, so she’ll be including a copy of her book The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design.

Space is limited–only a handful of talented game designers will be able to participate in this exceptionally useful class. Register today and claim your seat before it’s too late!

For more information on the GDC Masterclass program, be sure to visit our website or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome to the final GameDiscoverCo newsletter of the week, since we’ve stored ‘like a billion’ interesting links in our newsletter template. And now we have to disgorge them, like a squirrel unhiding its nuts from a tree trunk. (Totally like that.)

Before we get started, just wanted to point out this video interview with me on game discoverability as part of a mini-series by Rocket Jump Events over on the Etch Play YouTube channel. I talk about how people find your games! Some of you care about that! Go check it out…

The new PlayStation (web) store gets.. mixed reviews

Ahead of the PlayStation 5’s launch, Sony has rolled out a brand new web version of the PlayStation Store, which definitely needed an upgrade. (Though the removal of digital support for older Sony platforms is not always popular.)

There’s a very long ResetEra forum thread (which started before the store was available to all) including a lot of good/interesting player feedback in it. Thus far, it seems like the design is way cleaner and mobile friendly.

But there’s a number of obvious usability & discovery issues with the new version of the store, which is ‘bare bones’ in a variety of ways. I thought Toumari’s ResetEra comments (scroll down to post #200) were fair and helpful. Some of the suggestion headings – which he goes into more detail on – are as follows:

“Add titles below the thumbnails on the category view… Make it obvious what is DLC and what is a game… Show DLC of a game on their respective pages… Add filters on the category/search pages… Show details about the different game editions.”

In addition, he noted some of the features that are missing in the new store that were included in the old store: “No screenshots/gameplay videos on the game pages, No download file-size listed on the game pages, No wishlist support, Can no longer add games/products to the cart from the list views.”

I’m sure the store will be a work in progress. And it’s unclear how closely its usability or layout mirrors that of the PlayStation 5 UI itself, since the UI demos so far haven’t looked closely at the PlayStation Store. But there’s clearly some work to be done here that will help more people buy games, if correctly addressed.

New perspectives on genre viability

The subject of Steam/game genre tags and viability has come up a lot recently. So kudos to Chris Zukowski for his latest article/newsletter, which includes this gem of a graph:

Basically, select genres with a higher median earning on Steam are towards the left, and lower towards the right. And then each genre also has a bar chart listing the number of games categorized within it (often by players).

There’s definitely some nuance here – particularly because a) your game can have multiple tags/genres and b) some large-tagged categories can refer to game elements – e.g. everything classified as puzzle is probably not a traditional puzzler. And this is Steam-specific – the PlayStation 4 might see different styles of game being popular.

But the point stands. It’s not solely about mechanically picking the right genres, but some game styles have less competition than others. Danny Weinbaum’s Steam tag data Google Doc (original blog post) clearly shows this. I recommend that everyone keeps considering it.

The game discovery news round-up..

And here’s the final final for the week, with a whole bunch of cloud gaming updates, as that space continues to hot up, plus updates on yesterday’s newsletter and more besides:

• There’s a new interview with Xbox’s Phil Spencer (originally at Stratechery, excerpted at The Verge) where he notes: “I think you’re going to see lower priced hardware as part of our ecosystem when you think about streaming sticks and other things that somebody might want to just go plug into their TV and go play via xCloud.” So all kinds of possibilities for Game Pass playing in the future, eh?

• Couple of interesting Stadia things – the company revealed Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle, a 64-person Pac-Man melee, with a cloud-streamable demo linked from the YouTube page. It’s part of an attempt to make ‘instant demos’ a better onramp to the service. (Tunnel Battle itself will be $20 when released in November on Stadia.)

• So, a lot of stuff went down on Twitch this week, since the company “informed streamers across its platform on Tuesday that it has deleted content violating music copyright laws after receiving “a sudden influx of DMCA takedown requests” back in June.” This was probably (mainly?) commercial music, not game OSTs, but definitely make sure your game’s music licenses don’t screw your streamers. (They don’t like it!)

• A couple of follow-ups from my Steam x China article that ran yesterday. Firstly, this EGM article talks about government licensing woes from a Chinese indie dev perspective. Secondly, I did want to reference this profanity-laced quote Tweet stream about the article (lol), since the author makes a good ethical point: “that requirement for text filtering? you’re engaging in the erasure of Uighurs, Taiwan and Hong Kong.” I don’t think we know that yet, since this is all hypotheticals. But I also don’t think we should ignore the concept.

• Amazon is now rolling out early access to its Amazon Luna streaming game service in the US, after “hundreds of thousands of requests”. The Luna+ and Ubisoft game channels are hyped, and it’s also noted: “We will continue to add great games, channels, and features to ensure there is something for everyone to play.” Looking forward to see who else steps up with a ‘channel’.

• A fan published a (slightly veiled) app that made Stadia streaming on iOS possible using a modified browser app. (“You can basically trick Stadia’s website into thinking you’re a Chrome browser. Thus, Stadia streaming then works.”) Then they went to update it, Apple noticed and it’s been pulled. It’s fun times in the cloud streaming wars when the fans get involved!

• Microlinks: there’s a LOT of investment activity in games right now, here’s a great summary for 2020 so far; on the way smaller side of things, here’s a Reddit post about a Steam game with 1200 pre-launch wishlists and 35 sales in Week 1, showing it can be tricky out there.

And finally for this week, throwing in a bonus video about game… shows? John Teti’s piece on the contrasting host entrances for famed U.S. game show The Price Is Right’ is a tremendous example of ‘design in detail’, and thought provoking for all creatives:

[This newsletter is handcrafted by GameDiscoverCo, a new agency based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your premium PC or console game? We’ll be launching a ‘Plus’ paid newsletter tier with lots of extra info/data – watch out for it soon.]

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October 27, 2020: We now have a release date for Crash Bandicoot: On the Run.

The mobile game publisher, King, has finally revealed when we are likely to see the newest Crash Bandicoot game arrive on mobile. Crash Bandicoot: On the Run is set to release in Spring 2021, and if the App Store listing is anything to go by, March 25 is the likely release date.

We first heard about the new Crash Bandicoot mobile game back in February, when rumours appeared that it was in development by King, the famous publisher of Candy Crush. The game was later confirmed and named as Crash Bandicoot: On the Run, alongside a reveal trailer, and ever since then we’ve been waiting to hear news about release.

Fans of the original Crash Bandicoot games can expect this endless runner to involves sprinting, jumping, sliding, and just generally avoiding obstacles as you complete levels to earn rewards. There’s also set to be boss battles with some of the series most iconic baddies, such as Scorporilla, Nitrus Brio, Nina Cortex, Dingodile, and Fake Crash.

If you want to see what gameplay looks like, check out the brand new trailer below:

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run is available to pre-order now from Google Play and App Store, and if you do you get the exclusive blue hyena skin at launch, made famous by Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled. You can also stay up to date with the release schedule by following the official Crash Bandicoot: On the Run Twitter account.

If you just can’t wait to play On the Run, we’ve got some other great recommendations for endless runners in our lists of the best iOS games and the best Android games!

C3 AI CRM enables a new category of customer-focused industry AI use cases and a new ecosystem

REDWOOD CITY, CA, REDMOND, WA, and SAN JOSE, CA – October 26, 2020 – C3.ai, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) today announced the launch of C3 AI^® CRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365. The first enterprise-class, AI-first customer relationship management solution is purpose-built for industries, integrates with Adobe Experience Cloud, and drives customer-facing operations with predictive business insights.

The partners have agreed to:

• Integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365, Adobe Experience Cloud (including Adobe Experience Platform), and C3.ai’s industry-specific data models, connectors, and AI models, in a joint go-to-market offering designed to provide an integrated suite of industry-specific AI-enabled CRM solutions including marketing, sales, and customer service.
• Sell the industry-specific AI CRM offering through dedicated sales teams to target enterprise accounts across multiple industries globally, as well as through agents and industry partners.
• Target industry vertical markets initially including financial services, oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, public sector, healthcare, defense, intelligence, automotive, and aerospace
• Market the jointly branded offering globally, supported by the companies’ commitment to customer success

“Microsoft, Adobe, and C3.ai are reinventing a market that Siebel Systems invented more than 25 years ago,” said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai. “The dynamics of the market and the mandates of digital transformation have dramatically changed CRM market requirements.  A general-purpose CRM system of record is no longer sufficient.  Customers today demand industry-specific, fully AI-enabled solutions that provide AI-enabled revenue forecasting, product forecasting, customer churn, next-best product, next-best offer, and predisposition to buy.”

“This year has made clear that businesses fortified by digital technology are more resilient and more capable of transforming when faced with sweeping changes like those we are experiencing,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together with C3.ai and Adobe, we are bringing to market a new class of industry-specific AI solutions, powered by Dynamics 365, to help organizations digitize their operations and unlock real-time insights across their business.”

“We’re proud to partner with C3.ai and Microsoft to advance the imperative for digital customer engagement,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe. “The unique combination of Adobe Experience Cloud, the industry-leading solution for customer experiences, together with the C3 AI Suite and Microsoft Dynamics 365, will enable brands to deliver rich experiences that drive business growth.”

“This is an exciting development in the advancement of Enterprise AI,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes. “This partnership between C3.ai, Microsoft, and Adobe will bring a unique and powerful new CRM offering to the market. We are adopting AI in multiple applications internally and in new products and services for our customers through our C3.ai partnership. We look forward to offering C3 AI CRM to our customers and benefitting from the capabilities internally.”

Combining the market-leading Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM software with Adobe’s leading suite of customer experience management solutions alongside C3.ai’s enterprise AI capabilities, C3 AI CRM is the world’s first AI-driven, industry-specific CRM built with a modern AI-first architecture. C3 AI CRM integrates and unifies vast amounts of structured and unstructured data from enterprise and extraprise sources into a unified, federated image to drive real-time predictive insights across the entire revenue supply chain, from contact to cash. With embedded AI-driven, industry-specific workflows, C3 AI CRM helps teams:

• Accurately forecast revenue
• Accurately predict product demand
• Identify and reduce customer churn
• Identify highly-qualified prospects
• Next-best offer, next-best product
• AI-driven segmentation, marketing, and targeting

C3 AI CRM enables brands to take advantage of their real-time customer profiles for cross-channel journey orchestration. The joint solution offers an integrated ecosystem that empowers customers to take advantage of leading CRM capabilities along with an integrated ecosystem with Azure, Microsoft 365, and the Microsoft Power Platform. C3 AI CRM is pre-built and configured for industries – financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, oil and gas, manufacturing, utilities, aerospace, automotive, public sector, defense, and intelligence – enabling customers to deploy and operate C3 AI CRM and its industry-specific machine learning models quickly. In addition, C3 AI CRM leverages the common data model of the Open Data Initiative (ODI), making it easier to bring together disparate customer data from across the enterprise.

C3 AI CRM is immediately available, with Adobe Experience Cloud sold separately. C3 AI CRM powered by Dynamics 365 will be available from C3.ai, Adobe, Microsoft and through the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketplace. Please contact sales@c3.ai to learn more.

###

About C3.ai

C3.ai is a leading enterprise AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. C3.ai delivers the C3 AI Suite for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications in addition to an increasingly broad portfolio of turn-key AI applications. The core of the C3.ai offering is a revolutionary, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically enhances data science and application development.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

About Adobe

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit  www.adobe.com.

For more information, contact:

C3.ai Public Relations:
April Marks

(917) 574-5512
pr@c3.ai

Microsoft Media Relations:

WE Communications for Microsoft

(425) 638-7777

rrt@we-worldwide.com

Adobe Comms:

Ashley Levine

(408) 666-5888

aslevine@adobe.com

We’ve had our eye on first-person parkour game Ghostrunner for a while now, and while the trailers look very impressive indeed, we’re intrigued to see how all that cyberpunk glitz and wall-running action translates to Switch. The game is out now on other platforms and was supposed to be coming to Switch today, too, although unfortunately Nintendo gamers will have to wait just a little bit longer than the rest.

According to publisher All In! Games, it’s been decided to hold back the Switch version until a to-be-determined date in November, “to provide players the best experience possible”. Here’s some more detail direct from the horse’s mouth:

The Nintendo Switch version faces a slight delay into November, as the Ghostrunner teams want all players to have the best possible experience with the game. The final date will be announced in the coming days, so please stay tuned for more information.

While this may be disappointing to some, November is only a handful of days away and given what we’ve seen of the game so far, the Switch version will need some real care and attention if it’s to take its place alongside other quality ports on the system. Far better the devs take the time required to deliver a fine version of the game than the alternative, no?

We’ve certainly got our fingers crossed that this extra time benefits the Switch edition of Ghostrunner because, well, it looks pretty neat — check out the launch trailer below for another taste.

Were you planning on investigating this today? Happy to wait a while? Let us know with a comment below.

REDMOND, Wash. — October 27, 2020 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $37.2 billion and increased 12%
• Operating income was $15.9 billion and increased 25%
• Net income was $13.9 billion and increased 30%
• Diluted earnings per share was $1.82 and increased 32%

“The next decade of economic performance for every business will be defined by the speed of their digital transformation,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We are innovating across our full modern tech stack to help our customers in every industry improve time to value, increase agility, and reduce costs.”

“Demand for our cloud offerings drove a strong start to the fiscal year with our commercial cloud revenue generating $15.2 billion, up 31% year over year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. “We continue to invest against the significant opportunity ahead of us to drive long-term growth.”

Business Highlights

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $12.3 billion and increased 11%, with the following business highlights:

• Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 9% driven by Office 365 Commercial revenue growth of 21% (up 20% in constant currency)
• Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 13% and Microsoft 365 Consumer subscribers increased to 45.3 million
• LinkedIn revenue increased 16%
• Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 19% (up 18% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 38% (up 37% in constant currency)

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $13.0 billion and increased 20% (up 19% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

• Server products and cloud services revenue increased 22% (up 21% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 48% (up 47% in constant currency)

Revenue in More Personal Computing was $11.8 billion and increased 6%, with the following business highlights:

• Windows OEM revenue declined 5%
• Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 13% (up 12% in constant currency)
• Xbox content and services revenue increased 30%
• Surface revenue increased 37% (up 36% in constant currency)
• Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs decreased 10% (down 11% in constant currency)

Microsoft returned $9.5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, an increase of 21% compared to the first quarter of fiscal year 2020.

Business Outlook

Microsoft will provide forward-looking guidance in connection with this quarterly earnings announcement on its earnings conference call and webcast.

Quarterly Highlights, Product Releases, and Enhancements 

Every quarter Microsoft delivers hundreds of products, either as new releases, services, or enhancements to current products and services. These releases are a result of significant research and development investments, made over multiple years, designed to help customers be more productive and secure and to deliver differentiated value across the cloud and the edge.

Here are the major product releases and other highlights for the quarter, organized by product categories, to help illustrate how we are accelerating innovation across our businesses while expanding our market opportunities.

Responding to COVID-19

At Microsoft, our focus remains on ensuring the safety of our employees, striving to protect the health and well-being of the communities in which we operate, and providing technology and resources to our customers and partners to help them do their best work while remote. Additional information about Microsoft’s COVID-19 response can be found here.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

To better execute on Microsoft’s mission, we focus our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts where we can have the most positive impact. To learn more about our latest initiatives and priorities, please visit our investor relations ESG website.

Webcast Details

Satya Nadella, chief executive officer, Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Alice Jolla, chief accounting officer, Keith Dolliver, deputy general counsel, and Michael Spencer, general manager of investor relations, will host a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time (5:30 p.m. Eastern time) today to discuss details of the company’s performance for the quarter and certain forward-looking information. The session may be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor. The webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on October 27, 2021.

Constant Currency

Microsoft presents constant currency information to provide a framework for assessing how our underlying businesses performed excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations. To present this information, current and comparative prior period results for entities reporting in currencies other than United States dollars are converted into United States dollars using the average exchange rates from the comparative period rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective periods. All growth comparisons relate to the corresponding period in the last fiscal year. Microsoft has provided this non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding our performance. The non-GAAP financial measures presented in this release should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Financial Performance Constant Currency Reconciliation

Segment Revenue Constant Currency Reconciliation

Selected Product and Service Revenue Constant Currency Reconciliation           

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this release that are “forward-looking statements” are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors such as:

• intense competition in all of our markets that may lead to lower revenue or operating margins;
• increasing focus on cloud-based services presenting execution and competitive risks;
• significant investments in products and services that may not achieve expected returns;
• acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances that may have an adverse effect on our business;
• impairment of goodwill or amortizable intangible assets causing a significant charge to earnings;
• cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities that could lead to reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to our reputation or competitive position;
• disclosure and misuse of personal data that could cause liability and harm to our reputation;
• the possibility that we may not be able to protect information stored in our products and services from use by others;
• abuse of our advertising or social platforms that may harm our reputation or user engagement;
• the development of the internet of things presenting security, privacy, and execution risks;
• issues about the use of artificial intelligence in our offerings that may result in competitive harm, legal liability, or reputational harm;
• excessive outages, data losses, and disruptions of our online services if we fail to maintain an adequate operations infrastructure;
• quality or supply problems;
• the possibility that we may fail to protect our source code;
• legal changes, our evolving business model, piracy, and other factors may decrease the value of our intellectual property;
• claims that Microsoft has infringed the intellectual property rights of others;
• claims against us that may result in adverse outcomes in legal disputes;
• government litigation and regulatory activity relating to competition rules that may limit how we design and market our products;
• potential liability under trade protection, anti-corruption, and other laws resulting from our global operations;
• laws and regulations relating to the handling of personal data that may impede the adoption of our services or result in increased costs, legal claims, fines, or reputational damage;
• additional tax liabilities;
• damage to our reputation or our brands that may harm our business and operating results;
• exposure to increased economic and operational uncertainties from operating a global business, including the effects of foreign currency exchange;
• uncertainties relating to our business with government customers;
• adverse economic or market conditions that may harm our business;
• catastrophic events or geo-political conditions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, that may disrupt our business; and
• the dependence of our business on our ability to attract and retain talented employees.

For more information about risks and uncertainties associated with Microsoft’s business, please refer to the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Risk Factors” sections of Microsoft’s SEC filings, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, copies of which may be obtained by contacting Microsoft’s Investor Relations department at (800) 285-7772 or at Microsoft’s Investor Relations website at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor.

All information in this release is as of September 30, 2020. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company’s expectations.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

For more information, financial analysts and investors only:

Michael Spencer, General Manager, Investor Relations, (425) 706-4400

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers, and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. Shareholder and financial information, as well as today’s 2:30 p.m. Pacific time conference call with investors and analysts, is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor.

Developer Toys For Bob has a long and storied history stretching back thirty years, although you may know them more recently for the Skylanders series and two excellent platformer compilations: the Switch version of Naughty Dog’s (via Vicarious Visions) Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and the revival of Insomniac’s Spyro platformers in Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

In a recent interview following the release of a brand new entry in the Crash series (sadly not yet confirmed for Switch, despite rumours), Creative Producer Louis Studdert has spoken of a cult classic N64 title that he’s got on the brain. Chatting with Ewan Moore over at Lad Bible, Studdert had the following to say when asked about potential next moves for the studio:

I was trying to figure out what other mascots are there that would be worth going back to?… It was funny, because I kept thinking, the things that I like, are not necessarily what the world likes. I kept coming back to… there’s a Nintendo 64 game called Space Station Silicon Valley.”

“That’s where my brain goes, because I’m very weird… So I actually think the Crash franchise is perfect for me, because it allows us to kind of weird and zany and crazy stuff. And I’m pretty happy with where we’re at right now.”

To be clear, this appears to be a personal wish of Studdert’s and not a hint of any future project. Having been given the keys to the Crash franchise with a canonical fourth game, the logical assumption is that Toys For Bob might have similar plans for a particular purple dragon — the team appears very confortable with the Crash and Spyro series.

Still, it’s very nice to see the cult favourite get namechecked *checks notes*… twenty-two years after release (almost to the day, in fact — it launched on N64 on 21st October 1998). Space Station Silicon Valley was developed by DMA Design, the team behind Lemmings, Body Harvest, and a little boutique series called Grand Theft Auto (before the studio rebranded as Rockstar North). The game saw you body-hop between animals and use their unique skills to solve a host of platforming puzzles and similar problems.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but Space Station Silicon Valley is an enjoyably quirky experience with a wicked sense of humour, and definitely deserving of a little love and attention, if not a full-blown remaster. Throw Toys For Bob another set of keys, we say!

Coincidentally, we picked up a copy of Silicon Valley only a couple of weeks ago. Have you played it recently? Reckon it deserves its cult classic status? Let us know below.

Everything you wanted to know about when American Gods Series 3 is starting in the US. (I've seen finished cuts of the first 4 episodes and rough cuts of all of them. It's really good.) (And it starts internationally the following day.) pic.twitter.com/6YMnL9vEzn

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) October 27, 2020

Should you create an LLC as a freelance developer?

In this article, you’ll learn about which clothes your freelancing business should wear. Make no mistake—choosing the right business entity matters. And informing about this question by reading articles like this one may be one of the most important decisions in your professional life.

Disclaimer: I’m not an accountant but a programmer—so, you should consult with your accountant or lawyer before taking any conclusive action!

Definition LLC

“A limited liability company (LLC) is a business structure in the United States whereby the owners are not personally liable for the company’s debts or liabilities. Limited liability companies are hybrid entities that combine the characteristics of a corporation with those of a partnership or sole proprietorship.” (source)

So, if you create an LLC, you are generally not liable for any debt or liabilities of your freelancing business. Most likely, your freelancing business doesn’t need a lot of debt—after all, you’re selling your time for money—however, there may still be liabilities!

For example, you may have signed a contract that requires you to pay for all damages incurred by your software. Yes, you shouldn’t have done it—but assuming you have, if you signed in the name of the LLC, you personally cannot be hold accountable for the potentially devastating liabilities.

Pros vs Cons Table

What are some advantages and disadvantages of a liability?

Sources:

• https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/starting-successful-llc
• https://grasshopper.com/resources/jump-starting-and-growing-your-business/nuts-and-bolts/
• https://fitsmallbusiness.com/pros-and-cons-of-an-llc/

Freelancer LLC Taxes

An LLC isn’t a federal tax designation but there’s a pass-through federal taxation on profits. This means that in most states, LLC aren’t taxed at all but the individuals who own them are. In other words, your tax designation is that of a disregarded entity that files taxes the same as a sole proprietor.

As a freelance developer, you probably don’t want to leave a lot of profits in the business, so the fact that it is pass-through doesn’t bother you at all. If you would like to build a business machine based on smart reinvestments of profits, feel free to read my detailed article about the topic or watch the following video:

Sources:

• https://www.fundera.com/blog/freelance-llc

Freelancer LLC or Sole Proprietorship

Sole proprietorship is the freelancer’s default business entity. If you don’t explicitly form an LLC or corporation, you’ll automatically operate as a sole proprietor. The main advantage of LLCs compared to Sole Proprietorships are that you’re generally not liable for debts or liabilities of your freelancing business. This protects your personal assets and reduces the likelihood of a personal bankruptcy in case of unforeseen liabilities that happened because of your business activities.

You can read more about the best legal entity for your freelancing business here.

Freelancer LLC or S-Corp

Per default, single-member LLCs are automatically taxed like sole proprietors as pass-through entities. The business isn’t taxed but you are. The S-Corp is just an alternative way you can choose to get taxed: You ask the IRS to tax your single-member LLC as an S-Corp. As a result, you don’t have to pay self-employment taxes anymore—but only income taxes on the corporate profits. This has a few advantages such as the tax deductability of the self-employment tax from corporate profits and the possibility to tax only a smaller portion of the overall profits.

You can read more in this excellent article:

Source: https://www.collective.com/blog/business-setup/llc-vs-s-corp-which-is-the-best-for-freelancers/

Freelancer LLC Names

As a freelance developer, you need to decide on a business name. There are two types of restrictions: First, you cannot choose names that are already trademarked—or that are similar to trademarked names. Second, you cannot choose names that are already taken by other businesses. If you choose your business as your personal name, you usually don’t run into any legal problem. Some people argue that this can harm your scalability or prospects to sell the business. However, as a freelance developer, this is usually not a problem as you’d create a separate business for more scalable ventures anyways.

Delaware LLC Freelancer

Can you create a Delaware corporation as a freelance developer? According to international tax lawyer Jason Knott, the answer is: “Yes, a nonresident can form an entity in Delaware or almost any other state in the U.S.” If you succeed as a freelance developer creating a Delaware LLC, you reduce or even eliminate your income tax burden. However, this can be a complicated legal procedure and you should definitely seek expert advice.

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory, let’s get some practice!

To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!

Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?

Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

Join the free webinar now!

The post Freelance Developer LLC — Is It Smart For You? first appeared on Finxter.