Gamasutra's 10 most-read GDC stories

Phew! Another GDC, another barrage of information to load into your brains. As per usual, the most important annual meeting of video game minds left us all with plenty to think about, whether you were present in San Francisco or not. The big topics frequently passed around the halls of the Moscone Center included diversity, virtual reality, radical changes to video game engines, and representing companies as people, rather than company brands. You can find all of Gamasutra's GDC coverage here -- but which topics were Gamasutra readers most interested in? We've compiled a list of our most read GDC articles from last week, providing an intriguing window into what matters to you lot. Let's dig in. Epic radically changes licensing model for Unreal Engine - Epic announced a $19 monthly subscription fee for its Unreal Engine 4, along with 5 percent of a commercial game's gross revenue. Epic's Tim Sweeney later laid out the case for developers utilizing Unreal Engine 4 to Gamasutra. Unity 5.0 announced, with direct-to-web, plugin-free publishing - The new version of Unity was announced at GDC, featuring an overhauled lighting system and direct build-to-browser via the WebGL standard. Essentially, a browser plug-in will soon not be required to play Unity games. This is Project Morpheus, Sony's prototype VR headset - Sure, Oculus announced that pre-orders were open for its latest VR hardware build -- but Sony's own VR venture received far more buzz on Gamasutra, with the introduction of Project Morpheus. 'Iterate fast' and other design lessons learned from Hearthstone - Eric Dodds, lead designer on Blizzard's Hearthstone, discussed design lessons from building a digital card game. 'Nobody wants your cock,' and other highlights from the Rant Apocalypse - The GDC microrants are always a hot talking point, and this year was no exception. Veteran designers like Brenda Romero, Mitu Khandaker-Kokoris, Ian Bogost, Greg Costikyan and Chris Hecker gave riveting rants well worth reading up on. 'Plot is overrated': Game narrative is all about your characters - Tom Abernathy, narrative lead at Riot Games, and Richard Rouse III of Microsoft Game Studios pair together to give a much discussed talk on caring for characters, not plots, in video game stories. Sony releases open source game development toolset - Sony made its Authoring Tools Framework software available for free to developers last week, including tools used to build The Last of Us and Killzone. The inner workings of the CS:GO marketplace, according to Valve - Planning to create paid, custom content for your first-person shooter? You'll want to check out this GDC talk on how Valve went about it for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. DirectX 12: How, why, and when - Microsoft revealed DirectX 12 at GDC, due for launch Holiday 2015. There are already plenty of details on what to expect from the latest version. Crytek is transforming CryEngine into a subscription service - Epic wasn't the only company exploring engine subscription options during GDC. Crytek will also offer its CryEngine for a subscription fee, with the hope of making it more easily available for indie devs.