A couple years ago, Ubisoft put out an interesting experiment of a game: Starlink: Battle for Atlas. It mixed a vast in-game world with physical collectible toys that rewarded players for acquiring as many of the physical ships as possible.

In 2018, Ubisoft's Matthew Rose gave a talk on the origins of Starlink: Battle for Atlas, showing off how a project that started in a company game jam grew to being one worthy of the company's full development efforts.

If you're working on a game built from an internal game jam, it's a talk that's definitely worth your time, one you can watch in full up above or for free on the GDC YouTube channel.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.