40. Ludum Dare
Ludum Dare is another event-based website to make our list. This event however is a little non-traditional as it's an indie-style competition in which participants develop a game from scratch—over the course of a weekend. Keeping tabs on events like this one is a good idea and participating in them (whether as a competitor or helping out with the event) will garner you some valuable peer connections, a load of experience and even another demo game to add to your portfolio.
39. Shareware Industry Conference
The Shareware Industry Conference is a special event held annually for game publishers who release their games via the shareware model. Any aspiring game design professionals looking to leverage the shareware (aka trialware, aka demoware) model would do well to leach advice from the experts. They have even launched a “Newbie Track” weekend package designed with basic-level subject matter for those just breaking into shareware game releases.
38. Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
With more than 20,000 members who are working professionals in the interactive arts the AIAS is a force to be reckoned with. For almost 15 years they have been honoring notable achievements in the industry with their annual awards show and bringing together top talent, publishers, game designers and developers from around the world with their Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (D.I.C.E) Summit. Remember n00bs: professional association participation = good.
37. AppAnnie
AppAnnie is an ingenious tool that lets game and app developers track their sales, downloads, ranking and reviews. But it is so much more than that, it is also a great tool to perform a competitive analysis with. It also offers you tools for analytics and advanced statistical modeling, which allow you to make more educated decisions regarding your app/game and business.
36. PlanetRecruit.com
PlanetRecruit is a technology recruiting platform that companies across the globe post job ads on. Yes, it is 'another' job board, but this one is international. And since programming languages are universal people are now flowing through borders freely, so if you want your career to take you around the world—you know, C++ing in Tokyo then Java-ing it up in Germany—then PlanetRecruit is the job site for you. They post a new gaming job every couple of days. The great kicker about this site is that you can search for a job in the programming language of your choice!
35. StackOverflow
StackOverflow is a technology-focused Q&A website that allows you to post questions and get answers from their community. But unlike Ask.com or Yahoo! Answers, the users and their responses are legit. They have plenty of game developer users so getting an answer even to technical questions is not a problem. You aren't guaranteed to get an answer—but hey, it's free. The site design is simple and extremely easy to follow.
34. InsideMobileApps
InsideMobileApps is a great news source for aspiring app developers, it has around 5 posts daily, revolving around breaking news, industry events, market research and the social application ecosystem. Their analysis of news and events generally has a market research or business slant, making it the perfect source for app developers who are relying on the app/games success for a paycheck.
33. Kontagent
Kontagent is another once-a-weeker that is worth paying attention to. Their big-data style analysis is incredibly insightful and will keep you on top of industry trends. Their articles are well-researched and fairly detailed, not mere subject overviews--so the info you get about social and mobile games is in-depth. Titles include the likes of Winning the Social Gambling War, Hacker Perspectives on Understanding In-App User Behaviors and Data-driven Design: You’ve Got the Data… Now What?.
32. Flurry
Flurry is another app-building resource, but unlike many on this list Flurry doesn't cater solely to iOS, it also deals with Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, JavaME and HTML5 platforms. The only downside to the site is that they only post one single, lonely post per week—but that one is pure gold, On Flurry you'll see titles like, China: The New Mobile App Dragon, Upper Middle Class, Females Key to Bridging Mobile Ad Spending Gap and iOS & Android Apps Challenged by Traffic Acquisition Not Discovery. The data that this blog taps into is incredible, as are the insights that they pull from it; these insights are what keep them on top of industry trends, including the monetization of apps and platforms.
31. Fiksu
Fiksu might be just another marketing services company, but they are very good at what they do—and they talk freely about it in their blog. The marketing intelligence you can gain from this little gem is incredible, you just need to read it regularly to leech expert advice on mobile apps and game issues, like marketing metrics, cost of customer acquisition, engagement metrics, session time and retention. It's highly-recommended reading sourced from a company employing entrepreneurial mathematicians, technologists, and online marketing veterans—read it, because advice like this is rarely free!