Out on the town: How esports events drive cultural and economic impact | Playable Futures
This series of Playable Futures articles considers how the design, technology, people, and theory of video games are informing and influencing the wider world. You can find all previous Playable Futures articles here. When a major esports event rolls into a city, there is an immediate contribution that goes far beyond the walls of the […]
Live Aware Labs secures $4.8m in seed funding round
Seattle-based technology firm Live Aware Labs has raised $4.8 million in a seed funding round. The investment was led by venture capital firm Transcend, alongside A16z Speedrun, Lifelike Capital, and a group of strategic angel investors. Founded in 2022 by gaming veterans Sean Vesce and David Berger, Live Aware Labs provides developers with a management […]
Rare’s Craig Duncan to become head of Xbox Game Studios as Alan Hartman retires
The head of Xbox Game Studios Alan Hartman will retire from the company at the end of November, with Rare boss Craig Duncan taking over. Hartman is best known for leading Turn 10 and the Forza franchise since 2005, and stepped up to lead Xbox Game Studios last year. He’s also worked on hit Microsoft […]
Another group of ex-Disco Elysium developers found Dark Math Games
A group of former ZA/UM staff have formed a new studio, Dark Math Games, and are working on a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium. The team of 20 describe themselves as a “breakaway group from the original development team” behind the acclaimed 2019 role-playing game. One of the four founders is Timo Albert, who served […]
The voice actors’ strike shows its claws | Opinion
It may have fallen out of the public consciousness a little bit since it began at the end of July, but the strike action by video game voice actors in the SAG-AFTRA union remains very much active. A picket was held at Electronic Arts’ studio in Los Angeles this week – but arguably much more […]
August spending drops 7% to $4.1bn despite Madden and mobile success | US Monthly Charts
Circana has released the market figures for US games spending in August, which showed an overall decline in dollars spent – down 7% year-on-year to $4.1 billion. The biggest drop was seen in hardware sales, down 36% compared to August 2023 to $208 million. Switch saw the sharpest drop off, with sales down 41%. PlayStation […]
Experts say Google Play opening up in the US will have minimal impact
Earlier this week, US courts mandated that Google must – for a three-year period – open up its Play app store to allow more competition. This ruling follows the trial opposing Epic and Google late last year, where the jury voted in favour of the Fortnite firm. The changes Google has now been told to […]
Bandai Namco: Publishers face “new risks” when planning releases
Bandai Namco is having a solid 2024, so far. The launch of Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree in June has already helped boost profits and led the publisher to raise its forecasts for the year ahead. GamesIndustry.biz caught up with the company’s European CEO Arnaud Muller to discuss the wider challenges in the […]
Tequilla Works lays off “small number” of staff, cancels unannounced game
Spanish game developer Tequila Works is the latest to suffer layoffs, letting an unknown number of staff go in the wake of a game cancellation. In a LinkedIn post, spotted by TechRaptor, the studio said it has been working on an unannounced game but, for reasons it has yet to disclose, has been compelled to […]
The perks and perils of licensed games, and games journalism’s ongoing struggle | Microcast
The latest episode of The GamesIndustry.biz Microcast is now available to download, offering you a quick dive into the biggest news of the past week.
This week, we use Devolver’s unveiling of Big Fan Games – a new publishing label dedicated to indies working on licensed and other established IP – as a […]
Is the Star Wars franchise in crisis? | Opinion
As hints about the sales numbers for Star Wars Outlaws have trickled out through various different data tracking agencies, the depth of the crisis that has engulfed Ubisoft is slowly becoming clear. It’s not the only factor that has sent the publisher into a tailspin, but the game’s underperformance appears to be pretty serious, with […]
53% of gamers prefer single-player games
A new survey has found that over half of gamers prefer to play single-player titles. According to Midia Research, this game mode is most popular across all platforms – particularly on mobile, with 58% of respondents saying they preferred single-player games. The data from the survey was collected from Midia Research’s Q1 2024 and Q1 […]
Tencent and Guillemot family reportedly planning Ubisoft buyout
Tencent and Guillemot Brothers Ltd have been exploring ways to stabilise Ubisoft in the wake of its recent troubles, which could result in the pair buying out the publisher and taking it private. Sources close to the matter told Bloomberg that the two companies have spoken to advisors about potential routes forward, although these considerations […]
Esports Wales receives up to £125,000 in funding
Esports Wales has been awarded up to £125,000 as part of the Creative Skills Fund. Wales’ governing Esports body is one of 17 recipients, and will use the funding to extend its academy program to cover the whole country, in addition to offering taster sessions, networking and career events. The Creative Skills Fund was established […]
Awesomenauts devs reclaim their unfinished game as new studio Rangatang
Ronimo Games, the Dutch developer behind indie hit Awesomenauts, filed for bankruptcy in August last year. Today, four former members of the team – including the CEO – return with a new studio, Rangatang. Not only that, the quartet is already hard at work on Nubs, the game Ronimo never got the chance to finish. […]
Crunchyroll alumni launch indie publisher Shorelines Games
New indie publisher Shoreline Games just launched, also unveiling its portfolio for early 2025. The company was created by US-based co-founders Keith Kawamura and Jenny Zha. CEO Kawamura previously was general manager at art products company Too Corporation Americas. He’s formerly worked at the likes of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Perfect World, Crunchyroll, and more. COO […]
Nexon America lays off “small number” of staff
Nexon America has been hit with layoffs, with an unknown number of employees affected. As reported by Game Developer , the firm said the redundancies would impact a “small number” of employees. It clarified the decision was made following a restructuring plan announced earlier this month. “The re-organisation includes the elimination of a small number […]
Grand Theft Auto 5 is No.1 again in August | European Monthly Charts
11.8 million console and PC games were sold across Europe in August, a rise of 7% over the year before. That’s according to the latest figures from GSD, which tracks digital sales from most major publishers and physical sales in all major European markets. The jump in sales in August was due to discounts and […]
Tencent loans €15m to Remedy
Finnish developer Remedy has received a €15 million loan from Tencent. The finance will be converted to a maximum of approximately 811,110 new shares, representing 5.98% of all Remedy shares, and a convertible loan agreement. Remedy CEO Tero Vitala said the loan will support Remedy in development as it begins to self-publish its games. The […]
Nintendo’s patents were designed to take on Palworld
On September 19, 2024, Nintendo Co. issued a press release stating that it, along with The Pokémon Company, had officially filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair, Inc. in Tokyo District Court. As stated in the press release the “lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed […]
Time spent gaming in Southeast Asia up 53% after post-pandemic drop
Players in Southeast Asia are engaging more with video games in 2024, with a 53.2% year-on-year increase in the average individual weekly gaming time. That’s according to a Niko Partners’ new SEA-6 Gamer Behaviour and Market Insights Report shared with GamesIndustry.biz, which explores the current trends in the six key Southeast Asian markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, […]
Behold Studios’ second life | GamesIndustry.biz
“No one knew that it was possible to make games in Brazil.” Saulo Camarotti set up Behold Studios, one of the longest running Brazilian developers, over 15 years ago. The studio is primarily known for 2012 RPG Knights of Pen & Paper, and 2017 sequel Galaxy of Pen and Paper. But when it first began, […]
Pokémon Sleep surpasses $120m in revenue
Pokémon Sleep has made $120 million in revenue 14 months after its launch, according to data by AppMagic. As reported by PocketGamer, the sleep-tracking app earned an additional $20 million in revenue since surpassing its $100 million milestone over the summer. Japan remained at the top spot for player spending, with an estimated 74% share […]
The Brazilian games industry in numbers
To kickstart our Brazil Games Week, we’re aiming to provide as precise a picture as possible of the Brazilian ecosystem. GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor travelled to Brazil earlier this year, and you can read his overview of the market, its challenges and opportunities, on this page – directly from the professionals who are part of it. […]
Final Fantasy’s sales crisis is also an identity crisis | Opinion
The news that Square Enix considers its two major Final Fantasy titles in the past year – Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – to have missed their sales targets won’t be a surprise to many people in the industry. On the contrary, this outcome was so predictable that it’s provoked all manner […]
75% of games sold in August were downloaded | UK Monthly Charts
1.74 million video games were sold in the UK during August, a slight drop of 1.5% over the year before (GSD data). It was a quiet month for games overall (note, UK market data for August ends August 24th, so doesn’t include Star Wars Outlaws). Take-Two had a very strong month, with Rockstar’s GTA 5 […]
GamesIndustry.biz’s Brazil Games Week begins on Monday
GamesIndustry.biz will kick off its latest territory special on Monday, this time taking a deeper look at Brazil. Earlier this year, we spoke to a number of trade bodies, developers, and a São Paulo government minister about the challenges and opportunites facing games companies in Latin America’s largest nation. We also discussed the new legal […]
How Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven helps indies with “the good, bad and ugly” of launching games
In 2020, Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime co-created Dreamhaven, a new developer and publisher with two internal studios and a partnership program designed to help other indies. Few companies can survive four years without announcing or releasing a product, but the funding put forward by Morhaime and his wife Amy (also a co-founder), as well as […]
Kabam to sunset Disney Mirrorverse | News-in-brief
Making The Plucky Squire (before someone else did)
There’s something uniquely exciting about a game with a novel twist, and that’s exactly what The Plucky Squire brings to the table. All Possible Futures’ long-awaited debut title explores a perspective-shifting mechanic in a fresh way, with its characters existing inside a 2D book but able to jump out of it to explore the world […]
Intel reportedly lost PlayStation 6 chip deal to AMD
Intel reportedly lost Sony’s PlayStation 6 chip contract to Advanced Micro Devices in 2022, missing out on a potential $30 billion in revenue. This is according to Retuers, with sources claiming that the deal fell through after Intel and Sony failed to settle on “how much Intel stood to take from each chip sold.” The […]
Embracer confirms it’s keeping Metro dev 4A Games and Zen Studios following Saber sale
Embracer Group has confirmed it will retain Metro developer 4A Games and Pinball FX creator Zen Studios as the sale of Saber Interactive progresses. Saber was one of Embracer’s operating groups until it was sold to Beacon Interactive – a new company founded by Saber co-founder Matthew Karch – for $247 million in March. In […]
Absurd Ventures launches new studio with Ascendant Studios staff
Absurd Ventures has announced the launch of a new studio called Absurd Marin, made up by the former Ascendant Studios team. Based in San Rafael, California, the developer will be led by Ascendant founder and game director Bret Robbins. When asked about more details about the staff, a spokesperson for the studio told us it’s […]
First Ontario game dev labour union formed at Joydrop, majority of staff who voted reportedly fired
The first labour union of game developers in Ontario was formed by staff at Joydrop, only for the majority of employees that voted to reportedly be fired two working days after the victory. Joydrop is the gaming brand of London-based service agency Mikutech, founded in 2013 by Mark Mikulec. It specialises in work-for-hire services, including […]
What’s ailing Ubisoft? | Opinion
Since its IPO almost thirty years ago, the corporate history of Ubisoft has been defined, to some degree, by battles with various attempts to take over or wrest control of the company. At the time of that IPO it was still primarily a European distributor for other companies’ games, and the ambitions that would lead […]
Control 2, Wanderstop and Mixtape among projects unaffected by Annapurna collapse
Developers with upcoming projects due to be published by Annapurna Interactive have reacted to the news of its collapse, most of them to say their project is currently unaffected by the situation. Remedy’s communications director Thomas Puha reacted on social media yesterday, to clarify that the Finnish studio’s deal for Control 2 and its TV […]
