July 2022

Build A Rocket Boy has made three senior hires, appointing veterans Mick Hocking as chief development officer, Murray Pannell as SVP of global marketing, and Randall Price as chief publishing officer.

Hocking was the co-founder of the late Evolution Studios where he worked until its closure in 2016. He most recently was VP of product development at Codemasters, which had rescued the Evolution team. He also previously worked as vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Pannell joined Build A Rocket Boy from 2K where he had been VP of publishing for Europe for five years, having previously worked as marketing director for the UK and Ireland at PlayStation, and marketing director at Ubisoft.

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Minecraft creator Mojang Studios has announced that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain won't be supported or allowed on the platform going forward.

The decision for rejecting the technology was attributed to the concern that they would created disparities between Minecraft players.

"We have these rules to ensure that Minecraft remains a community where everyone has access to the same content," the statement said. "NFTs, however, can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft."

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Today the director of Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, Bruce Straley, announced the formation of Wildflower Interactive.

He introduced the new studio on Twitter and noted that after he left the games industry in 2017, he wasn't sure if he'd create games again.

Throughout his career, Straley has worked at developer Naughty Dog for nearly 20 years before his departure.

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Google has announced that app developers will offer consumers in the EEA (European Economic Area) alternative payment options for non-gaming apps.

The change follows after the tech giant complied with the European Parliament's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was passed earlier this month.

The DMA is a set of rules and regulations specifically targeted at large online platforms the EU considers to be a 'gatekeeper.'

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Discord has partnered up with Xbox to bring voice chat functionality to Series X|S and Xbox One consoles.

Using the Xbox mobile app, users will be able to set up voice chats and transfer them to the platform by connecting Discord to their Xbox accounts.

It also allows cross-platform communication, so users playing on PC and mobile can also join a chat hosted on any of the three platforms.

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About two and a half years ago, Zachtronics founder Zach Barth and the studio's audio and narrative director, Matthew Burns, went for a walk.

During the course of their conversation, Barth said that he wanted to shut down the developer. In short, he had become tired of working there.

"I would say over the years game after game it started to feel samey. I felt like my job started to become more boring every day," he tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Every day we explored the same space more thoroughly and we didn't like exploring new spaces."

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At Develop:Brighton last week, Rebellion's Cari Watterton and Lowtek's Alastair Low shared a talk on the topic of accessibility.

Watterton, who joined the Sniper Elite developer as senior designer of accessibility this March, gave a crash course in making games more accessible, while Low -- founder and director of indie dev Lowtek -- focused on sharing advice about designing for dyslexic players.

In this article we'll cover Watterton's portion of the talk, but stay tuned for more from Alastair Low and designing with dyslexia in mind in the coming weeks.

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Chinese studio Nekcom has raised $8 million in a round of Series A funding in order to fuel game development, R&D and international expansion.

The round was led by Galaxy Interactive, and firm partner and co-head Ryan You will join Nekcom's board of directors.

Nekcom is best known as the maker of the Dying: 1883 and Dying: Reborn, and is currently working on a post apocalyptic title for PlayStation and PC, Showa American Story.

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Bungie has filed a lawsuit against an individual for habitually and repeatedly violating Destiny 2's Limited Software Licence Agreement, as well as threats made to staff via social media.

The lawsuit, filed last Friday, accuses a streamer known as Luca Leone of routinely streaming Destiny 2 gameplay with cheats enabled, something he has been banned for multiple times.

The suit alleges that Leone has dodged the bans by creating 13 new accounts, and the creation of each separate account is counted as an individual breach of the LSLA, according to Bungie.

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Electronic Arts is overhauling its technology department, splitting the structure into two pillars, following the announcement of its chief technology officer's upcoming departure.

In an SEC filing released yesterday, spotted by VideoGamesChronicle, the publisher announced Ken Moss will be leaving the company on or around Friday, August 12.

After he leaves, two execs will take on new positions to lead the different pillars EA is now setting up.

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Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo has opened a new office in Singapore.

This new location will serve as headquarters for its metaverse-related operations, HoYoverse, which was announced earlier this year.

The office will house "several hundred employees" across a 28,000-square-foot site, the announcement said (via South China Morning Post), and promote a flexible working model.

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Today Take-Two released a statement of support for employees affected by the US Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade reversal.

As reported by Eurogamer, the Grand Theft Auto publisher's response comes nearly a month after the ruling.

In the company's post on LinkedIn it said that it's been working with benefit providers to so that employees and their dependents can have "the best possible care wherever they may live."

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Today a team of 20 staffers at Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, announced that they have filed for union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

As reported by The Washington Post, the employee group calls itself the Game Workers Alliance - Albany.

The Albany group reached out to Activision Blizzard leadership to recognize their unionization, but the firm hasn't specified that it will.

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Today Screen Australia along with the minister of the arts, Hon Tony Burke MP announced that the Games: Expansion Pack fund will donate AU $4 million ($2.7 million) to indie games creators.

The government funding organization announced the program back in March and said that it will commit up to AU $6 million ($4.1 million) across two years to support games developers.

"The Australian Government is committed to supporting the Australian digital games sector - to create, innovate and flourish and achieve its full potential," Burke said.

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Today German game developer InnoGames revealed a new salary transparency report - becoming the first gaming company in the country to do so.

The report details 80% of the firm's staffers and their earnings across job type and position.

"Salary transparency is a matter of fairness - towards your employees and your applicants," said Co-Founder and COO of InnoGames Michael Zillmer.

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Today sees the launch of As Dusk Falls, a narrative-driven game published by Xbox and developed by Interior Night -- the UK studio founded in 2017 by former Quantic Dream designer Caroline Marchal.

Marchal -- who led game design for the likes of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls -- told GamesIndustry.biz back when the company first opened doors that her intention with Interior Night was to bring the Breaking Bad audience, fans of prestige television, into video games.

When we catch up with Marchal at this year's Develop:Brighton, it's clear that goal has not changed. She speaks of trying to reach older and lapsed gamers, core players' partners and families, and people who think games are not for them.

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Playable Futures is a collection of insights, interviews and articles from global games leaders sharing their visions of where the industry will go next. This article series has been brought to you by GamesIndustry.biz, Ukie, Sumo Group and Diva.

The LEGO Group's Anna Rafferty has been pondering the merits of 'rubber safety mulch'.

The soft, slightly bouncy surface found coating the floor of outdoor playgrounds the world over is critically important to safety. But it also provides a surprisingly helpful analogy through which to think about how the design and delivery of digital spaces such as video games must change in the future.

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Sony Interactive Entertainment's motion to dismiss an antitrust class action over allegations of making the PlayStation Store a monopoly has been granted.

Bloomberg Law reports Judge Richard Seeborg of the Northern District of California dismissed the case on Friday, saying the plaintiffs has failed to prove Sony violated the Sherman Act's rules on anti-competitive practices.

The case was filed last year by a group of consumers following Sony's decision in 2019 to no longer sell codes for digital games through third-party stores, instead focusing all download sales on its own PlayStation Store.

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Roblox has confirmed some of its internal documents were illegally obtained by an unknown third party as part of an extortion scheme.

Vice reports it has reviewed the cache of stolen documents, which appeared to have been taken from a Roblox employee, and included personal information of the users who created some of the most popular games on the platform.

Around 4GB of documents were released, with a selection of images posted on a forum. These included email addresses and identification documents related to these creators.

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NetEase is opening a new studio, Jar of Sparks, led by former Halo Infinite head of design Jerry Hook.

Hook spent over three years at 343 Industries, having previously worked at Bungie for almost four years as business director for the Destiny franchise.

He also spent 11 years at Microsoft, most recently as executive producer. During his time at the company, Hook helped launch the original Xbox and was a founding member of Xbox Live, NetEase said.

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Last Friday Games for Change announced its 2022 award winners slate and Dot's Home was named Game of the Year.

The point and click adventure game by Weathered Sweater & Rise-Home Stories Project exploring US housing inequalities for people of color also won Best Narrative as well.

Established in 2004, Games for Change has supported game makers and social innovators to create impact via the intersects of gaming and technology.

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PlayStation is continuing to ramp up its investment in esports with the acquisition of technology platform Repeat.gg.

Repeat.gg hosts leaderboard tournaments that are designed to make esports more accessible. It tracks how players are performing in games, allowing them to participate in competitions without having to be online at the same time.

The company has hosted over 100,000 tournaments with more than 2.3 million participants.

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This month Russia's major tech firms have been in conversation with the government to develop a national game engine.

As reported by PC Gamer, these talks for an alternative engine follow after game companies halted their businesses in the country -- in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The proposed game development resource may require billions of Russian Rubles to fund.

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The value of skilled producers in game development simply cannot be overstated. Without these unsung heroes and heroines overseeing workflows and processing many moving parts, most games would likely churn forever in development hell.

But what makes a good producer great? And who makes for strong (even if unexpected) candidates to step into this role?

Producers in our industry cover a wide range of responsibilities, depending on where you look. In-house producers juggle many needs across a studio's internal teams alongside any outside partners, while those outside of fully integrated studios often manage a tighter scope of products and processes in collaboration across multiple developers at once.

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A few weeks ago, Rare received the tragic news of the passing of Rob Ashby.

Rob was the stalwart of our customer service and support teams, taking care of online safety and security across our studio and games. In the six years Rob was with us at Rare, he grew our customer service capability for Sea of Thieves as it grew from pre-launch to the at-scale game it is today.

Although a private person, Rob was a friend, colleague, mentor and crewmate to so many of us at Rare, and equally to our partner teams. We all thought the world of him, and the news of his passing has weighed heavy on us all. Rob was a kind and thoughtful person; someone who dedicated his career to the incredibly important work that goes on behind-the-scenes to make games what they are.

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So, after all the interviews and surveys and research and committee hearings, all the 'surprise mechanics' memes and hyperbolic tweets full of false equivalence ("They're just like football stickers"... "They're basically casinos")... After all that, the UK Government has done what any parent would when faced with two squabbling children: shout "just sort it out would you?" and close the door.

The UK Government was always unlikely to legislate against loot boxes. For one, the video games industry contributes nearly £3bn to the UK economy, which is more than double the fishing industry (and if Brexit has taught us anything, fishing must be one of the most important industries in the world). It understandably doesn't want to meddle in one of the UK's fastest growing sectors.

Legislating against loot boxes is also going to be expensive. If the Government did decide that loot boxes are a form of gambling, then it would require a massive expansion of the Gambling Commission. The NERA Economic Consulting 2021 Report estimated that it would almost double the Commission's annual costs. Meanwhile, the communications regulator Ofcom, which could help here, have their hands tied by the ongoing farce that is the Online Safety Bill.

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Amazon's Prime Day deals have shaken the UK physical charts up this week, with Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga back at No.1.

Sales for Warner Bros' title were up 83% week-on-week, and particularly boomed on Switch (up 175%) and Xbox Series X|S (up 140%).

Further down the charts, a handful of Ubisoft games reappeared, boosted by Prime deals as well. Far Cry 6 saw its sales increase 275% week-on-week and charted at No.6.

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Unity CEO John Riccitiello has released an apology for his comments in a recent interview, in which he described developers who shun monetisation as "pure" and "brilliant" but "also some of the biggest fucking idiots."

The interview followed Unity's announcement that it is merging with IronSource, a monetisation specialist, with his comments following a question about discussing how to get players spending early on in the development process.

Riccitiello at first tweeted a brief apology, simply writing: "Clickbait. Out of full context. Deeply sorry if what I said offended any game dev. Absolutely love the people that make games. Creative, hard work."

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The UK Government has today told the games industry it must take action on loot boxes, or risk future legislation.

In particular, it says children and young people should not be able to buy loot boxes without parental consent. However, it's allowing the games industry to regulate itself for now.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) launched a call for evidence on loot boxes in 2020, and found that players who purchase loot boxes are "more likely to experience gambling, mental health, financial and problem gaming-related harms". But it did not explicitly conclude that loot boxes are the same as gambling.

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Today Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that its acquisition of Destiny maker Bungie has completed.

The merger deal was originally announced in January for the purchase amount of $3.6 billion.

Bungie released a statement today providing more details now that it's a subsidiary of Sony.

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Unity has responded to criticism concerning its merger with IronSource, which has labelled a malware provider by various developers via social media.

As discussed in today's This Week In Business, the $4.4 billion deal has sparked complaints stemming from an incident where IronSource's first product was classified as malware.

InstallCore was an installation program for internet-based applications launched in 2010, but within a few years it has been blocked by software such as Malwarebytes and even Microsoft's Windows platform for installing unwanted programs.

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Developers are not overly happy with Unity this week.

The reason? Wednesday's announcement that the company is merging with IronSource, a provider of software and tools designed to help developers with monetisation, user acquisition, retention and all those other -tion words that are essential to thriving in the mobile games market.

STAT | $4.4 billion -- Approximate value of the all-stock deal, a 74% premium over the 30-day average ratio of IronSource's stock

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A new report reveals that Embracer has so far spent $2 million in its efforts to archive retro video games.

The group announced earlier this year that it was launching a new initiative with the aim of preserving as much of the games industry's history as possible.

As reported by Waypoint, the company is also building a database, while hinting that in the future the archive could be used by journalists, loaned to museums, and seen by the public.

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US consumer spending decreased 11% to $4.3 billion this June 2022 compared to the same period last year, NPD reported in its monthly charts.

Analyst Mat Piscatella noted a growth in subscription spending but it "could not offset declines in other areas of content spending, while hardware and accessory spending also dropped."

Overall, spending for the first half of 2022 reached $26.3 billion, a 10% drop year-on-year, with subscription being the only category experiencing growth compared to 2021.

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Yet another indie publisher has emerged, but this one comes from a company that has a considerable track record. 33 years in the business, in fact.

Hook is the new indie-focused publishing label from Italy-based Digital Bros Group, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal. The group has already enjoyed a number of indie hits over the years thanks to its subsidiary 505 Games, which has contributed to the success of Stardew Valley, Human Fall Flat and No Man's Sky. But in recent years, the publisher has been focused on AAA products such as Control and Death Stranding, as well as investing in high-end indie endeavours such as Ghostrunner.

"505 Games is becoming more and more of an established publisher, having some nice successes with very established studios," Digital Bros co-founder and CEO Raffaele 'Raffi' Galante tells us ahead of Hook's official unveiling today. "At Hook, we'd like to give the opportunity to other, emerging talent that haven't yet had the chance."

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The PC market has experienced its "sharpest decline in nine years" during Q2 2022, according to the latest report from research firm Gartner.

As reported by Eurogamer, PC shipments declined 12.6% during Q2 2022 compared to the same period last year, for a total of 72 million units shipped.

Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner, explained the geopolitical and economic reasons behind this drop:

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John Riccitiello, CEO of game engine and service provider Unity, has said developers that shun monetisation practises or leave them to later in the development cycle are "fucking idiots."

The exec spoke to PocketGamer.biz in the wake of Wednesday's news that monetisation tools provider IronSource is merging with Unity during the fourth quarter of this year.

When asked about the pushback from developers against working out how to get users spending early in the development process, Riccitiello said: "It's a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favourite people in the world to fight with -- they're the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They're also some of the biggest fucking idiots.

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Recently a Shanghai-based tech firm has received a $163,000 fine for publishing unlicensed games in China.

As reported by South China Morning Post, the fee is one of the largest for this type of offence.

Chinese regulators said that the company published seven online titles without approval. All revenue generated from these games were seized by authorities; the exact amount is unknown.

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During the first half of 2022, mobile game consumer spending reached $41.2 billion, according to Sensor Tower's latest report.

The figure represented a 6.6% year-over-year decrease when compared to the same period from 2021.

The report added that during the six month period, Google Play generated $15.6 billion and was down by 14.8% year-on-year.

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Nintendo is set to acquire Japanese CG production company Dynamo Pictures for an unknown sum.

In its announcement (via Eurogamer), the platform holder said it's entered an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares in the Tokyo-based studio, and make it a wholly owned subsidiary.

The deal is expected to close on October 3, 2022, what the company then due to be renamed Nintendo Pictures and "focus on development of visual content utilising Nintendo IP."

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