September 2022

Games have a love/hate relationship with war. While many of the most popular titles have long glorified war – or paid lip service to it being bad while trying to make it as awesome and fun as possible – many of the actual people making games have personal politics that run counter to it.

That can cause friction, as we saw this week when defense contractor Raytheon announced a new partnership with Girls Who Code for a program where college students grow their networks in STEM fields and receive guidance from GWC advisors and Raytheon "mentors."

QUOTE | "At Girls Who Code, we understand that to prepare our students for the workforce; we must not only equip them with the resources they need to build on their technical skills. To help them thrive, we also need hands-on engagement that will teach them the fundamentals of growing their networks through leadership." - Girls Who Code CEO Tarika Barrett celebrates the partnership in Raytheon's press release.

Read more

There's just two weeks left to complete your entry for the GamesIndustry.biz Canada Best Places To Work Awards 2022.

The awards can take a while to complete, so if you're interested, sign up as soon as possible.

The awards are open to all Canada games companies, including developers, publishers, service companies, retailers and media. Over 50 companies have already signed up. The judging period ends on Friday, September 16th.

Read more

Content warning: Transphobia

Management simulator Domina has been delisted from Steam after developer Dolphin Barn Interactive used the platform to share a transphobic outburst.

In a news post on its Steam page, the studio claimed that the game’s name had been changed to Dominus, and referred to Domina as its "deadname," before mocking the trans community in a long paragraph mentioning the "sex change" of the title.

Read more

Riot Games has announced a partnership with charity Take This to support the mental health of players and content creators.

Riot provided Take This with a grant back in May, the announcement said, leading to the creation of a program designed to "meet the needs of casual and professional streamers," giving them practical tools to support their own wellbeing as well as the "mental health needs of their communities."

Several modules will be released, developed by Take This’ clinical experts Dr. Kelli Dunlap and Dr. Raffael Boccamazzo, with the first already available on Take This' website and focusing on the topic of burnout in content creation.

Read more

Data.ai reports that League of Legends: Wild Rift has amassed over $750 million in global player spending.

The MOBA title has generated this amount of revenue in nearly two years after launching across Apple App Store and Google Play.

In terms of lifetime consumer spending by country, China ranks as the top revenue generator for the game.

Read more

Update Wednesday, September 7:

Corecell has responded to PQube's comments with further allegations, disputing the publisher's defence.

"Despite what PQube said in the statement, the fact remains unchanged that: PQube has not yet paid us the agreed amount," the team wrote. "We have not received any revenue from PQube sales in EU stores. PQube did not return the publishing control in [Europe] back to us. There is consistency in the truth and confusion in lies."

Read more

The Pokémon Company is suing a half dozen Chinese companies over a mobile game it says is infringing on its copyrights, according to the South China Morning Post.

One of the defendants, Jiangyin Zhongnan Heavy Industries Co, included news of the suit in a stock exchange filing this week.

The company informed investors that The Pokémon Company has gone to the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court seeking an order to keep the Chinese firms from working on or distributing their game Pocket Monster Reissue, also known as Koudaiyaoguai Fuke.

Read more

Playtropic Videogame Services, the first QA company in the Caribbean, has opened for business.

The firm will provide game testing for home consoles, PC, and mobile devices. Its services will also include focus group testing.

Playtropic was established by games industry veteran Joel Benton.

Read more

Gerda: A Flame in Winter is launching today. Developed by Danish studio PortaPlay, it's also the first ever third-party title published by Don't Nod.

The French company (which recently overhauled its visual identity) has been experimenting with different business models in recent years, with every step seemingly paving the way for the studio to become a publisher.

Don't Not went from being a dedicated developer to self-publishing with Twin Mirror, to being a third-party publisher in the span of a few years. And at Gamescom last week, CEO and founder Oskar Guilbert and CMO Sophie Filip's excitement ahead of Gerda's launch was palpable.

Read more

The Competition and Markets Authority has decided that Microsoft's record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard may affect competition within the UK.

The phase one ruling, issued September 1, said that the merger "may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom."

As a result, the deal is expected to be referred for an in-depth phase two investigation unless both Microsoft and Activision "offer acceptable undertakings to address these competition concerns."

Read more

Major investment group Hiro Capital will be sharing its insight with developers at GI Live London.

The firm is the latest speaker to sign-up for the event, which takes place from September 20 to 22 online and in-person. Tickets are on sale here.

During this session, industry veteran and co-founder Sir Ian Livingstone CBE will be speaking with Hiro Capital partner about angel investment and the differences when compared to venture capital – helping developers understand which type of funding they should seek for their project.

Read more

Mount & Blade developer Taleworlds has acquired Udo Games shares from WePlay Ventures and Lima Ventures.

The Ankara-based mobile studio raised $420,000 from the two firms last year, with WePlay and Lima now exiting the investment, saying that their mission at Udo has been completed.

"[Udo Games] accomplished very successful works by using the investment they received correctly," said WePlay's chairman Bora Koçyiğit. "However, to be frank, we did not expect such an early exit. The exit of a start-up that we invested in a year before completing our second year as WePlay proved to us how well we did. Likewise, we will continue to support the pre-seed game venture with all our strength and create new exit stories."

Read more

Today, Riot Games has announced that it's officially appointed Andrei Van Roon as head of League (League of Legends) studios.

Van Roon will oversee development for League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and League of Legends: Wild Rift. He will report to Marc Merrill, president of games and co-founder of Riot.

His new role responsibilities will also include developing narratives for champion characters and world lore for the title Runeterra.

Read more

A team of Riot Games veterans have launched Sprocket Games, which today announced that it has landed $5 million in seed funding.

The founding team includes CEO Josiah Kiehl (with previous stints at Google and Riot), chief creative officer Jo Graylock (Riot and before that Obsidian Entertainment), chief technical officer Nicolas Tittley (Riot and before that CCP), and Reina Sweet (Riot).

The studio said it is making a cross-platform social adventure game that will make use of the team's prior experience with online multiplayer titles like League of Legends, Valorant, and Eve Online.

Read more

Earlier this year, developer Jeffrey Janssen released Nobelia, a new game for Phillips CD-i, a hardware platform from the early '90s that may be most remembered for hosting a handful of poorly regarded Zelda and Mario games.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Janssen answers the most pressing question: Why?

"My dad worked at Phillips when I was a kid and he brought back a CD-i player," Janssen explains. "We didn't have any other game consoles, so we had a lot of fun with it."

Read more

Brace Yourself Games announced that it's launched a new publishing division, Brace Yourself Publishing.

As reported by PocketGamer.biz, the company said that its priority will be games created by independent studios.

"After nearly a decade of developing games, we now want to use the resources and knowledge we've gained to help smaller indie developers make their own dream projects a reality," the company said.

Read more

Strategy studio Dire Wolf Digital has acquired Cortex, a tabletop roleplaying games business owned by Fandom.

Cortex is made by the creators of D&D Beyond, and gives players the tools to build their own customised stories, worlds and characters with a set of rules, similar to Dungeons & Dragons.

As part of the deal, Dire Wolf Digital will also acquire Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince Roleplaying Game, based on the Netflix series, The Dragon Prince.

Read more

Today, Quantic Dream embarks on a new chapter as it is brought into the fold of NetEase – the Chinese publisher's first European acquisition.

Over the past quarter of a century, the French studio has built a reputation for itself on the back of cinematic titles such as Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human. While these games may divide opinion among individual gamers, generally speaking they have been well received by critics and praised for attempting something different when it comes to interactive storytelling.

The high profile of these games, and the studio's long-running partnership with PlayStation, put Quantic Dream on the map – to the point where co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière (pictured above left) tells GamesIndustry.biz the company has engaged in acquisition discussions with several potential buyers over its lifetime.

Read more

Sony Interactive Entertainment and Sixjoy Hong Kong, a subsidiary of Tencent, have acquired new shares in Japanese studio FromSoftware by way of a third party allotment.

In a document shared by FromSoftare's parent company Kadokawa Corporation, as spotted by VGC, Sixjoy has bought 16.25% of shares in the Dark Souls developer, while Sony has taken a 14.09% stake.

Kadokawa will retain the remaining 69.66% of shares. In the notice, the firm stated it "recognises the enhancement of capabilities for the creation, development and deployment of game IP as one of the Group's highest priorities."

Read more

China-based publisher NetEase has acquired French developer Quantic Dream for an undisclosed sum.

The studio will operate independently and continue to be led by David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière.

NetEase previously invested in Quantic Dream, taking a minority stake back in 2019. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the time, the studio discussed how this enabled it to branch beyond making PlayStation exclusives and targeting a wider variety of platforms.

Read more

Facebook Gaming has announced that its app will no longer be active on October 28, the change will affect both the iOS and Android versions of the program.

As reported by Eurogamer, the news of its closure comes two years after it launched on mobile devices.

Within the announcement regarding the app shutting down, the company said that the gaming division will continue to operate.

Read more

(Note: this piece was originally written on August 8th, any data shared is only accurate up to that point in time.)

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m one of the two developers at Black Tabby Games, an indie game studio I run with my wife, Abby Howard. You might know us from our first game, Scarlet Hollow or you might know us from our recently announced second game – and the subject of this article – Slay the Princess.

Scarlet Hollow is an episodic horror visual novel. We started development on the seven-episode game in March of 2020 and launched the first of those chapters for free in late September of the same year, before driving that launch into a successful Kickstarter the following month.

Read more

Games publisher Super.com has changed its name to Super Good Games, and its website to SuperGG.com.

The company, formed in 2018, is best known as the publisher of games including Raji: An Ancient Epic from Nodding Head Games, Retro Machina by Orgbit Studio, and Alchemist Adventure by Bad Minions.

In a statement, Super Good Games said that it is "empowered by new owners," and that the rebrand is "putting a title to the new step of our growth and ambition."

Read more

Rocksteady Studios, the team behind the acclaimed Batman: Arkham games and the upcoming Suicide Squad, is launching a new training program to help underrepresented folks find a career in games development.

Warner Bros – or Warner Bros Discovery, as it's now known following the spin-off from AT&T and merger with Discover earlier this year – announced the program today, stating that it will offer selected participants a free 12-week course in various disciplines.

Known as the Warner Bros Discover Access x Rocksteady Studios Games Academy, the program will offer hybrid training to help people prepare for roles in games design, art, audio, and quality assurance testing.

Read more

PowerWash Simulator is the ultimate ‘Why hasn’t this been done before?’ game. It takes a mundane task that usually leads to a satisfying outcome and gamifies it, removing all of the hurdles of actually doing it in real life.

Futurlab founder James Marsden says that the idea for PowerWash Simulator came from that very ideal: taking something that is calm and soothing to watch, and giving players the tools to do it themselves. But, while the game itself is peaceful and free from antagonism, FuturLab's journey to release an indie hit was much more arduous.

The concept initially came about roughly four years ago, and it was Marsden's wife and business partner Kirsty Rigden that tapped into the core idea first.

Read more

A lawsuit that accuses Epic Games of including a copyrighted dance in Fortnite without the creator's permission has been dismissed.

The suit was filed by YouTuber and choreographer Kyle Hanagami, which alleged that an emote in the game copies the hook of Hanagami's own copyrighted dance routine.

The ruling, given by a judge for the Central District of California, said that while entire choreographies can be copyrighted, individual moves and steps alone cannot. As a result, the court has said that Hanagami's routine and the Fortnite emote don't share enough creative similarities for the suit to stand up, as spotted by PCGamesN.

Read more

The new Saints Row was the biggest selling boxed game at UK retail last week, launching at No.1 in the weekly charts.

The game launched last Tuesday to mixed reviews, and marks the first new entry in the series since 2015's Gat Out Of Hell.

According to GfK data, Saints Row sold more than five times the number of units in its first week as 2017's Agents of Mayhem, a multiplayer spin-off of the series. Comparisons with earlier Saints Row titles are somewhat tougher due to the shift towards digital sales; the last full entry was 2015's Saints Row: Gat out of Hell.

Read more

Over 265,000 people from more than 100 countries attended Gamescom 2022 last week, the organisers announced.

After a two-year hiatus, over 1,100 exhibitors from 53 countries were at Cologne's Koelnmesse for the event, with the organiser noting that "at 75%, the number of foreign exhibitors was even higher than usual."

25,000 trade visitors attended the show, 50% of them from abroad, which is on a par with 2019's figures.

Read more

Neowiz has come out on top of this year's Gamescom Awards, taking more awards than any other publisher.

The South Korean firm won three categories, thanks to its Pinocchio inspired RPG the Lies of P. The dark fantasy took home Best Action Adventure Game, Best RPG, and Most Wanted Sony PlayStation Game.

Meanwhile indie title Inkulinati and the shooter Metal: Hellsinger tied with two category wins each.

Read more

Some of the creators behind influential JRPGs Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts are working together to crowdfund spiritual successors to their past work.

The two new games – Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood – will share a "Double Kickstarter" project set to launch today with a minimum $750,000 funding goal.

Armed Fantasia is set in a futuristic take on the Old West and comes from a number of veterans from the 1997 PlayStation games Wild Arms, including lead designer Akifumi Kaneko and composer Michiko Naruki.

Read more

Last Friday, the vice president of Meta's virtual reality social platform, Vivek Sharma, left the tech giant for a new position.

As reported by Reuters, the Horizon executive leaves the company after nearly six years.

During his career he previously served as vice president of of Facebook Gaming.

Read more

Sony has acquired Savage Game Studios as the latest addition to PlayStation Studios, the company announced today.

Savage Games Studios was founded in the summer of 2020 by veterans with prior experience at Rockstar, Wargaming, Rovio and Next Games.

Last year, the team raised $4.4 million in seed funding to work on a shooter for mobile devices.

Read more

This year's devcom Developer Conference saw more than 3,500 participants, a new attendee milestone for the Cologne, Germany event.

Devcom said that on site, the European games industry event saw an increase of 10% compared to 2019.

The conference saw more than 120 lectures by over 180 speakers on the floor during the three day period.

Read more

The third day of Gamescom was time for this year's Awesome Indie Showcase. The indie-focused presentation spotlighted titles set to release later this year and new games scheduled for the year of 2023.

Some of the announcements that were made during the event are collected below.

Read more

The blockchain tech sector is notable for the absurd amount of scams, fraudsters, liars, con artists, and other such deceptive bad actors it attracts. And as we talked about in this space back in March, people building their businesses in that sector have realized it has is a reputational problem about honesty.

Unfortunately, a common workaround for that honesty problem has been for companies to deceive people about their involvement in blockchain.

For example, there was this week's Gamescom Opening Night Live unveiling of Everywhere, the first game from Build a Rocket Boy, the new studio from long-time Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies.

Read more

Today, gaming firm Embracer Group announced that its acquisition of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal, various IPs – such as Tomb Raider – has completed.

The deal was originally announced in May for the purchase amount of $300 million.

As part of the purchase Embracer has acquired the rights to the Deus Ex, Thief and Legacy of Kain franchises, as well as more than 50 back catalog titles.

Read more

Sony may not have shown up for Gamescom this year, but the company still managed to dominate headlines from the show – although it might have preferred not to.

The announcement that the PS5’s price will be increasing in most global markets was pushed out as a post on the PlayStation blog earlier this week; Sony may have been hoping that news from Gamescom would soften the impact a little, compared with dropping this kind of news in one of the summer’s more empty weeks. I’m not sure it worked; there’s not much anyone wants to talk about this week other than price hikes.

So let’s talk about price hikes – not just Sony’s price hike, but the broader question of the upward pressures on the industry’s pricing, which has been brought into pretty sharp focus by Sony’s decision. There’s plenty of upset going around in consumer circles about the PS5 price increase, along with some gallows humour about how it barely makes a difference to those consumers who can’t find a PS5 to buy in the first place – but this isn’t the first price rise we’ve seen in recent months, and it’s highly unlikely to be the last.

Read more

TinyBuild has acquired Bossa Studios' IPs, including Surgeon Simulator, I am Fish and I am Bread. The deal "includes an upfront payment of $3 million," the publisher said.

Going forward, TinyBuild will be the developer working on these IPs, while Bossa focuses on other projects.

Bossa co-founder Henrique Olifiers explained: "Since early 2022, Bossa has been focused exclusively in the genre of co-op PvE. We have been prototyping a lot, and now find ourselves in full production of titles we are pouring our hearts and souls into.

Read more

Video games retailer GameStop announced that it's increasing the wages of assistant store leaders and senior guest advisors.

As reported by Axios' Stephen Totilo, CEO Matt Furlong said in a company memo that the changes will be effective in September.

Also store leaders (store managers) will be receiving a new compensation model.

Read more

Xbox believes its TV app with Samsung – and no doubt future partnership – will be crucial in making streaming video games via the cloud a mainstream pastime.

But while watching, listening and even reading can be a one-handed activity for those fitting entertainment into their commute (for example), gaming is decidedly more active – it requires two hands, perhaps a dedicated controller and uninterrupted attention.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom in Cologne yesterday, Xbox principal product manager Harrison Hoffman said that while bringing the platform holder's library to mobile devices is part of the appeal of cloud gaming, playing on a television is still key.

Read more