October 2022

Former Rooster Teeth director, producer and content creator Kdin Jenzen has shared a lengthy report into the company's culture, saying that she was often underpaid or not paid at all, that crunch was common practice, and that she was harassed by co-workers.

In a TwitLonger post, Jenzen, who mainly worked on Achievement Hunter, spoke out about her working conditions during the nine years she spent at the production company. She started in 2013 as a contractor and left in 2022.

Jenzen alleged that her work as a contractor was unpaid for over ten months – from February to November 2013. When she brought it up as she was being hired permanently, she was reportedly told: "It’s been so long already, it’s not really a big deal, is it?"

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G4 is shutting down just one year after the games-focused broadcaster relaunched.

Deadline obtained a memo from Dave Scott, chairman and CEO of G4 parent Comcast Spectacor, informing employees that all G4 operations are being discontinued, effective immediately.

Scott said this was a "very difficult decision" and "certainly not what we hoped for" but attributed it to G4 struggling to meet expectations.

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Overwatch 2 attracted 25 million players in its first ten days of operation, Activision Blizzard announced today.

That's considerably ahead of the original Overwatch's performance – it announced a player base of 15 million nearly three months after its 2016 debut – and Activision Blizzard said daily player counts have nearly tripled the original game's peak mark.

That said, comparisons between the two games aren't exactly apples-to-apples given the sequel is free-to-play while the original was a full-priced product. Blizzard also pulled the plug on the original game days before Overwatch 2's launch.

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Spiral Up Games has thrown its hat into the crowded indie publisher ring, and it is selling its ability to promote games in China as a way to stand out from the crowd.

The Singapore-based outfit offers funding and an assortment of publishing services to games in North America and Europe, but adds that it has "a balanced focus" including expertise in China.

"Marketing a game in China is not quite as straightforward," Spiral Up CEO Aldric Chang said. "You need to be able to navigate the cultural sensitivities and reach out to the Chinese influencers and press, which remains challenging to publishers who don't have roots in the region. Yet, this is necessary if you want to expose your game to this massive growing market. We have the ability, experience and means to do so. Not many publishers can claim that."

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The Logitech G Cloud streaming-focused handheld launches next week, and while there aren't enough reviews out there for a Critical Consensus yet, there are enough hands-on impressions and early reviews to see one sentiment coming up repeatedly: "Who is this even for?"

QUOTE | "The Logitech G Cloud works well, but it serves an incredibly small niche." – Uncredited hands-on impressions from Tom's Hardware.

QUOTE | "The Logitech G Cloud isn't a terrible handheld; it just feels like it is made for a gamer that doesn't exist." – PC Gamer's Jorge Jimenez, in giving the G Cloud a 65 out of 100.

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The UK's Competition and Markets Authority today released an issues statement laying out a number of concerns with the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard and dismissing several of the Xbox maker's key arguments.

The first question it tackled was whether or not the acquisition would result in Xbox making Call of Duty exclusive ("foreclosing," by CMA terminology), something Microsoft has said it has no intention of doing, but is only committing to keep on PlayStation for several years.

"Financial modelling of the merger suggests that the merged entity's incentive to foreclose Sony may be considerably stronger than suggested by the parties," the CMA determined.

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Splash Damage confirmed that Outcasters would not release on other platforms, meaning that the Stadia exclusive will disappear when Google's cloud gaming service closes.

In a statement shared on Twitter, the studio said that "Outcasters was designed and built exclusively for Stadia, with many of its systems heavily reliant on the platform, significantly increasing the complexity of the work required."

The message added that Splash Damage still "firmly believes that cloud gaming has a bright future" and is "encouraged to see that other platforms still champion this cause."

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When you’re talking about a deal as big as Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, the eye-grabbing initial announcement – with its almost $70 billion price tag making every previous games industry merger look like peanuts by comparison – is only the beginning.

For a smaller deal, the story a few months later that the merger has completed is basically a formality; the deal is in the bag once the parties get to the point of announcing their corporate nuptials to the world.

With this much money, and some of the world’s most successful entertainment franchises, on the table, however, the Microsoft-ABK deal was always going to attract scrutiny from competition authorities – and this week, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority made the road a little bumpier for both parties, with a report into the deal that’s distinctly negative about its impacts on competition in the games space.

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A Twitch executive has responded to complaints over changes to its revenue split after the leading streaming site confirmed it is no longer offering a 70/30 share for premium partners.

The change was announced last month, with new partners no longer offered this split – something the platform actually ended more than a year ago – and those who already receive it will see their share change.

Starting June 1, 2023, premium partners will only receive 70% of the first $100,000 they earn each year, before dropping to the standard 50/50 split.

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Take-Two is closing New-York based mobile studio Playdots, with 65 people being laid off.

The news was reported by Bloomberg, which said an advance notice of the layoffs was filed with the New York State Department of Labor.

The developer is mainly known for 2013 hit Dots, and its 2014 sequel, Two Dots. Take-Two confirmed the studio's closure in a statement, adding that Two Dots' development will continue at a Zynga studio going forward.

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GamesIndustry.biz's free video games event for students will feature expert talent from some of the world's biggest game creators.

The developers of games such as LittleBigPlanet, Total War, Call of Duty: Warzone, Battlefield, Donkey Kong Country, Need for Speed, Her Story, Everwild, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars, Dreams, Yooka-Laylee, As Dusk Falls and many more will be speaking with students between Wednesday, October 26th and Friday, October 28th. Plus, Eurogamer’s Editor-In-Chief Martin Robinson will be discussing games journalism.

GI Academy takes place within a special Discord, and will feature roundtable sessions, keynotes, masterclasses plus the chance to speak with games industry professionals one-to-one. The event is completely free, courtesy of our partner Creative Assembly, and students can sign-up here.

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Microsoft held its Xbox 2022 Accessibility Showcase, where it presented its ongoing efforts to improve accessibility for games on PC and console.

The show was hosted by accessibility consultant and content creator Steve Saylor.

Among the show's topics was the Xbox Accessibility Guideline (XAGs), a set of best practices that has been created by experts and members of the disabled community.

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The 2026 Commonwealth Games will not feature esports as a medal event.

Despite the discipline being successfully featured in the 2022 edition of the event, the organisers have made an unexpected U-turn, the BBC reported.

The publication said that "despite numerous requests," the Commonwealth Games Federation and the Global Esports Federation "refused to give any specific reasons" for the decision

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Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier will be ending its service on January 11, 2023.

The mobile RPG originally launched on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store on November 17, 2021.

"Despite all our efforts to bring you regular updates with fresh and exciting content, we haven't been able to deliver the experience that we were hoping to, and that you all deserve, so we have made the extremely tough decision to end service for Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier," Square Enix said.

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A QA worker who accused Nintendo of firing them for asking about the company's stance on unionization has settled their National Labor Relations Board complaint over the matter, as reported by Polygon.

Mackenzie Clifton, who came forward in September as the person who filed the complaint, said they were fired in retaliation for trying to ask Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser about the company's position on unionization during a company meeting.

Clifton agreed to a deal with Nintendo of America and staffing agency Aston Carter that will see them receive $25,910 in pay, interest, and damages.

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It's been an eventful journey for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum since Daedalic announced it in 2019.

Earlier this year, Daedalic was acquired by Nacon. Embracer acquired the Lord of the Rings IP from historical owner Middle-earth Enterprises. The game was pushed back from two possible release windows.

Nacon had already been announced as Gollum's co-publisher in 2021, so at least Daedalic's new owner was already on the same page in regards to the project.

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FIFA 23 has seen record-breaking figures during its first week according to EA, amassing over 10.3 million users.

In comparison, last year's FIFA 22 racked up over 9.1 million players in the first 10 days after its launch.

We reported last week that the PlayStation 5 has become the biggest platform for FIFA 23's launch sales in the UK, with 41% of all boxed copies coming through the console.

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The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is the wildcard in Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard.

Whereas you can make educated guesses on what the US and EU regulators might do, the CMA has made some big and surprising decisions since the UK exited the European Union.

This is because the group now has more powers to look at a broader range of mergers and acquisitions, which would have previously only been seen by the European Commission. As a result, the CMA blocked three deals from taking place over the last year, the highest it’s ever prohibited. This included Facebook/Meta’s acquisition of Giphy. The CMA also blocked the high-profile merger of Sainsbury’s and Asda in 2019, which shows it’s unafraid to get in the way of some of the biggest deals.

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The PlayStation 5 has broken past two million sales in the UK.

It is the fourth fastest home console to reach the figure, matching the PS3 but behind the PS4 (No.3), the PS2 (No.2) and Nintendo Wii (No.1). All data is courtesy of GfK.

The console's performance has been held back due to stock shortages. Nevertheless, it is the most lucrative console to reach two million sales, having generated £919 million. By comparison, Wii had generated £358 million at two million sales, PS4 £700 million and Xbox One (the previous highest) £726 million.

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Mobile games publisher Homa Games announced that it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round.

Last year the company amassed a total of $65 million in funding.

The company was founded by CEO Daniel Nathan and chief revenue officer Le Bas in 2018. It is based in Paris, Ile-de-France.

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Testronic announced that it has launched a new localization studio in Lisbon, Portugal.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in London, the firm offers companies games services such as translation and live operation support.

Testronic also said that the Libson office will strengthen its functionality QA services and player support operations.

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Wizards of the Coast has announced that video game developer Tuque Games has been renamed Invoke Studios.

Established in 2012 and based in Montreal, the company developed the 2016 cooperative shooter Livelock.

During 2019, Invoke was acquired by Wizards of the Coast and it is currently developing a AAA game based on the Dungeons and Dragons IP.

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[Content warning: The following story contains details of sexual harassment and blackmail.]

Activision Blizzard is being sued by another former employee alleging sexual harassment, according to the Daily Mail.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by a woman identified as Jane Doe, who claims product manager Miguel Vega groped her, belittled her, and made frequent unwanted sexual advances toward her.

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A lawsuit filed against Funplus International and KingsGroup Holdings claims that the pair have been misleading consumers for years about sales in the mobile game State of Survival.

As reported by Top Class Actions, the complaint accuses the companies of advertising limited time sales next to supposedly normal prices, even though it never actually charged users the normal price. The suit was filed on September 2 in a California federal court.

The complaint alleges misleading practices which include users that they will receive a discounts of 99%. For example, players would pay $9.99 for a bundle the companies claimed was usually priced at $997.40.

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Steam Deck, Valve's portable games device, launched earlier this year and gives players a Switch-like experience for playing PC games.

After months of long wait times for anyone who ordered, Valve has announced the Steam Deck is now readily available for purchase – so what better time to ensure your PC titles are compatible with it?

At GI Live: London last month, Valve designer Alden Kroll and business development head Erik Peterson answered developer questions and gave advice on a range of subjects, including how to optimise your game for Steam Deck.

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Yesterday, we ran a story about a panel in which Haven Studios CEO Jade Raymond and chief technology officer Leon O'Reilly talked with PlayStation 4 and 5 hardware architect Mark Cerny about the studio's experiments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how such technologies might shape the industry in the future.

After the panel, we are given a chance to speak with O'Reilly and Raymond about the Montreal studio's hopes for the new tech. Both been around the games industry for a while, and they've seen a variety of heavily hyped new technologies come down the pipe – digital distribution, stereoscopic 3D, AR, VR, cloud streaming – and succeed or fail to widely varying degrees. Wtih that in mind, we ask if their attitude toward each "next big thing" has changed over the years.

"I'm still very optimistic," O'Reilly says. "We're very focused on game development for a lot of these technologies, and we're very clear on what problems we're trying to solve and how these will more efficiently solve them. When you have consumer-facing technologies, you don't always know whether there's going to be a market there for your technology or not, and that's often why they fail.

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As international anti-trust regulators examine Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has come out in favor of the union.

In an interview with The Wrap, Zelnick stopped short of predicting what the regulators would decide, but said he would welcome the deal going ahead.

"We're certainly of the belief that it's a good thing for Microsoft and for the industry," Zelnick said. "We're in favor… It's a highly fragmented business and there's plenty of room for creativity to go around. Microsoft is an ally of ours, and if this makes their business more powerful, we think that's good for us."

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US publisher Whitethorn Games has shared its publishing agreement online, alongside a transparency report that gives insight into how much its staff are paid, the amount of funding its games get, and how much the firm recoups in return.

According to the report, Whitethorn takes an average of 28% of a title's net revenue, with the lowest and highest percentage ever requested being 8% and 35%, respectively.

It also states that the average amount of funding a title receives stands at $232,000, with the highest figure spent on one game alone hitting $340,000. The average marketing spend per title falls at approximately $56,000.

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Sony paid $3.5 million to secure Ark Survival Evolved as a PlayStation Plus title in March 2022.

The information was shared as part of an SEC filing from Studio Wildcard parent company Snail Games, VGC reported.

The report also included some information about Studio Wildcard's deal with Microsoft to have Ark titles on Game Pass. The initial agreement expired in 2021, but was then extended for Ark: Survival Evolved, while Ark 2 will be on Game Pass for three years.

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The Competition and Markets Authority has detailed its concerns over Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The UK regulator is seen as the key element as to whether this deal would be allowed to go ahead. The deal did not pass the initial phase of approval, and has been sent to a second phase.

Now the group has cited its concerns over the deal, and Microsoft has responded to them.

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Google has unveiled a range of Chromebooks "built for cloud gaming," despite only recently announcing the upcoming shutdown of its own cloud gaming service Stadia.

Eurogamer reports the firm released details of the Ideapad Gaming Chromebook, the Asus Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip and the Acer Chromebook 516 GE, all of which have been built to specifications that enable games streaming.

All three will have 120Hz+ high resolution screens, and have been tested by GameBench to run titles at 120 frames per second with input latency of less than 85ms. Models will either have WiFi 6 or 6E connections, and some will feature RGB gaming keyboards.

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Meta announced during its Connect Keynote 2022 that it has acquired Camouflaj, Armature Studio, and Twisted Pixel.

The news of the three studios joining Oculus Studios took place as it also revealed the Meta Quest Pro.

Founded in 2011, Camouflaj developed the adventure title République for consoles and PC. It was revealed that the studio has partnered with Marvel Entertainment, Endeavor One, and Sony Interactive Entertainment to bring Marvel's Iron Man VR to the Meta Quest 2 on November 3.

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Original story, October 11, 2022: Meta unveiled the Meta Quest Pro during its Connect Keynote 2022 today.

The new VR headset will launch on October 25 at $1,499, with 256 GB in storage.

When compared to the Meta Quest 2, the Pro's optical lenses will be 40% lighter, Meta said. It will also feature higher-resolution screens.

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The finalists for the 2022 Best Places To Work Awards Canada have been revealed.

Electronic Arts and Relic Entertainment have been nominated in four categories, while Behaviour Interactive has picked up three nominations.

These are the finalists for our Special Awards only, which are for excellence in specific areas. The winners of these awards, plus the main Best Places badge winners, will be revealed on Tuesday, October 18th during a digital awards presentation (airs 2pm Montreal time).

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QA outsourcing firm Quantic Labs is facing more allegations of poor management and deceiving its clients, according to sources at the company.

Speaking to PC Gamer, two current and eight former employees at the Embracer-owned company, said it was allegedly accepting more projects than it had the capacity for on a consistent basis.

As a result, its staff were reportedly spread too thin, leading to projects without enough resources and poor quality work being delivered to clients on titles including Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and others.

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By now, Haven Studios should be comfortable working on the technological edge.

After all, much of the studio's founding team came from Google, where they were working to create first-party Stadia games that would showcase the power of cloud streaming technology.

Haven is with Sony these days – the PlayStation maker provided investment for the start-up and outright acquired it earlier this year – but the devs have still been relying on cloud tech to help with hybrid remote/local development, and are looking to push the envelope to see how other emerging technologies can change the way games are made.

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Dune: Spice Wars developer Shiro Games has a new investor, Cathay Capital.

The French studio didn't disclose the deal's figures but French newspaper Les Echos reported that the investment was just shy of €50 million.

The publication added that it's Cathay Capital's first investment in the games industry, with Shiro now valued at €150 million.

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Splatoon 3 was comfortably the biggest selling game at Japanese retail last month.

Nintendo's cartoony shooter shifted 2.7 million physical copies following its release on September 9, according to the latest charts from Famitsu.

The platform holder previously announced that Splatoon 3 sold 3.45 million physical and digital copies in Japan within three days, making it Switch's fastest-selling game in the company's home market. It also scored the franchise's first No.1 in the UK retail charts.

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Xbox Game Pass reportedly generated $2.9 billion on consoles during the calendar year 2021, according to documents from Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defence.

The figures were shared by TweakTown, based on documents released by CADE following its approval of the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard deal last week.

Revenue made from Game Pass on PC was not included, and there wasn't any further detail about the figure.

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Update, October 11, 2022: Playrix has confirmed it is pulling out of Russia and Belarus "due to the continued aggression against Ukraine and in order to maintain its operations."

The company clarified that it already ceased commercial activities in these two markets at the beginning of the war. It has since relocated hundreds of employees to offices across Europe, including new ones opened this year.

Now the company will close all offices in Russia and Belarus, shut down all operations of any development studios in the region, and relocate any remaining staff to other countries.

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