November 2022

Second Dinner Studios' Marvel Snap has amassed more than $2 million in revenue a week since its release.

As reported by mobilegamer.biz from data sourced from AppMagic, the Apple App Store made up $1.3 million of the game's revenue, while Android devices accounted for $737,000.

In terms of the top five countries by consumer spending, the US held the lion's share with $1.2 million.

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Capcom today reported its financial results for the first half of its fiscal year (April 1 through September 30), showing steep declines attributed to a difficult comparison against a strong first half in 2021.

Revenue: ¥49.1 billion (down 30% year-on-year) Operating income: ¥21.9 billion (down 24%) Net income: ¥16.1 billion (down 27%)

Capcom blamed its declines on a tough comparison to the previous year's first half, when it launched Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

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Creative services firm Virtuous unveiled its newest subsidiary, Virtuos Labs – Montpellier.

The Montpellier team joins Virtuous Labs – Lyon, which was founded in 2021, as the division's second studio.

It will provide various support to partners such as creating new tools for proprietary engines and shifting to new engines.

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Rocksteady has announced that studio co-founders Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker are set to leave the studio at the end of the year.

The news was shared in an announcement by WB Games president David Haddad, who said that the pair will begin "a new adventure in gaming" together.

Following their departure, Rocksteady founding member and director of production Nathan Burlow will become studio director, and Darius Sadeghian will become studio production director.

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The Competition Commission of India has fined Google in the amount of $113 million, for not allowing developers to use third-party payment processing systems within Google Play Store apps.

As reported by Tech Crunch, the antitrust watchdog said that in part the firm’s practices "...disturbs innovations incentives."

Google's Android represents 97% of the Indian mobile market, the publication added.

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Sweden's gaming industry is growing by leaps and bounds, according to a new joint report by the country's gaming trade organizations ANGI and Spelplan-ASGD.

This week's Game Developer Index 2022 reports that the Swedish games industry brought in €5.8 billion in 2021, more than four times the €1.4 billion it had managed in 2017.

Most of that growth can be attributed to the recent trend of Swedish companies acquiring foreign companies and adding their revenue to the pile. Embracer Group is the most notable example of that, but companies like Stillfront, Thunderful, Enad Global 7, and others have also made multiple significant acquisitions in recent years.

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FIFA 23 has held on to the top spot in the UK physical charts for a third week, despite a 19% decline in sales.

There was a substantial number of brand new releases last week; Gotham Knights entered the chart at No.2 following its launch on October 21, and Mario + Rabbids: Spark of Hope took third place, having launched the day before.

WB Montreal's Batman title sold particularly well on PS5, with 78% of total sales coming from the platform. The remaining 22% came from Xbox Series X.

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When Disney announced it would stop developing video games and return to its traditional licensing model, it felt like an admission of defeat.

Like many of its TV and movie competitors, it had discovered that making video games was simply too risky, too complicated, and frankly not worth the effort. Best to go back to what it’s good at.

But we’d underestimated just how committed Disney was to that licensing plan. Because it’s working. Granted, not every game has had the success of Spider-Man or Disney Dreamlight Valley, but we’re seeing more major games based on Disney brands than ever before. And the entertainment giant has managed to convince the likes of EA, PlayStation, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Gameloft, Xbox and Take-Two to make them.

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Mobile and flash developer Miniclip has not shut down its website or game servers, contrary to reports this week.

Earlier this year, the company said it would be moving away from web browser games and dedicating more focus towards mobile development.

In an email to GamesIndustry.biz, Miniclip confirmed that it has not shut down any of its servers, and has instead migrated the majority of its games to mobile.

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UK developer Creative Assembly is investigating a former member of staff following allegations over their conduct during their time at the studio.

The publisher posted a statement to its official Twitter account, in which it said is "investigating this matter through an external party to fully understand what happened."

"We have been made aware of deeply concerning and serious allegations regarding a former CA employee," the company wrote.

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Microsoft has released its financial results for the first quarter of its financial year (three months ended Setpember 30, 2022), showing a slowdown in the Xbox content and services business offset by gains in hardware.

Revenue: $50.1 billion (up 11% year-on-year) Operating income: $21.5 billion (up 6%) Net income: $17.6 billion (down 14%)

While the economy at large may be in rough shape these days, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is well positioned to succeed regardless.

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ArenaNet co-founder and Prytania Media founder Jeff Strain has announced the opening of game development studio Crop Circle Games.

Established in 2021 by Jeff and Annie Strain, Prytania is a game development firm with a focus on new IPs.

Crop Circle joins Possibility Space as the second studio under the firm. The new studio is backed by $25 million investments from the Transcend Fund and other partners.

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The Chinese mobile game market fell 19% year-over-year during Q3, as it amassed $8 billion in revenue.

As reported by South China Morning Post, per Chinese video gaming intelligence firm CNG, the decline for the period of July to September was attributed to a dip in mobile gaming sales.

"Compared with the same period last year, the numbers of active users and hours dropped significantly and spending power has weakened," the CNG said.

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Apple has updated its App Store policies this week, with new rules pertaining to cryptocurrency and NFT usage on the platform.

The company is seemingly not against apps that implement or include digital currencies or tokens but said that apps "may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality."

This includes things such as license keys, augmented reality makers, QR codes, cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency wallets.

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Virtual band OFK's introduction couldn't have been more timely during the 2020 edition of The Game Awards, which was also hosted virtually due to the pandemic.

It wasn't just the premiere of dreamy indie-pop single 'Follow/Unfollow' but also the announcement that the band's story would be getting told in a game, or 'interactive series' as We Are OFK is described.

Establishing the band's members – keyboardist and manager Itsumi Saito, producer Jey Zhang, audiovisual artist Carter Flores, and vocalist Luca Le Fae – took a prominent focus, which even Edge magazine played along with.

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It's just about Halloween and my Twitter timeline is full of people talking about scary movies, so it's a good time for a seasonally appropriate gimmick article. Fortunately (or not), the games industry turns out horror stories so regularly that we can do such a column using nothing but stories from exactly a decade ago.

The neat thing about scary movies is that there's actually a tremendous variety of films that fit under that umbrella term, and gaming has a news equivalent for a whole bunch of them.

Take the slasher film, for example, in which a remorseless and unrelenting monster is a constant threat, looming over every scene and seemingly behind every bush. It is an oppressive force that comes for everyone and cuts them down without warning or mercy. The killer in these movies is often a metaphor for some greater social ill, a rot originating from damage done long ago but now being visited upon unfortunate fresh-faced innocents.

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Scottish developer 4J Studios has unveiled a move into publishing, and has named Puny Astronaut title Skye Tales as the first game it'll release in 2023.

The publishing division follows the launch of 4J Studios' investment fund Chroma Ventures, in March 2021. Chroma Ventures has invested in several independent studios, including Puny Astronaut.

4J Studios is best known for bringing Minecraft to console platforms, and its subsequent work creating add-on content for the Microsoft-owned franchise.

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Mobile gaming firm Wildlife Studios announced that it's added studio Stellar Core Games to its studio lineup.

The developer was established by chief creative officer Touko Tahkokallio and studio director Serdar Soganci.

Tahkokallio brings with him experience that includes a ten-year stint at Supercell. He worked as a game lead on titles such as Brawl Stars, Everdale, and Clash Quest.

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Microsoft is said to be accelerating its hunt for Chinese titles, with Genshin Impact named specifically as an example of such.

According to Reuters, the success of the MiHoYo title, which is available on PC, PlayStation, and mobile, has given the move "a sense of urgency."

Two industry sources familiar with the matter told the outlet that Microsoft is now making independent studios in China "big-money offers" to bring more titles to Game Pass.

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More publishers are broadening their perspective from building great games to building great video game businesses. Gone are the days of developing games in isolation of marketing and monetization strategy. Instead, the most successful mobile game businesses unify their approach to user acquisition (UA) and monetization, build ad strategy into game development, and leverage multiple growth levers.

Nearly 70% of games decision makers are now developing games with a unified UA and monetization strategy, according to a recent survey of more than 500 mobile game businesses across 17 countries, which Meta Audience Network commissioned with IDC and published in the report: Ads, IAP, and Beyond: Supercharge your game.

Here we’ll explore recommendations for three areas of games business growth:

• Which player acquisition strategies are effective in a changing app ecosystem?
• What role should in-app ads play in my monetization mix?
• How are mobile game businesses thinking about future monetization and growth?

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The dispute between Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM and its former staff appears to have escalated as reports emerge of a lawsuit filed against the Estonian studio.

TechNewsSpace first spotted a record on an Estonian court website revealing a lawsuit has been filed against Studio ZA/UM by Telomer, a company that includes Robert Kurzitz – author of the Disco Elysium novel and designer of the game – as a board member.

Kotaku Australia corroborated this, reporting that Kurvitz has been involved with Telomer since it was founded in January 2020.

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Lulu Cheng Meservey, chief communications officer at Activision Blizzard, is named in a new labour complaint filed by the Communications Workers of America.

The filing, shared by Polygon, accuses Meservey of sharing "anti-union propaganda" in a company Slack channel last week, which approximately 18,000 employees have access to.

It alleges that Meservery "coerced and restrained employees" in the exercise of their Section 7 rights (the right to join, form or assist unions) by "admonishing all staff not to share anything other than 'discreet and respectful' communication" about Activision Blizzard's union stance.

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Activision's latest attempt to have one of the discrimination lawsuits it faces thrown out of court has been defeated.

The California Civil Rights Department – formerly known as the Department for Fair Employment and Housing – has announced the Second Appellate District of the Court of Appeal has denied Activision's petition to dismiss the case brought against the publisher last year.

The CRD filed a lawsuit in July 2021, built on allegations that women who worked at the Call of Duty publisher were sexually harassed by male co-workers, and that executives and HR not only knew about these incidents but failed to deal with inappropriate conduct correctly.

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Sega has opened a new office in Singapore to boost its activities across Southeast Asia.

The branch officially opened on October 13 and will be responsible for handling local market research, as well as marketing to promote Sega's titles and other initiatives in SEA, which the publisher expects to "grow significantly in future."

"Singapore has achieved remarkable economic growth as a major hub in the Southeast Asian region given its convenient location and its business-friendly government policies," the company wrote in its announcement.

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The full schedule of talks, roundtables and one-to-one sessions for this year's GI Academy digital event has been confirmed.

Day two is complete, and you can catch up with some of the talks at the bottom of the article.

The online event, which is entirely free to attend, takes places this Wednesday (October 26th) and runs until Friday (October 28th). It feature keynote sessions from indie developer Sam Barlow, Rare executive producer Louise O'Connor and Ubisoft narrative designer and writer Chella Ramanan.

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GXC today has unveiled Round Ventures, a $40 million fund that aims to invest in early-stage gaming start-ups.

Companies that are eligible for the investment must either be generating revenue with their current title or working on their first game.

Round Ventures will invest $2 million to $8 million per gaming firm with co-investors valued from $10 million to $50 million.

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The relationships between brands and video games has evolved over the years. We've gone from the days of lemonade mascots starring in their own platforming titles to a point where premium fashion labels like Gucci are finding ways to integrate their brands into hugely popular titles like Roblox.

At last month's GI Live London, a panel of experts discussed this changing relationship and what the industry can expect in the future when it comes to working with brands. The conversation – hosted by Dawn Paine, co-founder and CEO of creative agency Aurora – began with thoughts as to why more and more companies are seeking to establish a presence in video games.

"It is utter madness that most of the brands aren't talking about the spaces that the vast majority of the population are in"

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A long-running online encyclopedia dedicated to The Legend of Zelda game series has separated itself from owner Fandom due to conflicting ideals.

Zeldapedia was made in 2005, and remained an indepedent entity up until 2017, when it was transferred to Gamepedia. Fandom acquired Gamepedia the following year.

In a statement, the Zelda Wiki editor-in-chief said that even after the transfer and acquisition, the site "sought to continue its mission of curating an editorially independent, high quality wiki operated by fans," but added that "we have come to believe that these ideals are incompatible with Fandom."

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There's an extraordinary amount of IP licensing happening in video games at the moment. From live-service games such as Fortnite and PUBG growing their live-ops with franchises including Dragon Ball, Star Wars and Spider-Man to the creation of new video games such as Hypergames' Snufkin: Melody of the Moominvalley, that are based on existing franchises, there seems to be no end of video games using well-known franchises to boost their audience numbers.

While the list of IP-based video games and collaborations is growing bigger every day, game developers should know that collaborating with a well-known franchise isn't a cheat code to success. There have been many botched attempts at IP-based video games throughout the years, as anyone who's played Superman 64, or waded their way through the mountain of IP-based platform clones that littered the 90s, will know. Even the most powerful superheroes in the world weren't strong enough to save Marvel's Avengers after its troubled launch.

If you're a video game studio thinking about incorporating an existing franchise into your game – whether that's for a brand new game, a one-off collaboration or a limited-time event to boost your live ops – there's a lot you need to consider before you hit the ground running.

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Electronic Arts has pledged to improve the representation of Black content creators in its communications around The Sims following complaints over last week's online showcase

On Tuesday, the publisher streamed Behind The Sims Summit, a digital presentation that gave updates for The Sims 4 and the series' mobile spin-offs. It also unveiled the franchise's next mainline outing, currently codenamed Project Rene.

As the showcase aired, complaints emerged from players about the lack of Black fans and content creators featured in the broadcast, with prominent streamer Danielle 'Ebonix' Udogaranya tweeting: "Not a single Black simmer in that reel?"

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Steam has reached a new milestone, with the number of concurrent users on the platform hitting 30 million this weekend.

The record occurred on Sunday, with Valve's platform reaching an all time high of 30,024,670 concurrent users online, according to Steam's charts.

As reported by PC Gamer, the platform has grown exponentially in recent years, with the publication noting that it took 14 years for Steam to grow to 15 million concurrent users, but only five to reach the following 15 million.

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Independent games studio Odyssey Interactive has raised $19 million in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Makers Fund, while Anthos Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, and Mitch Lasky participated as well.

Odyssey Interactive was established in 2020 by Riot Games alums Dax Andrus, David Capurro, Eric Lawless, and Richard Henkel.

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US consumers spent $4.1 billion on games software, hardware and accessories in September 2022, a 4% decrease year-on-year, NPD Group reported in its monthly charts.

However, despite this slight drop, hardware was particularly healthy this September, growing 19% compared to the same period last year. This was primarily driven by PlayStation 5 sales, NPD said.

Here's what you need to know:

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Today sees the release of Gotham Knights, a new action title set in the Batman universe, from developer WB Games Montreal.

The game is set after the death of Batman, Gotham's greatest guardian, and following his demise, it's up to his closest surviving friends – Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood and Nightwing – to clean up the city.

Gotham Knights was originally slated to launch in 2021 but, like a lot of big games expected to arrive last year, was pushed to 2022. As of writing, the title has a 69 score on Metacritic, based on 51 reviews, a just above average rating which seems to sum up the critical response to Gotham Knights so far.

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Mobile game analytics company ByteBrew announced that it has raised $4 million in a seed funding round.

It was led by investment firm Konvoy. The round included participation from Valhalla Ventures and Node Ventures.

ByteBrew said that the funding will go towards growing its workforce and technology development.

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On Wednesday, Netflix dropped a few subtle game announcements into an on-stage TechCrunch talk with its gaming VP Mike Verdu. The headlines were that it is opening another new studio, has dozens of games in the pipeline, and is "seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering."

Let's tackle that cloud gaming mention right from the off: the still very recent collapse of Stadia is unlikely to be fueling confidence in this space, but Netflix's track record in running a high-quality streaming service for well over a decade does bode well for the company.

Xbox, PlayStation and Amazon are all slowly growing their cloud gaming services as consumer expectations shift towards being able to transfer between devices while progressing through an entertainment product. Netflix was instrumental in accelerating that shift in other industries.

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The GI Academy remains an essential resource for all people involved, or who want to be involved, in video games.

For that group of people interested in a career in this industry, we've provided all sorts of useful digital guides (some of which have been printed in a special magazines) and we also host events designed to educate and inform about life in video games.

Our next one is a completely free digital event headlined by Creative Assembly, and featuring the likes of PlayStation, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, nDreams, Activision and more. Anyone interested in hearing from these people can sign-up here. Here's the current schedule.

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It's never a good sign when the world at large – not just the specialist press – decides that your new business venture has failed so badly that it's actively funny. That's precisely what has happened to Meta's flagship metaverse product, Horizon Worlds, over the past few weeks.

As various reports have shown up the low user numbers and engagement with the service, and the company's struggle to get even its own employees to use it, the cup of schadenfreude has run over. Negative headlines in specialist technology and financial publications are to be expected, but Horizon Worlds has also become a regular punching bag for the mainstream media and particularly for America's late night TV hosts, who relish the spectacle of what seems, to the general public at least, like a billionaire's vanity project crashing and burning.

Even if that presentation of what's happening isn't entirely fair – and I'd argue that it isn't, though I wouldn't go so far as to suggest there's any particularly glittering silver lining on all the clouds gathering over Meta's metaverse ambitions – it's going to be a tough thing to recover from.

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14.4 million digital and physical video games were sold across Europe during September, according to the latest figures from GSD.

That's down 10% over the year before. 8.57 million sales were via digital download stores (down 13.8% compared with September 2021), and 5.82 million were via physical retailers (down 3.7%).

The biggest game of the month, by a very large margin, was FIFA 23. EA's final FIFA game finished its run in style, with sales up 6% compared with the launch of FIFA 22.

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Microsoft's plans to build a new games store were made public last week in a regulatory filing shared by the Competition and Markets Authority.

In the document, the firm describes plans for a "next generation games store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile," driven by the addition of Activision Blizzard's content should the deal go through.

The filing states that the acquisition will provide Microsoft with "capabilities and content on mobile, which it currently lacks."

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