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Latent Technology has announced that it has raised $2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round.
Based out of London, the start-up was founded by CEO Jorge del Val and CTO Jack Harmer.
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Apple has taken issue with the remedies proposed by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to open up iOS to more cloud gaming services.
The company issued a response, now available online, to the UK regulator's statement that it would begin a phase two investigation into the landscape for mobile browsers and cloud gaming.
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Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick shared his thoughts on the rise of generative AI with investors during last night's earnings call, showing optimism for how it will enable developers to be more creative.
But while the CEO expects it will help reduce some costs, he is skeptical that it will significantly change the process of game development or enable rival studios to generate competitors to Take-Two's biggest titles.
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Nintendo has released its financial results for the nine months ended December 31, 2022, and experienced a slight dip across the board, despite healthy software and Switch OLED sales.
Sales on Nintendo's own platforms overall were down 2% year-on-year, to ¥1.25 trillion ($9.4 billion). That includes hardware, software, and accessories. Meanwhile, mobile and IP-related income reached ¥38.9 billion ($295 million), a slight 2.3% dip.
Zordix has relaunched its games division as Maximum Entertainment.
It's not just a rebrand, with parent company Zordix making a series of changes that brings its various publishing and development companies together. It has united all its studios (including Dimfrost, Invictus Games, Mane6, Modus Brazil and Zordix Racing) into one division called Modus Studios, which will be led by global studio director Bruce Hayles.
Joining these studios is Romanian developer FUNLabs, which Maximum Entertainment has acquired for an undisclosed amount. The aim is that 30% of Maximum’s revenue will come from its own IP by 2025.
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Activision Blizzard's earnings report for the three months ending December 31 – and the financial year as a whole – see the company coming in strong overall, thanks to the launch of Overwatch 2 and the continued success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
It does, however, seem to not be making any layoffs, which bucks the current trend in tech and games.
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Take-Two reported its earnings for the third quarter today, showing increased sales and net losses just like the first two quarters of its fiscal year, with the added disappointment of missing its own revenue and bookings forecasts.
Accordingly, it also downgraded its full-year revenue projections, and cautioned investors that net losses would be deeper than previously expected.
Learn more about Tim Schafer's career in games from our November 2022 podcast with the founder of Double Fine Productions: The Five Games of Tim Schafer.
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Zordix subsidiary Maximum Games has secured a $30 million credit facility on a three-year timeline, the company announced this week.
To start with, Maximum will take an initial drawdown of $20 million; the remaining $10 million will be available "subject to covenants."
Netease has debuted its newest Western development studio, Spliced.
The studio is working on "a world class online gameplay experience" using an original IP, and current job listings call for people with experience working on AAA games and large-scale teams of at least 100 people.
While billed as a global remote studio, Spliced has offices in Manchester, England to support UK-based office and hybrid workers. It also has fully remote staff in the US, Canada, and other locations.
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Angry Birds maker Rovio has announced that it is in multiple talks with potential buyers.
The firm's issued and outstanding shares will be sold at a suggested price of €9.05 per share.
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The string of online and live service games scheduled to close continues with CrossfireX, the multiplayer shooter for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Developed by Remedy in collaboration with South Korean publisher Smilegate, and a spin-off of the latter's hugely popular Crossfire, the first-person shooter was released on February 10, 2022.
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GamesIndustry.biz Game Changers is a series of profiles on the groups and individuals going the extra mile to make the games industry a better place. These interviews encompass folks from around the world helping to improve conditions and attitudes towards diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, mental health and more. You can read more Game Changers interviews here.
The games industry is slowly developing a green consciousness, with environmental-friendly initiatives multiplying in recent years, from the UN-backed Playing for the Planet Alliance to GamesForest.Club, Play Create Green, and more.
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Update, February 7, 2023: Microsoft has since corrected the New York Times, which has updated its article to say: "Microsoft said that it believes it has a strong case in Britain and it has not predetermined, nor been advised by its lawyers, that the merger will be blocked."
Original story, February 6, 2023: Following objections from the US Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission, Microsoft now expects the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to oppose its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Stephanie Economou won the Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media award for Assassin's Creed Valhalla at the Grammys yesterday.
Economou was specifically rewarded for her work on Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Dawn of Ragnarok expansion.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards were rewarding game soundtracks in their own category for the first time this year, with Assassin's Creed Valhalla nominated alongside Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Call Of Duty: Vanguard, Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Old World. The nominees had been announced in November.
FIFA 23 is back at No.1 in the UK physical charts after an 11% increase in sales week-on-week.
The game is closely followed by Sony's God of War Ragnarok, which is up to No.2 after a 12% rise. The action adventure game has been helped by the availability of a PS5 hardware bundle.
Last week's chart-topper, Dead Space, slips to No.3 after an entirely respectable 52% sales drop week-on-week. The one new game in the harts is Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake from THQ Nordic, which debuts at No.10.
A US judge has dismissed a Joy-Cons drift lawsuit against Nintendo.
The legal action was initially filed in October 2020, by parents on behalf of their 10-year-old. At the time, they explained that the drift on the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con "became so pronounced that the controllers became inoperable for general gameplay use."
As reported by Eurogamer, the lawsuit was actually dismissed last November, with the judge arguing that the user agreement was between Nintendo and the parents (who bought the console), and not the child, who is a minor.
EA probably hopes we'll open this article by talking about It Takes Two.
It is the biggest game from EA's ever-growing indie label, EA Originals. It has picked up numerous awards and has just surpassed 10 million sales worldwide.
But we'd much rather talk about Knockout City, an altogether different EA Originals title created by Velan Studios.
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Sony has emphasised that its PlayStation operations in Turkey will not be impeded by the decision to close its office in the region.
News of the closure emerged last week, with National Turk reporting that Sony was shutting its office in Ümraniye, Istanbul, and ceasing Turkish operations.
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Microsoft has been issued with a formal antitrust warning from the European Union concerning its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Sources told Politico a statement of objections was sent to the Xbox firm on Tuesday, in which the European Commission's antitrust enforcers detailed their concerns over the $68.7 billion deal.
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Yu-Gi-Oh publisher Konami released its financial earnings for the nine months ending December 31, 2022.
Here's what you need to know:
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Activision Blizzard must pay $35 million in a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, following the government body's investigation into how it handles workplace misconduct.
A new SEC filing reveals that the publisher has ten days to pay the penalty, and must also cease and desist from "committing or causing" any violations of the Exchange Act.
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FromSoftware's parent company Kadokawa reported an increase of 123% for its games segment during Q3. The drive was attributed to the RPG Elden Ring.
For the three months ended December 31, 2022, the company's overall revenue rose 27% year-on-year to ¥67 billion ($520.5 million). The games segment's revenue rose 123% to ¥6.3 billion ($49 million)
The GamesIndustry.biz team gathers around their mics to discuss the biggest stories of the past week.
On this episode, following the reports and refutation that Sony was cutting forecasts for PlayStation VR 2, we discuss the many challenges the virtual reality faces as it approaches launch later this month.
With a hefty price tag and a launch line-up primarily comprised of titles already available on other VR headsets, Sony's strategy for PSVR 2 raises questions but given the success of the original, could this could be the first step in a longer-term play for the virtual reality space?
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Final Fantasy maker Square Enix released its financial earnings from April 1 to December 31, 2022.
Here's what you need to know for the nine-month period:
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While we find ourselves experiencing a wave of announcements that online games are closing down, perhaps the most surprising was EA's decision to scrap Apex Mobile, the smartphone spin-off of its battle royale Apex Legends.
Despite being named Game of the Year by both Apple and Google – and was a mobile launched that other studios could learn a lot from – the portable shooter will go offline on May 1 – not even a full year after launch. Not only that, but EA has also decided to abandon the in-development Battlefield Mobile, and shut down mobile developer Industrial Toys.
Canadian developer Phoenix Labs will go back to being independent following an investor-backed management buyout.
According to GamesBeat, Phoenix Labs' founders will take the company private now that it's spun out of its parent company, Garena.
Garena is itself owned by Singapore-based Sea, which commented: "We have been steadfast supporters of Phoenix Labs since its earliest days and will continue to be strong advocates for their team and their work going forward.
Velan Studios' Knockout City will be shutting down on June 6.
In a post on the game's website, game director Jeremy Russo announced that the servers will be shutting around the world at 12pm UTC on that day, "and the game will no longer be playable."
Season 9, which is due to launch on February 28, will be the title's final. After that, real-money transactions will be taken out.
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Google will soon allow developers to provide users with alternative billing options for in-app purchases within Google Play in India.
In a statement, the tech firm announced that it will be updating its Android and Google Play policies within India.
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Free-to-play games publisher Tilting Point is posed to fire 60 staffers, 14% of its global workforce of 440.
As reported by MobileGamer.biz, the games firm is making job cuts as it restructures.
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USC Games has unveiled the first recipients of the Gerald A. Lawson Fund.
The Lawson Scholars are students from the USC School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media and Games and Viterbi School of Engineering's Computer Science – Games Divisions.
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Meta released its financial results for the 12 months that ended December 31 , with its VR division performing poorly across the board. Here's what you need to know:
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EA Music, the division of Electronic Arts that oversees all the music in its games, has partnered with Boston-based Berklee College of Music to offer a new scholarship to a future composer.
The EA/Berklee Next-Gen Scholarship will offer one qualified woman or non-cisgender composer studying at the college's screen scoring department the chance to receive a financial scholarship, as well as mentoring from EA's own team on how to compose, orchestrate and arrange an original score for a video game.
NCsoft West has laid off about one-fifth of its employees, as reported by VentureBeat.
"We can confirm that we laid off approximately 20% of NC West's workforce today, primarily affecting non-game development positions, as part of a global realignment with our corporate headquarters in Korea," the company said.
"The affected employees have been given severance and access to resources to help with job placement."
Sony Corporation has made some changes to its top management, with CFO Hiroki Totoki due to be promoted to president at the beginning of the next financial year.
Totoki's role is currently director, representative corporate executive officer, executive deputy president and chief financial officer. As of April 1, 2023, he will drop the executive deputy president role and take on the position of president and chief operating officer, in addition to his other responsibilities.
He takes over from current president Kenichiro Yoshida, who is also director, representative corporate executive officer, chairman and chief executive officer. Yoshida will retain these other roles after April 1.
When I first saw the GamesIndustry.biz open call for developer testimonials on the video games they adore, I felt a wash of hope. Here was an opportunity for recurring positivity, simply stories about how the folks creating games today originally fell in love with what they now do for a living.
Oftentimes, despite working in an industry I love, I feel like I'm balancing on a high-wire with no net below. Industry news features headlines in flashing neon about studio closures and layoffs, the predatory nature of perpetual crunch, the toxicity of online communities, and horrific accounts of discrimination and harassment. The truth is, game industry news is often bleak. So, a recurring feature that would remind me why I'm here? Sign me up.
My office is plastered with a personal "Wall of Games" from my most impressionable years. I could pick any one of them and write an article on "Why I Love" the experience it offered.
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A new report from the US government has called for lawmakers and agencies to compel changes to both Apple and Google's mobile platforms, deeming the tech firms' current practices to be harmful to competition and consumers.
In 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Competition around this subject, with the US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration publishing its findings yesterday.
Read more about Dwarf Fortress' journey in our recent interview with co-founder Tarn Adams: Slow and steady wins the race: How Dwarf Fortress reinvented itself after 20 years
