May 2023

Scyther’s evolution adds a rock-type into the mix

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Director Denis Villeneuve says he’s taking it movie by movie

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But $149.99 for 1 TB is still too costly

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If the premiere doesn’t work for you, come back later. The show gets quite different.

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26 gift ideas to show some love to the mom in your life

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A console-compatible version for Xbox and PlayStation is still a ways off

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The Guardians’ last adventure should be streaming by this summer

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Refresh your memory for the next big Zelda game

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Plaion is restructuring its games publishing business which is expected to result in layoffs, GamesIndustry.biz has learned.

Sources close to the matter have told us a number of jobs are at stake as the publisher, which rebranded from Koch Media last year, merges multiple publishing labels into one.

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Earlier this week, Unity announced its third round of layoffs in less than a year.

It was the largest of the three rounds of cuts, hitting 600 employees, or about 8% of the company's headcount.

The company is also looking to shutter half its global offices in the next few years, reducing its current network of 58 locations to fewer than 30.

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Over the past year or so, a note of discord has crept into the generally enthusiastic response to Microsoft's current console strategy. Game Pass has been beloved, Xbox Series X is a superb piece of console hardware, Series S is an unprecedented marvel in terms of bang-for-buck performance, and from Phil Spencer down, the company's execs and spokespeople have perfected the art of making all the right noises to make game consumers feel good about the platform.

There's just one wrinkle; it's become harder and harder to ignore the lack of first-party exclusives.

The impressive backwards compatibility of the new systems, and the back catalogue Game Pass provides, were great stopgaps in the early days before new software arrived – speaking personally, my Series X got far more play than my PS5 in the first year or so for precisely that reason. But as Sony's first-party engine has spun up to speed, the continued reliance on that stopgap and on multiplatform titles has become a significant problem.

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Mobile game title MMA Manager 2: Ultimate Fight will be published by Fragbite Group going forward.

The game and its proprietary mobile engine were developed by FunRock & Prey Studios, and published by Tilting Point at launch last June.

Fragbite Group, which owns FunRock & Prey Studios, has announced a mutual agreement with Tilting Point will see it bring the project and tech back in-house. Tilting Point will continue to partner with Fragbite on other projects.

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Original Story, May 5, 2023: New details have emerged from the Riot Games gender discrimination case, with a report saying that 1,548 women will receive compensation.

Axios reports a court filing by Rust Consulting, which has been managing the process, confirmed the number of women who were wither staff at Riot or contractors that will be receiving payments.

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Activision Blizzard has released its second annual pay equity analysis, which shows a median total compensation that remains higher for men at the company, but pay equity being reached for comparable work.

In a post on ABK's website, chief people officer Julie Hodges shared the findings of the survey, which was conducted by a third party.

"After accounting for factors that impact pay such as role, location, tenure, and job classification, our analysis showed that employees who are women, non-binary people, or who self-identify as something else, earned on average $1.00 for every $1.00 earned by men for comparable work," she wrote in the post, which was also shared to all ABK staff internally last week.

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The Media Indie Exchange (The Mix) and Guerrilla Collective 2023 Showcase is set to take place from Wednesday, June 7, to Tuesday, June 13.

Black Voice in Gaming and Dames 4 Games will be partnering with the production team.

"We're calling for submissions to participate in the 2023 Summer Showcase! This year, we're partnering with The MIX, Guerilla Collective, and Dames 4 Games to reveal upcoming releases from underrepresented folks in the game industry," said Black Voices in Gaming on Twitter.

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Phil Spencer says making great games wouldn't be enough for Xbox to claw out of third place in the console race.

In an appearance on the Kinda Funny Xcast published today on YouTube, Spencer laid out the reason for the company's pursuit of subscription services like Game Pass and cloud gaming technology.

"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo," Spencer said. "There isn't really a great solution or win for us.

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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.

Zoe Hobson does a lot in her day-to-day life, covering many roles, including being a mother to two children and the CEO of Runaway Play, a studio that creates meaningful games aimed at making everyone more aware of the world around us.

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With the mobile game market’s outstanding growth over recent years, it’s sometimes easy to forget just how young of an industry it still is. However, following a post-Covid market decline – which in reality, was more of a market correction – and tightening privacy regulations, games industry operators and investors alike have been quick to doubt the industry’s growth potential with some even declaring that mobile game marketing is dead.

I can’t say that I share their skepticism: the mobile game market is barely in its teens and it would be unimaginative – and, frankly speaking, ambitionless – to presume that this is all that the industry has to offer. However, it’s also clear that legislative changes and player feedback both demand a new approach from game makers and marketers. Here are three ways the mobile games industry should adapt their approach to this new environment:

Game studios have historically been fixated on product development: making the best mobile games possible. "The best" has often correlated directly with what game developers personally liked – we probably don’t need to recap the full, problematic history with representation in games here – and only after a game has been finished has anyone thought about how and who to market the game to.

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Guerrilla Games will deliver the keynote session at this year's Develop:Brighton conference.

The studio behind Horizon: Forbidden West will host a talk entitled 'Guerrilla: To New Horizons', in which the company's leaders will discuss what the future holds for the team, as well as the challenges faced while making the aforementioned PlayStation hit.

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Bungie has won yet another lawsuit against a Destiny 2 cheat seller and was awarded $12 million in damages.

The lawsuit, against owner of VeteranCheats Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, was originally filed in 2021, The Game Post reported.

Giving its verdict on April 26, a US District Court sided with Bungie, agreeing that Claudiu-Florentin committed copyright infringement, violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and "tortiously interfered with Bungie’s contractual relationship with other users of Destiny 2," among others.

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Original Story, Wednesday, May 3: In April, Niantic's Pokémon Go amassed $34.7 million in revenue, the lowest monthly total for the RPG in five years.

As reported by MobileGamer.biz, per data from AppMagic, it was still the twelfth highest-grossing game worldwide for the month.

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Krafton and NetEase are set to appear in San Mateo, California court this week in the ongoing copyright legal battle sparked by the titles Knives Out and Rules of Survival.

The copyright dispute began in April 2018 over the alleged copyright infringement of PUBG. The gaming firms eventually settled and reached a confidentiality agreement in March 2019.

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A Newzoo report reveals that during Q1, Warner Bros. Games' Hogwarts Legacy with the top gross title in the US and UK across PC and consoles.

The market intelligence firm said Hogwarts Legacy was the highest-selling game on PC "by far" during the quarter. Both countries' PC markets had Sons of the Forest and Valorant following behind the Harry Potter RPG in revenue.

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Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other's work. This entry was contributed by Li Shu, producer of the Lightracer series at SmartMelon.

Video games, at their best, can produce stunning stories that make us question our values, reflect on our lives, and better empathize with one another. While that's also true of non-interactive media, games are unique in how they respond to player input. Many games don't offer a ton of narrative variation, but some do, and these experiences often stick with me the longest. This has been true of many games I've played over the years, but nothing has inspired a sense of wonder and intrigue as much as the SpellForce series.

Part of this comes down to these games' scope. They are absolutely, wildly, gobsmackingly ambitious. They're part RPG about guiding a specific character through an evolving adventure, and part real-time strategy game where you take a broader view in building towns and commanding armies. Just from a gameplay perspective, that's a lot to take on. And yet, that's only the tip of the iceberg for me.

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Unity is cutting another 600 employees in its third round of layoffs in less than a year, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The cuts equal about 8% of the company's headcount, and will leave it with roughly 7,000 employees worldwide.

Additionally, Unity is looking to reduce its physical footprint, cutting down its current 58 offices worldwide to fewer than 30 over the coming years.

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On April 17, Sega announced plans to acquire Rovio, the Finnish studio behind the hugely popular Angry Birds series, in a deal worth €706 million.

It's the latest example of a long-standing console and PC publisher trying to establish a foothold in the lucrative but highly competitive mobile gaming market, following Take-Two's $12.7 billion purchase of Zynga, Electronic Arts' $2.1 billion acquisition of Glu Mobile and Microsoft's ongoing attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard, which owns Candy Crush creator King.

But in the case of Sega and Rovio, there's more to the new partnership, as the leadership of both firms discussed during a press conference at Rovio's Helsinki headquarters yesterday.

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Redfall released yesterday, Arkane Studios' first Xbox exclusive since Microsoft's surprise acquisition of its parent company Bethesda (and the first AAA Xbox exclusive period in quite a long while).

This created some commotion, as the title was initially in development for PlayStation 5 too, but this version was dropped after the acquisition. This prompted scrutiny about whether Microsoft broke its promise to the EU about Bethesda exclusives (long story short: it didn't).

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2K has announced that the Nintendo Switch version of Marvel's Midnight Suns has been canceled.

Developed by Firaxis Games, the multiplatform RPG was announced for the console in its 2021 Gamescom reveal.

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StreamElements has revealed the 16 recipients of its 2023 Creator Diversity Program (CDP).

Now in its third year, the program is intended to provide content creators from overlooked communities with professional livestreaming services, equipment, support, and funds "to help them optimize their channels for success."

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It can be difficult keeping track of the various comings and goings in the games industry, which is why we compile them in semi-regular round-ups.

If you have new appointments or transitions in your company that belong here, please send the names of the appointees, new role and company, and prior role and company to newhires@gamesindustry.biz.

Thunderful has hired Claire Boissiere as vice president. She will continue to work as the studio director of Jumpship.

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The Last Worker, a dystopian look at the future of capitalism from developers Oiffy and Wolf & Wood, is a game that's unafraid to wear its political leanings on its sleeve. While it directly addresses the consequences of workplace automation and corporate layoffs, there are plenty of other timely messages to be found under the game's surface, from issues of climate change to critiques of a content-driven throwaway culture.

At its core, however, it's a game very much concerned about end-stage capitalism, a theme that The Last Worker director Jörg Tittel concedes could prove potentially divisive – not that he seems altogether too concerned about that when he sits down to speak to us, shortly after the game's launch event at BAFTA in Central London. Indeed, Tittel is keen for the game to encourage discussion among players, and a change in attitudes in how they approach both video games and society in general. Of course, any game focused on a dystopian future of capitalism is bound to split opinions.

"It's interesting, because when people on the right hear the words 'end-stage capitalism,' they think I'm attacking capitalism," Tittel notes. "It's like saying my grandma has a terminal disease – it doesn't mean I hate my grandma. It just happens to be the end stage of capitalism, it's an ill creature at the moment. Does it make me a lefty to point that out? Is a doctor trying to heal somebody 'woke' now?"

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Japanese developer Monolith Soft has increased the wages for all its employees, as well as starting salaries for new hires.

The company – best known for the Xenoblade Chronicles series and support development on Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – announced the change via its website, noting that this is in addition to its regular salary increases. It is effective as of April 2023.

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One year ago, Japanese manga publishing giant Shueisha announced the opening of its dedicated games branch.

The idea was borne from Shueisha's Game Creators Camp, which western PR manager John Davis (who's also the co-founder of Kyoto-based indie games festival BitSummit) describes as "an incubator for indie developers in Japan."

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Vampire Survivors has joined the list of video game adaptations as it's been greenlit for an animated tv show.

Poncle announced that it will be working with entertainment firm Story Kitchen, which is overseen by Dmitri Johnson, Derek Kolstad, and Mike Goldberg.

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie has generated over $1 billion at the global box office.

As reported by Variety, the Nintendo and Illumination motion picture is the first film of 2023 to hit the figure.

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