May 2025

This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry.

Microsoft dropped a bombshell yesterday, confirming recent reports that it would be going multiplatform, bringing a quartet of first-party games to rival consoles in the near future.

It didn't say which four games those would be, but it ruled out Starfield and Indiana Jones, which had been named in those unconfirmed reports. Between what was revealed and what was reported, it seems likely we're looking at Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Grounded.

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Baldur's Gate 3 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 were the big winners at last night's DICE Awards in Las Vegas.

At the 27th iteration of the ceremony, Insomniac Games took home six accolades, including outstanding achievements in animation, character, original music, audio design and technical achievement, as well as action game of the year.

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Bandai Namco has released its financial results for the nine months ending December 31, 2023, reporting a drop in sales in its Digital Entertainment segment and overall profit while its total net sales showed a slight increase.

Net sales: ¥772 billion ($5.1 billion, up 3.9% year-on-year)

Profit: ¥84.4 billion ($560.9 million, down 28.5% year-on-year)

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Not so long ago, the announcement that Sony didn't have any new entries in its major first-party franchises in the pipeline for the coming year would have been viewed as an extraordinary opportunity for Microsoft to gain ground on the market leader.

There are many reasons why Xbox has faced an uphill struggle against its major rival. Brand strength and digital library lock-in are certainly among them, but the ultimate, seemingly insurmountable barrier was Sony's first-party studio system, which delivered an extraordinary line-up of hit software throughout the PS4 era and carried over into the current generation seemingly without stumbling – until now.

Microsoft's own difficulties in building a portfolio of studios that could rival that line-up is well documented; its travails were constantly magnified by unflattering comparisons with PlayStation's studios seemingly humming along and turning out a steady supply of hit games. By some interpretations, at least, Microsoft has now spent the better part of $100 billion dollars trying to close that gap – becoming, in the process, one of the biggest game publishers in the world.

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Starbreeze has released its full-year financial results, reporting its first profit before taxes since its brush with insolvency back in 2018.

The key contributor was the long-awaited release of Payday 3 back in September, despite CEO Tobias Sjögren confirming the both sales and player activity are "currently at significantly lower levels than we would like."

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Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said that the current reduction in workforce at the company and across the industry is "something that everyone needs to get through," later adding that the group's strategy has been to cut the things that have "the lowest chance of success going forward" and to only keep "the most iconic studios."

This conversation was part of the Q&A portion of the company's earnings call yesterday, as it announced its Q3 results.

Answering a question about the underlying games market, Wingefors said that the whole industry has been feeling a "significant shift" since last summer.

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Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM is reportedly planning to lay off 24 employees, in addition to cancelling a project codenamed X7.

As reported by Sports Illustrated's GLHF, sources said ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus informed staff in a message that reportedly said that this included the team working on X7 and "non-development teams".

According to another message sent to staff and seen by GLHF, writers, engineers, artists, production, IT, and animation were also listed as being at risk of redundancy.

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Microsoft today addressed recent reports and rumors about a change to its first-party strategy in an Xbox podcast presentation, confirming that a slate of four titles would be released on non-Xbox consoles.

Xbox head Phil Spencer said that Starfield and Indiana Jones – two games that reports had named as multiplatform candidates – are not among the four titles, reassuring players that this is "not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy."

Spencer said the individual game teams would make their own announcements about going to other platforms, but said two were community-driven titles, while the other two were smaller games "never meant to be billed as platform exclusives."

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Daybreak has cut staff, the company has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz.

The layoffs were reported earlier this week on LinkedIn by Amir Satvat, who has been tracking job cuts throughout the industry since 2022.

Satvat originally reported that the cuts impacted 70 people, but later retracted that number saying it was inaccurate.

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PlayStation is looking at bringing more of its exclusive first-party titles to other platforms, such as PC, in an effort to grow its games business.

During an earnings call following the release of its latest financial results, Sony president and COO Hiroki Totoki told investors that making PlayStation exclusives multi-platform would help its operating income improve, which was down 15% to ¥979.4 billion ($6.5 billion).

"A potential driver for [growth] is the first-party title generation because in the past we wanted to popularise consoles," Totoki said (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha). "The purpose of the first-party title was to make the hardware or the console popular. But there is a synergy to it.

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This interview is part of GamesIndustry.biz's Black Voices Progress Report, offering insight into the different experiences Black professionals have in the games sector. You can read more about the project and check out the other entries on this page.

Many game developers love data, whether it comes as a spreadsheet, a pie chart or a feedback box – so in some ways, Adanna Nedd's move from academic research to game development isn't all that surprising.

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Embracer Group has released its latest financial results and offered an updated on its ongoing restructuring program, which the company claims is "approaching the final stretch."

The results for the three months ending December 31, 2023 showed decent sales across the company, despite declines in its PC/console games segment, but the group still ended the year with a net debt of SEK 16.1 billion ($1.5 billion).

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Maximum Entertainment (previously Zordix) has announced the unification of its various divisions under one name.

The company owns publishers Maximum Games, Modus Games, Just For Games, and Merge Games, and developer Modus Studios, all of which will be grouped together under the name Maximum Entertainment.

The firm also announced that it's looking to increase IP ownership to 30% of its revenue by 2025, as well as double down on transmedia projects. Maximum added that there's currently over 100 games in its pipeline, 15 of them being its own IP.

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Yoshitaka Murayama, co-creator of Suikoden and writer, producer, and director of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, has passed away.

Rabbit & Bear Studios, which Murayama founded in 2020, shared in a statement that he died on February 6 "due to complications with an ongoing illness."

"His hard work on Eiyuden Chronicle as [a] scenario writer was finished but as his co-workers and friends, it saddens us to know that he won't get to see the reactions from his fans," the statement continued.

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Scopely has confirmed it may be cutting ties with a number of employees who had been working on its Kingdom Maker publishing team.

The cuts reportedly impacted 38 people, according to a LinkedIn post by Amir Satvat, who has been regularly documenting job cuts throughout the industry.

However, Scopely told GamesIndustry.biz that it is making changes because of the end of its publishing partnership with Kingdom Maker developer Global Worldwide, and has been trying to find new roles within the company for the people impacted.

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Vancouver-based Blackbird Interactive confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz today that it has laid off staff for the second time in six months.

"Due to economic pressures outside of our control, we had to take the unfortunate step of separating from some friends," a studio representative said.

"This is part of a realignment plan that's necessary because of new projects that were shelved by some of our partners. We looked at multiple ways of avoiding this and regretfully other options werent viable. Because the affected team members are our BBI family, we want to help position them well for this next stage of their careers. We're offering a suite of extended benefits and severance to help ease this transition."

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In 1999, Infogrames published Slave Zero on PC and Dreamcast. A third-person shooter in which players controlled a giant robot blasting enemies in a futuristic cityscape, the game received lukewarm reviews, with much of the praise reserved for the simple joy of picking up and throwing cars at enemies.

Slave Zero had its fans, but there wasn't exactly a vocal contingent of gamers crying out for more, which made it surprising to say the least when, in June of 2022, Ziggurat Interactive announced it was working on Slave Zero X, a new game in the franchise developed by Poppy Works, the studio behind games like Devil Engine and Halloween Forever.

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Xsolla has announced a change in its leadership structure, with former president and interim CEO Chris Hewish becoming chief strategy officer.

Hewish was appointed president of Xsolla in 2020, before becoming interim CEO last May. He previously worked as head of studio for virtual reality developer Survios and Skydance's interactive division.

In December, David Stelzer was appointed president after working for Epic Games for eight years as a senior director. Alexander 'Shurick' Agapitov, who founded the company in 2005, will remain as Xsolla's CEO.

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The behemoth that is the games industry has profound responsibilities towards its players, and these are ever-evolving. Unfortunately, right now, actions towards accessibility – making games suitable for their disabled audiences – fall short of where they should be. Thankfully, accessibility is gaining more attention and traction across the industry though.

Studios like Sony Santa Monica Studio, with its blockbuster sequel God of War Ragnarök, made significant improvements in accessibility features from the previous iteration of the game, from navigation assists to subtitles and audio cues, and last year's Forza Motorsport introduced Blind Driving Assists, making the game hugely more accessible for blind/low vision players.

The problem is that it is not shifting anywhere near as fast or as widespread as it needs to.

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Innovate UK has awarded five UK women-led studios with an accolade that includes a combined total of £215,000 in grants.

The funding will go towards business grants and personal living allowances, and includes 12 months of support for the studios.

Those receiving the funding include Glowfrog Games CEO Kate Killick, Peanut & Crumb executive producer Jane Gerber, Silver Script Games founder Alyx Jones, Dot Dot Fire co-founder Hilary Lok, and Konglomerate Games director and designer Connie Reid.

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Supercell has published its financial results for 2023, in which revenue dropped by 4.2% to €1.7 billion compared to last year.

During an earnings call, CEO Ilkka Paananen attributed this decrease to a decline in games sales during the first half of 2023 and the overall health of the mobile games market.

However, Paananen highlighted that its live games segment rose every quarter over the financial period due to the success of Brawl Stars, which tripled its player base since last summer and has become the developer's biggest title.

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Sony has released its latest financial results, showing an increase in sales for both the whole company and its PlayStation division.

But the company has lowered its sales forecasts for PlayStation, in part due to an expected hardware decline with the company adding that it is not planning to release any games from its biggest franchises in the next fiscal year.

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Update, February 16, 2024: Almost 700 Ubisoft workers joined the picket line earlier this week to demand better wages.

That's according to union STJV, which had called for the strike to take place on Wednesday, across the French cities of Paris, Montpellier, Annecy, Lyon, and Bordeaux.

Original story, February 14, 2024: French game workers union STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) is organising a strike today across three Ubisoft studios.

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Nigeria-based games developer Maliyo Games is behind a new Disney game coming to mobile this month.

The smartphone developer, which also employs staff in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, is creating the official tie-in to Disney's Iwájú, which is a new animated series launching on Disney+ on February 28th. The animation is co-produced with Kugali Media and set in a futuristic Nigeria, while the game is called Disney Iwájú: Rising Chef, and is due to launch on the same day.

"It's a really great opportunity for us to build an Africa-focused gaming IP for one of the biggest brands in the world," Maliyo Games CEO and founder Hugo Obi tells GamesIndustry.biz.

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Twitch's viewership saw a 6% bump in its January performance as it hit 1.9 billion hours watched, according to StreamElements and Rainmaker. gg's monthly State of the Stream report.

The streaming platform reached 1.8 billion hours throughout the month last year.

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GamesIndustry.biz and the Games Industry Gathering are teaming up on a party to be held in San Francisco during GDC next month.

The Games Industry Social: San Francisco 2024 Edition will take place Monday, March 18 and run from 5pm - 9pm (PT) at a location a short drive from the Moscone Center.

Attendance is free, although anyone wishing to attend must first be vetted members of the Games Industry Gathering. It's completely free to be part of the GIG. Details on how to sign-up are through here.

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Momotaro Dentetsu World: The Earth Spins with Hope is back at the top of the Japanese monthly charts following its launch last November.

The Konami title, which was at No.3 last month, moved 153,137 copies in January according to Famitsu retail sales data.

Super Mario Bros Wonder followed in second with 151,569 units sold. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which debuted on January 26, came in at No.3 on PS5 having moved 102,940 units, while the PS4 version ranked at No.6 with 77,134 copies sold. Combined, the game would have comfortably been No.1.

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Update, February 14, 2024: Sony has issued a statement to GamesIndustry.biz confirming Team Ninja's upcoming game will not be released in South Korea.

"Rise of the Ronin for PlayStation 5 was never officially announced for release in Korea," a spokesperson told us. "We can confirm that the title is not going to be sold/published in South Korea in any form (physical/digital)."

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German-based marketing and communications agency 1SP has acquired UK PR firm Renaissance PR.

It's part of 1SP's bid to create a 'superagency' covering tech and games. Renaissance joins a family of companies including MSM.digital, Insight, FLZR, Studio CO2 ad CAD-Laif, which together cover retail sales, creator marketing, AR, and other forms of creative services.

Renaissance PR is a UK comms agency run by former Ubisoft PR veteran Stefano Petrullo, and has represented the likes of Curve Games, Futurlab, the Italian games trade body (IIDEA), Kepler, Milestone, Plaion, Private Division, Revolution, Team17, Tencent and many more.

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GLAAD today released its first State of LGBTQ Inclusion in Video Games report, building around the results of a Nielsen survey that found 17% of active gamers identify as LGBTQ.

Nielsen's survey covered 1,452 active PC and console gamers between June and August of last year.

The percentage of LGBTQ gamers increases in younger demographics, the survey found, with 23-28% of those under 35 identifying as LGBTQ.

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Japan is the world's biggest market for consumer spending on location-based titles like Pokémon Go and Dragon Quest Walk, having generated over $620 million in 2023.

That's according to a report by Sensor Tower, which says this accounts for 50% of the global spending on geolocation games.

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Austin-based developer Monumental has entered into an agreement to acquire gaming publisher and web portal Kongregate for an unknown sum.

As reported by Pocket Gamer, the two companies will fully merge as a result, with Monumental CEO Monty Kerr heading both. The acquisition will combine both studios' portfolios of over 40 games.

"We are overjoyed to welcome Kongregate into the Monumental family," said Kerr.

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Next Official Xbox Podcast episode to provide details on new business changes

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League of Geeks co-founder Adam Duncan has died.

The social media announcement did not share the details about his passing.

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Microsoft's recent layoffs resulted in 86 redundancies at game developer Toys for Bob.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, per state filings, the studio behind Spyro Reignited Trilogy also saw its physical office closed.

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James Batchelor and Chris Dring discuss the biggest stories of the past week from the business of video games.

We start by (not) speculating about the expected Xbox business update, which Phil Spencer says will address the recent rumours about first-party exclusives to rival platforms, Microsoft dropping physical media or even potentially pulling out of the console space. Okay, maybe we speculated a little. Just a healthy amount.

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This interview is part of GamesIndustry.biz's Black Voices Progress Report, offering insight into the different experiences Black professionals have in the games sector. You can read more about the project and check the other entries on this page.

Up until this point with the Black Voice Progress Report, we've spoken to people who have been established and successful in their field. However, an anonymous QA tester tells us what it's like being Black in a role that frequently does not command proper respect, regardless of who's filling it.

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Indie developer Threshold Games has shut down after announcing its closure last week.

The Seattle-based studio, which was working on its first title, shared on LinkedIn that "extenuating circumstances" resulted in it closing its doors.

"We're sorry we won't get to fully realise our studio's vision," it wrote. "While our project won't make it to the finish line, we are deeply grateful for our team's passion, talent, and dedication over the course of development."

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Skillz has won a patent infringement trial against rival AviaGames, with the jury awarding the skills-based gaming firm $42.9 million.

The company filed a lawsuit against AviaGames accusing the company of copying both its platform and its games, infringing on various patents held by Skillz.

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