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The Australian games market has pulled in AU$345.5 million in revenue, up 21% year-on-year.
That's according to a new Australian Game Developer Survey from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA).
Electronic Arts today announced a rebranding for Frostbite, its internal game development engine. It's the first new logo for the tech in nearly a decade.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz about the rebranding EA's Frostbite GM Tim Cowan addresses our question of why an internal game engine needs a public-facing brand in the first place, much less one that gets periodically refreshed.
"Frostbite's had a long history of being a public brand," Cowan says. "It's something our gamers know about…
James McCaffrey, mostly known for his role as Max Payne, has died at the age of 65.
As reported by TMZ, and confirmed by his representative, the actor was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer.
He had been battling the condition but passed away on December 17. McCaffrey was surrounded by friends and family at the time of his death.
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For our final podcast of the year, The GamesIndustry.biz team gathers around their mics to discuss their favourite games of the past twelve months.
You may well have read our extended thoughts in our Games of the Year articles, and this conversation wraps things up, as well as gives some nods to our honourable mentions.
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The UK's Competition and Markets Authority will resume its investigation into the mobile browser and cloud gaming sectors on January 24.
The regulator's probe was held back in May due to complaints from Apple and Google, alongside a disagreement with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal.
2023 has been a difficult year for the industry, one marred by layoffs and studio closures affecting thousands of developers globally.
But as the New Year approaches, it's perhaps worth reflecting on what's likely to help grow and lift the industry in the fact of its ongoing challenges.
With that in mind, GamesIndustry.biz asked publishers, developers and other games professionals what makes them optimistic about the games industry in 2024.
22cans' has pulled Godus and Godus Wars from sale on Steam.
In an announcement posted across both titles' Steam pages on Thursday, the company attributed the removal to changes from a business partner.
"Regrettably, due to an upcoming technical change to Amazon Web Services, affecting our ability to serve necessary game files to new users, these titles are to be withdrawn from the Steam store," the company said.
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Embracer Group has announced it has secured agreements that extend its credit and loan facilities into 2025.
The company's main credit facilitator has agreed to extend its current arrangement to February 2025, while its main loan provider has agreed to extend until May 2025, with a combined nominal value of SEK 1.7 billion ($166.2 million).
Video game music publisher Materia Music has acquired Australian gaming record label Boss Battle Records.
Founded in 2017 by Fabian Malabello, Boss Battle Records supports game composers and artists whose work has appeared in titles such as Star Wars, Metal Gear Solid, Honor of Kings, Pac-Man, and Apex Legends.
Materia Music and Boss Battle Records have been in acquisition talks since 2019.
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Update, December 20, 2023: Activision Blizzard has sent GamesIndustry.biz a statement claiming the CRD has withdrawn all of its allegations from the original lawsuit as part of the settlement.
The Call of Duty publisher also shared a document signed by both parties, in which the two agree that no court or independent investigation has substantiated any of the claims regarding:
Keywords Studios has acquired The Multiplayer Group from cloud technology firm Improbable for £76.5 million.
The developer announced today that it has added the Nottingham-based studio to its portfolio, which was acquired by Improbable in 2019. The acquisition will be paid in cash, primarily funded by Keywords' "existing revolving credit facility."
Founded in 2018, MPG is known for its focus on multiplayer games. The company provides services in full and co-development, and has worked on titles such as Fall Guys, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Mortal Kombat 1, and Starfield.
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Ubisoft has announced that The Crew, the first game in the franchise, has been delisted from all online stores.
The Crew 1 was released in December 2014; it will remain playable until its servers are shut down on March 31, 2024.
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A new report says that the game industry in Ukraine has seen shifts in its workforce and operational structures.
According to Values Value, during Q1 and Q2, difficulties in securing new business contracts for the sector have resulted in redundancies.
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The Chinese video games market grew to $42.6 billion during 2023, an increase of 13% year-on-year.
As reported by Reuters, domestic revenue for games increased by 15% to $36 billion.
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.
The Entertainment Software Association made it official this week. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is no more.
QUOTE | "After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories." – The ESA confirms the show's demise on social media.
It feels somewhat appropriate that probably the last big news story of 2023 is the final death knell of an industry institution. E3 is no more.
After limping on in various forms for the past five years, before finally seeing its latest incarnation cancelled outright in May, the decision of the ESA to walk away from the show it created will come as no shock to anyone – but as is tradition at any wake, most commemoration of E3 has been about the good times, rather than about the distinctly rough later years.
It was unquestionably time for the event to die – there is a strong argument to be made that the very format of the show itself echoed the industry's roots in consumer electronics rather than its present status as an important media and entertainment industry, for one thing, and advances in video streaming and digital distribution made the cost of the show to all parties involved increasingly hard to justify.
The Xbox Cloud Gaming beta app has launched on Meta Quest VR headsets, meaning those with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription can access its library of games.
The app is available to download via the Meta Quest Store, and can be accessed on Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro headsets. Supported controllers include Xbox, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch Pro, with support for PlayStation 5 controllers planned for the future.
Games available to play include Starfield and Forza Motorsport displayed on a 2D virtual screen, which can be viewed through different display sizes.
This article contains spoilers for events that occur within Alan Wake 2's narrative.
I started 2023 not knowing who or what Alan Wake was, let alone that a sequel was on the way.
This was a blessing in disguise, since I didn't have to wait 13 long, arduous years to discover whether Remedy's favourite tortured writer made it out of the Dark Place.
Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online.
The studio shared an update about its multiplayer project in a blog post on Thursday, in which it stated the decision came down to what maintaining an online service game would mean for its single-player titles currently in development.
"To release and support The Last of Us Online, we'd have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games," the studio wrote.
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Career games journalist Stephen Totilo has gone independent and unveiled Game File.
The new website will be a reader-supported platform and newsletter covering video games.
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Newly established Barnyard Games has raised $3.4 million in a seed funding round.
The studio aims to develop AAA titles using the Unreal Editor for Fortnite.
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A24 and Kojima Productions, led by Hideo Kojima, have announced that they will be teaming up to produce a live-action Death Stranding movie.
Death Stranding was released in 2019, and in November 2022, it amassed a player count of more than 10 million.
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After more than two decades as the industry's most prominent trade show, E3 is dead.
Its demise is unsurprising (even expected, depending on who you talk to) but this still marks a significant moment, and one that saddens much of the games industry and the media.
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MyGamez has received €1.5 million in a private financing round.
The investment round included participation from Supercell co-founder Mikko Kodisoja, Small Giant Games co-founder Timo Soininen, Reworks co-founder Ilkka Teppo and ex-Riot China head of operations Daniel Wang.
A new report from Niko Partners has found in-game purchases accounted for 87.8% for the $89.4 billion gaming market share in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
Of the $78.5 billion spent on in-app purchases, premium games accounted for $7.8 billion while $3.1 billion was spent on subscriptions.
The report said that 62.3% of those surveyed bought premium games in the past 12 months across all platforms. A third of respondents used subscription services to access games, which increased to 51% when accounting for broader subscription services such as Prime Gaming.
Thunderful has reshuffled its leadership, with chief games officer Agostino Simonetta leaving the company and four new executives appointed.
VP of studios Claire Boissiere has been promoted to executive vice president of studios and development. She will continue being Jumpship's studio director in addition to her new position.
Thunderful's VP of marketing Harriet Hughes has become its new executive vice president of publishing. She will continue to run the company's marketing input, and head its first and third-party publishing and sales divisions.
Europe posted a solid month for video game sales during November, driven by Call of Duty, EA Sports FC 24 and PS5.
24.6 million video games were sold across tracked European markets, a rise of 20% over the year before. However, this is because November 2023 was a 'five week' month compared with the four weeks of November 2022. If we just look at the same four week period, sales were actually down slightly by 2%.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the big driver of sales. It was the only real new release of note for the month, and made up for the absence of other AAA titles (last year saw the release of God of War Ragnarök and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet). Last year's Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 2) launched in October, so it was a significantly bigger November for COD this year than last year.
This article discusses a minor spoiler, an item unrelated to the main quest appearing in the game's Act 3. Read at your own peril.
This is the least and most surprising Game of the Year piece I have ever written.
Coming into the year, I knew Baldur's Gate 3 would be my Game of the Year. It's the latest title in my favourite franchise, following up on my favourite games of all time.
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Wizards of the Coast parent company, Hasbro, is on pace to reduce approximately 1,100 job positions.
The latest round of layoffs is in addition to the nearly 800 that have already taken place across the firm.
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Following the ESA's bringing E3 to an end, CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis says that gaming firms have various methods to promote their titles to meet business needs.
In an interview with GamesBeat, the executive reflected on what led to abandoning the event.
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Circana today released its monthly US game spending report, with the industry's total November haul taking a hit thanks to year-over-year declines in hardware and console software spending.
For the November reporting period, total game spending in the US was down 7% to $5.87 billion.
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Before I start this feature, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that the games industry is now nearly 10,000 people shorter. Writing my feature as this celebratory thing feels weird in light of that fact.
Now, I don't engage with media for escapism mostly because escaping reality is 1) not a privilege for people like myself, and 2) real-life demands that I keep essential matters in front of my mind.
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The GamesIndustry.biz team gathers around their mics to reflect on the past year, as well as the biggest stories and trends we've covered.
The discussion inevitably begins with the waves of layoffs we've seen throughout 2023, and what they say about both the state of the industry and what we can expect in 2024.
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This week's verdict in the antitrust trial between Epic and Google is not just a significant step forward for the former's legal crusade against app stores, but potentially a landmark moment in the evolution of the mobile market.
The jury voted unanimously that Epic won on every count, deeming the dominance of Google Play and the requirement for developers to use its billing system – entitling Google to 30% of all transactions – to be monopolistic and anti-competitive.
Midwest Games has appointed a new COO, with Alyssa Walles joining the publisher.
With over 20 years of experience, Walles was on Atari's board of directors for almost a decade, and ran her own consulting company called Amplitude for over 17 years. She currently is also the part-time executive director of the IGDA Foundation.
Midwest also made an appointment to its board of directors, with VentureBeat's chief strategy officer Gina Joseph joining.
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Apple has announced its App Store winners, honoured the best games and apps available for its various platforms.
The company named MiHoYo's Honkai: Star Rail, the sci-fi sister title to Genshin Impact, as the iPhone Game of the Year thanks to its "incredible visuals, tactically rich combat [and] mind-blowing worlds."
Microsoft could expand to new markets with ad-supported game streaming.
As reported by TweakTown, the comments were made by Xbox chief financial officer Tim Stuart during the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, held near the end of November.
"You can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate, and you can stream hundreds of games to really any endpoint that has a browser experience."