GamesIndustry

In 2017, Nintendo's Mario series and Ubisoft's Raving Rabbids franchise crossed over, resulting in the tactical Nintendo Switch RPG Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

The game went on to be well received by critics, having earned a Metacritic score of 85, and earlier this year passed 10 million players.

Last month we spoke to the game's creative director Davide Soliani about the pressure of following up on this surprise hit — and reviews suggest he and his team have been successful.

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After years of rumours, Konami has finally dusted off its popular horror brand Silent Hill with the announcement of five new projects.

The Japanese publisher gave the first details for each during a digital presentation last night, not only revealing multiple new Silent Hill video games but also ventures into other forms of entertainment.

These included:

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Rooster Teeth will be reducing its programming this week following the latest accusations of unhealthy work culture against the company.

In a thread posted on Twitter yesterday, the company addressed some of the allegations that were published by former director and content creator Kdin Jenzen. The thread was posted after an official statement was already published over the weekend, and an internal email was sent by general manager Jordan Levin on Monday.

In that internal message, he dismissed some of the accusations as "past events," focusing on recent changes made at the company, and referred to unpaid VO work as a "perk."

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Bethesda senior game designer and games industry veteran, Ferret Baudoin has died.

News of his death was announced on Facebook, with the creator of a tribute group writing that he "died suddenly on October 15, 2022."

"He [was] surrounded by his family. He loved real life as much as games. He was a devoted husband, father, brother, and son," the statement said.

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The UK games market saw a big jump in console sales during September, but the overall sector remains down over 2021.

That’s according to the latest data from GfK (accessories and consoles) and GSD (physical and digital games).

3.17 million games were sold across the UK last month, which is up over 83% compared with August, but down 6% over the same period in 2021. Over 957,000 physical games were sold, with the remaining 2.2 million coming from digital retailers.

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Long gone are the days where games were limited solely to the bleeps and bloops of retro processors and sound chips – but that doesn't mean today's expansive 3D sandboxes are safe from sounding flatter than a 2D side scroller.

Sound design is key to helping developers add depth to their game worlds, weaving in subtle details for unspoken narratives and transforming all manner of games into truly immersive escapes.

With the right approach, sound design works wonders for the player experience, both adding another dimension to 2D and 3D realms alike and helping virtual spaces feel larger than life.

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EA Sports announced that it will be investing $11 million in women's soccer via its Starting XI Fund.

The initiative intends to grow the sport as it will fund in-game, league, club and athlete investments.

Next year, the gaming firm said that it will also invest in a women's football internship initiative. Which it said will extend to each current and new women's league partner.

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Following the report by former director Kdin Jenzen about Rooster Teeth's alleged culture of harassment and crunch, an internal statement signed 'Jordan' (believed to be Rooster Teeth general manager Jordan Levin) addressing the situation was sent to staff, repeatedly referring to the issues as "past events."

The email was forwarded to the entire company by Rooster Teeth's HR team on behalf of Levin. GamesIndustry.biz has since obtained a copy of this message and reviewed it.

In his message, Levin said he is "not denying the existence of past events," and highlighted changes made at the company since the "reckoning" of 2020, including the pay review that was mentioned in the official statement.

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Releasing a sequel to a critically acclaimed game can be tough. It has to be bigger and better than the game that spurred it and offer a new experience, while staying true to a particular vision or audience.

One studio on its journey to find that balance is Slime Rancher developer Monomi Park, having just released Slime Rancher 2, the follow up to the 2016 hit. So far, the reception is largely positive – the early access title has sold over 400,000 copies in its debut week at the end of September, and is already lining up nominations for awards, just like its predecessor.

For Monomi Park founder and CEO Nick Popovich, making a follow up to a successful indie a dicey business.

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Netflix continues to ramp up its games strategy with talk of a cloud gaming service and the announcement of a new development studio in Southern California.

The news comes from an on-stage session with the company's vice president of gaming Mike Verdu at TechCrunch Disrupt, who said that Netflix is "seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering."

While Verdu did not share details, he did suggest this will not be positioned as a platform in its own right.

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The National Labor Relation Board approved the Blizzard Albany QA team's efforts to seek a vote on unionization Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

Activision Blizzard had argued that the unionization vote should be put to the entire studio instead of just the QA team's 21 members in a move that would have seemingly reduced the chances of a vote in favor of organization.

The NLRB rejected the publisher's argument, saying the QA team's low pay (roughly $42,000 annually compared to $56,000 to $175,000 earned by others at the studio) made them appropriate as a distinct group of employees separate from the rest of Blizzard Albany.

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The winners of the Canada GamesIndustry.biz Best Places To Work Awards 2022 have been revealed.

The awards event is all about making the games industry a better place to work, and are decided by an in-depth survey of employees. You can see how the awards are judged right here.

The 16 winners, plus a series of special winners, were announced via a 35-minute online ceremony (watch below). EA was the biggest winner with EA Full Circle and EA Motive both picking up badges. EA Canada was also the winner of the Corporate Social Responsibility Award.

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Turkish mobile developer Magic Games has raised $5 million in a seed round led by Makers Fund, with participation by Hummingbird Ventures managing partner Firat Ileri.

The studio was founded by former Peak Games executives Çağrı Öztürk, Rüya Çelikcan and Mert Kasar, with experience on titles such as Toy Blast and Toon Blast.

It aims to use the funding to build out its team, open a European office, and fuel its debut title, an unannounced match-3 game.

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A Plague Tale: Innocence was the surprise hit of 2019. Telling the survival tale of young siblings Amicia and Hugo in 14th Century France, it was its development team's first foray into the stealth adventure genre and it ended up selling one million copies in just over a year.

Now, three years later, Asobo Studio is back with a sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem, which releases today.

Talking to us at Gamescom, game director Kevin Choteau admits that the team did not expect A Plague Tale's success.

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To succeed in mobile games today, you not only need to make a great game, but you need to have a strong monetisation plan from the very beginning.

In this special GamesIndustry.biz Podcast, Meta Audience Network’s Michael Bertaut discusses the state of in-game advertising, player acquisition and the future of monetisation. He reveals the latest data on where things are heading and details Meta’s view on how developers can make the most of the new opportunities.

"We’ve noticed a shift from building great games to building a great gaming business," said Bertaut. "Sure, great games are foundational, but long term-success means shifting the focus a bit. To build a strong and sustainable gaming business, one needs both great games and game monetization expertise.

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Simon Hellwig, co-founder, owner and joint managing director of German publisher Kalypso Media, has passed away, as confirmed by the company.

Kalypso announced that Anika Thun will continue to lead the company as managing director as planned, with support from senior management.

Hellwig co-founded Kalypso Media in 2006, and has been overseeing the growth of the firm and its subsidiaries since. The company now employs over 200 staff across five countries, and owns five development studios, as well as digital label Kasedo Games.

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Since 1994's Arena – and particularly since 2002's Morrowind – the Elder Scrolls IP has been synonymous with vast open-world single-player RPGs where fantasy fans can lose themselves in a mix of epic main quests, exploration and an abundance of side content.

But how does that translate to an MMO, where each hero is surrounded by potentially millions of other similarly epic heroes?

"That's the hard part – most Elder Scrolls fans don't want other players in their game," Rich Lambert, ZeniMax Online's creative director for The Elder Scrolls Online, tells GamesIndustry.biz.

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The Mayor of London will pour a further £1 million into Games London, the organisation behind the London Games Festival and its associated activities.

The funding, which will be provided by the Greater London Authority, will be used to support Games London's events over the next three years, including future iterations of its flagship festival.

The mayor previously committed £1.2 million to the organisation back in 2018, and the continuation of this investment is a sign of his ongoing support for the games sector in the UK capital.

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Microsoft has laid off hundreds of employees from across the entire breadth of the company.

Business Insider reports that less than 1,000 staff have been affected, according to its sources. One employee told the site they had only been hired a month ago.

In July, Microsoft announced it would lay off less than 1% of its workforce – which stood at around 180,000 people in total – and would significantly slow its recruitment efforts in the face of an upcoming recession.

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League of Legends firm Riot Games has acquired Wargaming's Sydney development studio.

Wargaming Sydney was originally BigWorld, based in Australia and founded in 2002. Its BigWorld Technology was used to serve over 30 MMO titles. The studio received the Guinness World Record for most players online simultaneously on one MMO server.

The studio was purchased by Wargaming in 2012 for $45 million.

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Original story, October 17, 2022: The original voice performer of the Bayonetta character has called for a boycott of Bayonetta 3 in advance of the game's release later this month.

In a series of videos posted to Twitter, Hellena Taylor says she did not reprise the role for the third game in the series because PlatinumGames lowballed her with its offered payment.

"The final offer to do the whole games – as a buyout, flat rate – was $4,000," Taylor said. "This is an insult to me, the amount of time I took to work on my talent, and everything that I have given to this game and the fans. I am asking the fans to boycott this game and instead spend the money you would have spent on this game, donating it to charity."

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PQube restituted grant funds to Toge Productions as well as rights to its game, A Space For The Unbound.

A statement posted on the title's Twitter last Friday read that "Toge Productions, Mojiken Studio, PQube and Chorus Worldwide have reached an agreement to the satisfaction of all parties with regards to the release of A Space for the Unbound."

Chorus will act as the publisher for the title's upcoming release on console, while Toge will continue to handle the PC edition.

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A new report details the struggles Meta is facing in trying to establish its virtual reality experience Horizon Worlds as a popular metaverse.

The Wall Street Journal cites internal documents that show the company, which renamed itself in the belief that metaverses are the future of technology, has failed to achieve its early ambitions.

The report centres around Horizon Worlds, a collection of virtual reality social spaces where players can engage in activities like shopping, partying and playing mini-games like an arena shooter.

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Former Rooster Teeth director, producer and content creator Kdin Jenzen has shared a lengthy report into the company's culture, saying that she was often underpaid or not paid at all, that crunch was common practice, and that she was harassed by co-workers.

In a TwitLonger post, Jenzen, who mainly worked on Achievement Hunter, spoke out about her working conditions during the nine years she spent at the production company. She started in 2013 as a contractor and left in 2022.

Jenzen alleged that her work as a contractor was unpaid for over ten months – from February to November 2013. When she brought it up as she was being hired permanently, she was reportedly told: "It’s been so long already, it’s not really a big deal, is it?"

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G4 is shutting down just one year after the games-focused broadcaster relaunched.

Deadline obtained a memo from Dave Scott, chairman and CEO of G4 parent Comcast Spectacor, informing employees that all G4 operations are being discontinued, effective immediately.

Scott said this was a "very difficult decision" and "certainly not what we hoped for" but attributed it to G4 struggling to meet expectations.

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Overwatch 2 attracted 25 million players in its first ten days of operation, Activision Blizzard announced today.

That's considerably ahead of the original Overwatch's performance – it announced a player base of 15 million nearly three months after its 2016 debut – and Activision Blizzard said daily player counts have nearly tripled the original game's peak mark.

That said, comparisons between the two games aren't exactly apples-to-apples given the sequel is free-to-play while the original was a full-priced product. Blizzard also pulled the plug on the original game days before Overwatch 2's launch.

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Spiral Up Games has thrown its hat into the crowded indie publisher ring, and it is selling its ability to promote games in China as a way to stand out from the crowd.

The Singapore-based outfit offers funding and an assortment of publishing services to games in North America and Europe, but adds that it has "a balanced focus" including expertise in China.

"Marketing a game in China is not quite as straightforward," Spiral Up CEO Aldric Chang said. "You need to be able to navigate the cultural sensitivities and reach out to the Chinese influencers and press, which remains challenging to publishers who don't have roots in the region. Yet, this is necessary if you want to expose your game to this massive growing market. We have the ability, experience and means to do so. Not many publishers can claim that."

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The Logitech G Cloud streaming-focused handheld launches next week, and while there aren't enough reviews out there for a Critical Consensus yet, there are enough hands-on impressions and early reviews to see one sentiment coming up repeatedly: "Who is this even for?"

QUOTE | "The Logitech G Cloud works well, but it serves an incredibly small niche." – Uncredited hands-on impressions from Tom's Hardware.

QUOTE | "The Logitech G Cloud isn't a terrible handheld; it just feels like it is made for a gamer that doesn't exist." – PC Gamer's Jorge Jimenez, in giving the G Cloud a 65 out of 100.

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The UK's Competition and Markets Authority today released an issues statement laying out a number of concerns with the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard and dismissing several of the Xbox maker's key arguments.

The first question it tackled was whether or not the acquisition would result in Xbox making Call of Duty exclusive ("foreclosing," by CMA terminology), something Microsoft has said it has no intention of doing, but is only committing to keep on PlayStation for several years.

"Financial modelling of the merger suggests that the merged entity's incentive to foreclose Sony may be considerably stronger than suggested by the parties," the CMA determined.

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Splash Damage confirmed that Outcasters would not release on other platforms, meaning that the Stadia exclusive will disappear when Google's cloud gaming service closes.

In a statement shared on Twitter, the studio said that "Outcasters was designed and built exclusively for Stadia, with many of its systems heavily reliant on the platform, significantly increasing the complexity of the work required."

The message added that Splash Damage still "firmly believes that cloud gaming has a bright future" and is "encouraged to see that other platforms still champion this cause."

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When you’re talking about a deal as big as Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, the eye-grabbing initial announcement – with its almost $70 billion price tag making every previous games industry merger look like peanuts by comparison – is only the beginning.

For a smaller deal, the story a few months later that the merger has completed is basically a formality; the deal is in the bag once the parties get to the point of announcing their corporate nuptials to the world.

With this much money, and some of the world’s most successful entertainment franchises, on the table, however, the Microsoft-ABK deal was always going to attract scrutiny from competition authorities – and this week, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority made the road a little bumpier for both parties, with a report into the deal that’s distinctly negative about its impacts on competition in the games space.

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A Twitch executive has responded to complaints over changes to its revenue split after the leading streaming site confirmed it is no longer offering a 70/30 share for premium partners.

The change was announced last month, with new partners no longer offered this split – something the platform actually ended more than a year ago – and those who already receive it will see their share change.

Starting June 1, 2023, premium partners will only receive 70% of the first $100,000 they earn each year, before dropping to the standard 50/50 split.

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Take-Two is closing New-York based mobile studio Playdots, with 65 people being laid off.

The news was reported by Bloomberg, which said an advance notice of the layoffs was filed with the New York State Department of Labor.

The developer is mainly known for 2013 hit Dots, and its 2014 sequel, Two Dots. Take-Two confirmed the studio's closure in a statement, adding that Two Dots' development will continue at a Zynga studio going forward.

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GamesIndustry.biz's free video games event for students will feature expert talent from some of the world's biggest game creators.

The developers of games such as LittleBigPlanet, Total War, Call of Duty: Warzone, Battlefield, Donkey Kong Country, Need for Speed, Her Story, Everwild, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars, Dreams, Yooka-Laylee, As Dusk Falls and many more will be speaking with students between Wednesday, October 26th and Friday, October 28th. Plus, Eurogamer’s Editor-In-Chief Martin Robinson will be discussing games journalism.

GI Academy takes place within a special Discord, and will feature roundtable sessions, keynotes, masterclasses plus the chance to speak with games industry professionals one-to-one. The event is completely free, courtesy of our partner Creative Assembly, and students can sign-up here.

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Microsoft held its Xbox 2022 Accessibility Showcase, where it presented its ongoing efforts to improve accessibility for games on PC and console.

The show was hosted by accessibility consultant and content creator Steve Saylor.

Among the show's topics was the Xbox Accessibility Guideline (XAGs), a set of best practices that has been created by experts and members of the disabled community.

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The 2026 Commonwealth Games will not feature esports as a medal event.

Despite the discipline being successfully featured in the 2022 edition of the event, the organisers have made an unexpected U-turn, the BBC reported.

The publication said that "despite numerous requests," the Commonwealth Games Federation and the Global Esports Federation "refused to give any specific reasons" for the decision

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Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier will be ending its service on January 11, 2023.

The mobile RPG originally launched on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store on November 17, 2021.

"Despite all our efforts to bring you regular updates with fresh and exciting content, we haven't been able to deliver the experience that we were hoping to, and that you all deserve, so we have made the extremely tough decision to end service for Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier," Square Enix said.

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A QA worker who accused Nintendo of firing them for asking about the company's stance on unionization has settled their National Labor Relations Board complaint over the matter, as reported by Polygon.

Mackenzie Clifton, who came forward in September as the person who filed the complaint, said they were fired in retaliation for trying to ask Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser about the company's position on unionization during a company meeting.

Clifton agreed to a deal with Nintendo of America and staffing agency Aston Carter that will see them receive $25,910 in pay, interest, and damages.

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It's been an eventful journey for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum since Daedalic announced it in 2019.

Earlier this year, Daedalic was acquired by Nacon. Embracer acquired the Lord of the Rings IP from historical owner Middle-earth Enterprises. The game was pushed back from two possible release windows.

Nacon had already been announced as Gollum's co-publisher in 2021, so at least Daedalic's new owner was already on the same page in regards to the project.

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FIFA 23 has seen record-breaking figures during its first week according to EA, amassing over 10.3 million users.

In comparison, last year's FIFA 22 racked up over 9.1 million players in the first 10 days after its launch.

We reported last week that the PlayStation 5 has become the biggest platform for FIFA 23's launch sales in the UK, with 41% of all boxed copies coming through the console.

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