GamesIndustry

David Braben is stepping down as CEO of Frontier Developments, and will be replaced by chief creative officer Jonny Watts.

Braben has been CEO of Frontier since he created the company in 1994 and will remain at the studio as president and founder. The announcement clarified that this is an "executive director position" where Braben will "retain his leadership and vision for Frontier’s strategic direction."

Watts joined Frontier in 1998, first as software developer before moving on to senior production roles, and eventually CCO in 2012. His appointment as CEO is effective immediately.

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Despite increases in revenue and engagement, Roblox's losses continue as the company posted its financial results for Q2 2022.

For the three months ended June 30, 2022, the firm behind the popular kids game of the same name reported a net loss of $176.4 million – steeper than the $140.1 million loss it posted in the same quarter last year.

Revenue: $591.2 million, up 30% year-on-year Net loss: $176.4 million, down 26% Bookings: $639.9 million, down 4% Average Daily Active Users (DAUs): 52.2m, up 21% Average bookings per DAU: $12.25, down 21%

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Nexon today reported results for the three months ended June 30, including a new record for second quarter sales.

Revenue: ¥84.1 billion ($623 million), up 50% year-over-year or 40% on a constant currency basis Net income: ¥24.7 billion ($183 million), up 176% year-over-year, but attributable to a ¥27.7 billion ($205 million) gain from favorable exchange rates

Nexon said its revenue gains were driven by FIFA Online 4, Dungeon&Fighter in China, and MapleStory in Korea, along with contributions from the mobile version of Dungeon&Fighter.

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Unity has moved to set up a joint venture in China valued at $1 billion.

That’s according to Reuters, which reported that the software company signed a cooperation agreement on Tuesday.

The firm has partnered with Alibaba Group, China Mobile Ltd, Oppo and Bytedance's Douyin (China's version of TikTok), but Unity will remain in control of the new outfit.

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Despite the fact that less than 1% of Netflix's subscribers have downloaded the company's games, a Sensor Tower analyst emphasised that Netflix is only just getting started with its video games offering.

According to figures from analytics firm Apptopia (via CNBC) shared last week, Netflix's mobile games have been downloaded over 23 million times worldwide by an average of 1.7 million users.

That would represent less than 1% of its 221 million subscribers, CNBC noted, adding that the streaming giant is hoping to bring its catalogue from 24 titles currently to 50 by the end of the year, which would double its offering.

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It was announced that the third Sonic the Hedgehog live-action film will be in theaters on December 20, 2024.

The franchise's official Twitter account shared the date, which comes four months after the second film was released.

Sega's mascot saw his first motion picture in 2020 and according to Box Office Mojo, it brought in $319 million theatrically worldwide, off a budget of $85 million.

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In the past ten to 15 years, the quality of writing in games has been transformed. Not surprisingly, the primary agents of this transformation are professional writers.

Some of these writers come from backgrounds in linear forms of entertainment like novels, movies, TV, and theatre. Some have learned their craft entirely within the context of games. But they all agree that writing for games carries challenges and emphases that are different to other forms. Writing for games is a specific skill, and it takes a specific kind of writer to flourish.

In the first part of this two-part article, we speak to five successful writers about the history of narrative in games, and some of the causes behind the drastic improvement that can be seen in all areas of writing in games – from sophisticated environmental storytelling, to intriguing and surprising plots, to believable dialogue, to relatable, diverse and complex characters.

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AppLovin today made public an offer to merge with engine maker Unity in a deal that would value Unity stock at an 18% premium to yesterday's closing price.

The non-binding offer for an all-stock merger would see Unity shareholders receive 55% of shares in the combined company, but only 49% of shares with voting rights.

The deal is also contingent on the termination of Unity's proposed merger with AppLovin competitor IronSource, which was announced last month and would see the app monetization firm become a subsidiary of Unity.

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London-based mobile publisher Product Madness has opened applications for a new incubator program that aims to find the next free-to-play hit.

The company, best known for popular games such as Heart of Vegas and Cashman Casino, has slots open for up to ten teams in the program's initial year, and tells GamesIndustry.biz it wants the incubator to be "a game-changer in the industry."

The program, called Madness Ventures, will provide funding in three stages: one for prototyping and testing, one for a full prototype, and then for full development and global release. Developers that take part will retain creative independence, as well as full ownership of their IP.

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The head of UK games studio Rare will be one of the big speakers at next month's GI Live: London.

In an on-stage interview, Craig Duncan will discuss the developer's transformation from making traditional single-player and multiplayer games, into creating and managing the ever-evolving, live-service hit Xbox title: Sea of Thieves. He'll share lessons that the team have learned, plus its experience as being the first major game to launch day and date in Xbox Game Pass.

Duncan is a 20-year video game development veteran, and has held leadership roles at Codemasters, Midway and Sumo before joining Rare in 2011.

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Gamescom's ongoing expansion of its digital offering continues with the launch of a new B2B community platform designed to connect all three of its events.

Trade visitors to Gamescom, Gamescom Asia and Devcom can now use the Gamescom Biz Community website and app to access information about these shows in one place, with the organisers hoping this will also encourage year-round interaction among attendees between events.

Exhibitors, developers, journalists and content creators will also be able to handle their itinerary – including meetings – for each event with just one profile. This functionality is already in place for Devcom and Gamescom, which will run from August 22 to August 28 (although meetings can only be arranged until August 26).

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Today, games publisher Bandai Namco and film company Wayfarer Studios announced that a Pac-Man film is in production.

Both companies said that they will develop the motion picture together.

The live-action adaptation of the 40-year-old game franchise will also include collaboration with media studio Lightbeam Entertainment.

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Take-Two Interactive reported its earnings for the three months ended June 30 -- during which Zynga officially joined the publisher -- and that acquisition loomed large over the results.

Revenue: $1.1 billion (up 36% year-over-year) Bookings: $1 billion (up 41% year-over-year) Net loss: $104 million (compared to net profit of $152 million in the year-ago quarter)

The Zynga acquisition drove all those figures, with nearly $117 million in business acquisition costs driving the bottom line into the red.

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The industry is celebrating another cultural milestone after video games scores were added to the library of culturally significant music played at the BBC Proms.

The annual event has run in some way or another since 1895, first showcasing classical music, before branching into other genres such as jazz and eventually film and television scores.

But 2022 marks the first time video game soundtracks have been included in the line-up, with a special concert 'From 8-Bit To Infinity' hosted last week.

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Horizon: Forbidden West is back at the top of the UK physical charts.

After Xenoblade Chronicles 3's No.1 debut last week, becoming the biggest launch in the Xeno series so far, the title had to settle for No.10 this week, with sales down 83% week-on-week.

Horizon: Forbidden West has recently been boosted by hardware bundles. And while sales for Sony's hit were down 25% week-on-week, it was enough to reclaim No.1.

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Activision Blizzard has pulled a cosmetic skin from Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Warzone after a concept artist accused the publisher of plagiarism, according to Polygon.

The artist, Sail Lin, has posted a series of "Monster Army" concepts on an ArtStation profile depicting various gun-toting soldiers and police with animal heads.

The artist said one such piece, Samoye Medical served as the inspiration for Vanguard's Loyal Samoyed skin, which featured the head of a Samoyed on a character with much of the same gear shown in the concept art.

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The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast is back, with the team once again gathering around their mics to discuss the biggest stories from the business of video games.

This week, we're taking a look at the current wave of financial results, showing each company's performance for the first quarter of the financial year (April to June 2022). Most, but not all, show some form of decline - an inevitable sign as pandemic measures ease and more people venture outside.

On the episode, which you can listen to in the player above, we discuss the implications for each of the platform holders and two AAA publishers. If you're not familiar with their most recent results, check out our coverage here:

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In general, we like to think we know how much something is worth. The decision is based less on logic and more on emotion, an intangible gut feeling. When it comes to video games we know when a game is under, or in most cases, over-priced. Unfortunately, that aptness in designating price to value is disrupted by inflation.

Inflation has recently become a serious problem the world over. No country is immune and there are real fears that higher interest rates, squeezed demand and cutbacks could spark stagflation or even worse – a global recession. Reports of stable goods going up in price is becoming a daily occurrence.

At the time of writing UK inflation rates are at a four-decade high and are just south of breaking into double-digits. We are seeing the effects of inflation everywhere. Commodity and food prices are all up. McDonalds has increased its prices for the first time in 14 years. Amazon Prime will increase its price for the first time in eight years. Even technology, which usually sees prices decline with time, is not immune. Meta announced it will increase the price of its two-year old Quest 2 VR headsets by $100 (although there are other reasons than inflation which are specific to Meta’s business on why it is doing this).

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Activision Blizzard has won a lawsuit against games company Brooks Entertainment, which claimed that the Call of Duty firm had stolen the identity of its founder in Infinite Warfare, as well as IP from its games.

As reported by law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (via Kotaku), the lawsuit was initially filed in November 2021 in the US District Court for the Southern District of California.

Brooks Entertainment founder Shon Brooks claimed that Activision had "capitalised" on his name (which he owns the trademark to) to create Sean Brooks, a character in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Brooks also alleged that there were similarities between Call of Duty and his own titles, Stock Picker and Save One Bank.

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Final Fantasy maker Square Enix released its financial earnings for the three months ended June 30, 2022.

Square Enix’s Digital Entertainment division is broken down into HD Game, MMO, as well as mobile/PC browser sub segments.

The HD Games subsection generated ¥12 billion ($89 million) in net sales, a decrease of 52.2% when compared to the same period last year.

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It's financial earnings season, and as expected, a lot of the news coming out of the industry isn't particularly good.

Last week saw Microsoft and Sony post sales declines from their gaming businesses, even as the platform-holders' other businesses carried both to growth, while Capcom revenues were almost halved on a tough comparison to last year's first fiscal quarter when it launched Resident Evil Village.

This week saw a few more companies offer a mix of results, including Nintendo joining its platform holder peers with fairly "meh" results.

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Sega has released its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2022, and the publisher's fiscal year appears to be off to a good start.

Sega's first quarter release slate was somewhat muted, led by the retro compilation Sonic Origins, a PC revamp of the 2020 Switch release Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Mega Mix, and a Switch port of PS4 title 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, which debuted in Japan in 2019.

The publisher did not specify how any of those titles performed individually, but the company as a whole reported selling 5.14 million copies of games over the quarter, down 22% year-over-year.

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Reports of the death of single-player games have been greatly exaggerated. Just as with game consoles, for which bells have been tolled countless times in the past few decades, the notion that single-player videogames are a dying breed is a perennial argument that never actually seems to pan out.

Over the years, we’ve seen all manner of things posited as the executioner of the single-player experience: online games, massively multiplayer games, live service games, the metaverse. Each of those things proved successful in their own right (or may do, in the case of the metaverse, just as soon as anyone figures out what it is apart from a boondoggle for billionaires who read Snow Crash once to spaff away their ill-gotten gains on).

None of them killed off single-player games in the process.

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Developer Jam City has reportedly laid off around 17% of its staff, impacting what is estimated to be hundreds of employees across the company.

As reported by VentureBeat, the layoffs seem to have primarily taken place within subsidiary studio Ludia, the maker of mobile title Jurassic World Alive.

In a statement to the outlet, a spokesperson for Jam City said that the decision to lay off between 150 to 200 people across the firm was a "necessary move to enhance our flexibility and increase operating efficiencies, better positioning Jam City for long-term growth."

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Bandai Namco has released its financial results for the first quarter (April to June 2022) of the fiscal year ending in March 2023, reporting healthy growth across the board.

Looking more precisely at Bandai Namco's Digital Business segment, sales for home video games represented ¥40.5 billion ($304 million) during Q1 FY2023, a 54.5% increase year-on-year. However, the company is anticipating to achieve ¥140 billion ($1.05 billion) in sales by the end of the fiscal year, which would represent a 19.7% drop compared to the previous fiscal year.

Bandai Namco sold 11.4 million units across four titles released during the quarter, versus 10 million during the same quarter the year before, across 14 games.

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A new study reveals that Belgium's ban on loot boxes within games has not been enforced.

In 2018, the Belgian Gaming Commission recommended criminal prosecution over illegal loot boxes, but loot box researcher Leon Y. Xiao found that many companies outright ignored the ban, and measures to comply with the law were easily circumvented.

The study noted that among the 100 highest-grossing Belgian iPhone games during May 2021, 82% had loot box features.

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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 Chen Yamei (Script Planning) and Zou Mengxia (Script Planning) from developer Softstar Beijing, who in partnership with publisher Eastasiasoft are releasing their Chinese mythology-based action RPG Sword and Fairy: Together Forever on PlayStation 4 and 5 on August 4th.

When Nier: Automata was announced, our project team was thrilled, and all of us eagerly looked forward to its release. We had all played and loved Nier: Replicant on the PS3 (Editor's note: Nier: Replicant was originally released in the West simply as Nier), so we trusted that Automata would have a story that was just as incredible as Replicant's.

Our expectations were high, but Nier: Automata exceeded them. In addition to having an even better story, it also featured a vastly improved combat system that was both fluid and impactful, proving that Square Enix had made the right decision in choosing to work with PlatinumGames on Automata.

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Tencent is looking to acquire a larger piece of Ubisoft and is willing to pay a significant premium for it, according to a Reuters report.

Citing "four sources with direct knowledge of the matter," Reuters says Tencent wants to become the single largest shareholder in the Assassin's Creed publisher, and is willing to pay up to €100 ($102) per share to make it happen.

Ubisoft shares opened today's trading at €42.24 ($43.03), making an offer of that size a 137% premium on the price. After Reuters published its report, Ubisoft shares were trading up 15% to €48.33 ($49.24).

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As of today, Koch Media is no more. Instead, the company will now go by a new moniker: Plaion.

The 28-year-old games publisher unveiled its new logo today, and GamesIndustry.biz spoke to managing director Klemens Kundratitz about the motivations and implications of the overhaul. For starters, he tells us the process originally began as a visual upgrade to modernise Koch's look.

"But the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to go all the way," he told us. "It's more impactful, it's got an external statement but it's also an internal statement to our people. We're opening this new chapter, they're part of this, we're a modern, growing, ambitious, global company, and it's energising people internally.

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Staff at Blizzard Albany (formerly Vicarious Visions) have accused Activision Blizzard of trying to undermine its efforts to unionise.

According to Albany Game Workers Alliance, the group rallying for better working conditions at the studio, the publisher has re-hired Reed Smith – an organisation that offers union-avoidance services, in order to stall the recognition of a union.

"Instead of following Microsoft’s lead and committing to a labour neutrality agreement, Activision has made the clear and conscious decision to deny us our basic labour rights while once again spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a union-busting firm," the group said on Wednesday.

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In recent years we have seen a number of studios continuing to eschew traditional launch in favour of early access: Baldur’s Gate 3 and Valheim were some of last year’s strongest titles, neither of which have yet seen a full launch.

An iterative release through early access is of course nothing new (think Minecraft circa 2009), and the benefits are undoubtedly appealing: developers can soft launch their game and test its viability directly with their target audience, all the while building a community and generating revenue for ongoing development.

However, what are the legal and practical considerations to launching in early access? And to what extent will developers/publishers’ obligations regarding their beta title differ compared to a version 1.0?

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Tencent and Logitech have unveiled a partnership to create a handheld cloud gaming console.

The device, slated to release later this year, will support several existing cloud gaming services, including Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVidia GeForce NOW.

As of writing, the console does not have a retail price, and technical specifications and images are yet to be shown.

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Japanese games giants Bandai Namco, Sega and Square Enix are meeting with indie developers at GI Live: London in September.

Bandai Namco will be meeting attendees on the digital-day only (Tuesday, September 20th), while Sega and Square Enix Collective will be connecting with creators in-person.

Also joining the event this year are Curve, ID@Xbox and Valve, with the latter answering questions about Steam via a livestream Q&A at the show.

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A new report from Digital Development Management (DDM) reveals that video game investments during Q2 2022 reached $4.8 billion.

The video games agency notes that the figure represents an increase of 37% year-over-year at a volume of 217 deals.

Blockchain gaming investments totaled 25% of Q2 2022's value at $1.2 billion.

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Activision Blizzard and NetEase have scrapped an unannounced World of Warcraft mobile spin-off, citing financial problems as the reason for the move.

A Bloomberg report unveiled that the title had been in development for three years, with business disagreements eventually leading to the project’s demise.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, over 100 developers assigned to the game were let go from NetEase, with an unknown number offered internal transfers.

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2022 continues to be the year of shock acquisitions, with Supermassive Games snapped up by Nordisk just last month.

The UK developer already sold a 30% minority ownership stake to Nordisk Games in 2021, and has been working closely with the company for a couple of years. But given the success Supermassive has seen with ongoing horror series The Dark Pictures Anthology and most recent hit The Quarry, why would the studio give up its independence?

“I still consider us to be independent,” managing director Pete Samuels tells GamesIndustry.biz. “It depends how you define 'independent'.

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As a parent of two children including an 11-year-old girl, Royelles CEO and founder Múkami Kinoti Kimotho noticed a shift several years ago that will likely be familiar to many parents. Her daughter and her friends transitioned from playing with toys to playing with mobile devices.

"It's how they create, it's how they connect, how they learn, and it's certainly how they have fun," Kimotho tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Mobile gaming is really at the heart of everything they do."

Kimotho had concerns about young girls spending so much of their time playing on mobile devices and in online worlds, and understood how their experiences there could feed into mental health issues, cyber bullying, body shaming, and other problems.

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Unity is reportedly looking to create a separate Chinese unit independent from the rest of the business in order to strengthen operations there, according to people familiar with the matter.

As reported by Reuters, the company hopes to give Unity China more local ownership and autonomy over how it operates, which may improve and inspire relationships with the local government and state-owned partners.

It also allegedly hopes to see its development software used more in the country as a result of the separation. Many of China’s most popular games are developed in Unity — including Tencent’s Honor of Kings and MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact.

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During EA's earnings call yesterday, CEO Andrew Wilson addressed recent rumours that the FIFA company was looking to be acquired.

Reports that EA had acquisition talks with NBCUniversal, Amazon, Apple, and Disney emerged in May, with Wilson asked about it during the Q&A portion of the call (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha).

First saying that he wouldn't comment on "rumours and speculation from some [little-read] media outlets," he then said that EA was in an "incredible position" and was soon to become "the largest standalone independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment in the world."

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Outsourcing firm Keywords Studios has acquired mobile development outfit Mighty Games for up to $6.9 million.

The deal is split into an initial cash consideration of $3.3 million and $800k in ordinary shares. A further $2.8 million may be awarded depending on company targets.

Melbourne-based Mighty Games was founded in 2013, and is behind several arcade and adventure titles including Piffle and Disney Crossy Road.

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