Welcome back to another happy fun roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business!
ZeniMax: Microsoft is apparently creating a subsidiary named Vault specifically to merge with ZeniMax and seal the deal on the $7.5B acquisition of the company announced last year. As Eurogamer suggests, “Vault” is likely a reference to the shelters in the Fallout franchise.
Fortnite: Finally, remember that time when Epic Games chased down a 14-year-old kid it accused of cheating in Fortnite and posting videos about it, only to be chastised by the kid’s mom for “scapegoating” a child? Epic had originally sued the kid in court, but apparently that suit has now been settled, although unfortunately, we don’t know what the terms were.
Square-Enix: According to its Q4 2021 financials, the Final Fantasy XIV company saw sales increase for the year of 2020, but operating income for the fourth quarter checked in at a loss. Notably, the MMO segment of the company saw net sales decline, largely because expansions for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X came in 2019 (and they skip years). Expect that to seesaw back the other way in 2021, obviously.
Tencent: The Chinese games giant just keeps on buying everything in sight. Its latest purchase is a minority stake in Bohemia Interactive, which readers will recall is the Czech developer of DayZ and Arma.
Minecraft Dungeons: Mojang announced this week that it’s surpassed 10M players just in Dungeons alone. “And now to thank every single one of you in order,” the post jokes. In celebration, the studio’s released a new cape and pet for players, so log in and snag yours on February 24th.
Netmarble: Remember when Nexon boosted salaries for existing staff and new hires? Netmarble is reportedly doing the same thing. MMO Culture reports that annual salaries are being boosted on average around $7K USD, with new staff starting between $40K US and $45K US, which… actually isn’t very much, frankly.
