Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business!
Roblox – The controversial games giant now claims that it’s “building toward 4D generative AI, going beyond single 3D objects to dynamic interactions” and that “[e]arly tools that are foundational for [its] 4D system are already accelerating creation on the platform,” just in case you weren’t sufficiently annoyed at Roblox this month.
Perfect World – We don’t cover Perfect World much as PWE was folded into Gearbox and the rest of Embracer years ago, but apparently the Chinese wing of the company issued staggering layoffs last week – over a thousand workers affected in three major cities and most of the studios, with the bizarre exception of the low-performing esports sector. GameDeveloper.com suggests the company saw a nearly 70% profit drop since last year, but Chinese sources disagreed on whether the layoffs had ended the development of Perfect New World.
Unionization – Labor organizers at the Montreal branch of Bethesda Game Studios announced that the group has filed “for certification with the Quebec Labour Board with the intention of unionizing with” the Communications Workers of America union. As GI.biz notes, this is the second ZeniMax studio to unionize, following the unionization of hundreds of ZeniMax QA workers last year.
Rockstar – Did you know there was a possibility for a Grand Theft Auto movie? Former Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says the studio had lots of conversations about bringing GTA and Red Dead Redemption to the big screen, but as far as Rockstar was concerned, “the economics never made sense” as “[i]n those days, the perception was that games made poor-quality movies.” Of course, that’s changed.
