games industry
MMO Business Roundup: Embracer finishes restructure, Riot settles lawsuit, Ubisoft continues layoffs
Welcome back to another brief roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. Business business business!
Embracer: Embracer has been a dumpster fire of epic proportions...
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer admits massive layoffs were due in part to gaming’s ‘lack of growth’
Ever since Microsoft announced a wave of layoffs that would affect 1,900 people - over 800 of whom work for Activision-Blizzard - the officially...
Jeff Strain’s Crop Circle Games studio shuts down abruptly following employee furloughs
Over the past couple of years we've been keeping a general eye on the opening of Crop Circle Games, a new indie studio formed...
Playable World’s Raph Koster refutes claim that his book Theory of Fun espouses a regressive agenda
Reading comprehension is an important skill that one could argue is being lost to the flood of hot takes and those who absorb only...
Ubisoft debuts AI NPC prototypes at GDC, and it went about as well as you’d expect
Ubisoft looks to be once more chasing the latest buzzword-scented tech trend. After the studio tried and failed to make NFTs work, it's now...
‘Professional fraudsters’ admit the 189GB hack of Epic Games was a hoax supposedly used to get $85K
Last week news broke of a supposed hack of Epic Games in which a hacker gang called Mogilevich claimed to have gotten away with...
Rockstar developers push back against corporate demand to return to physical offices in April
Apparently, Rockstar Games believes that the only way it can get its next big release out the door is by mandating employees to work...
Epic Games rebuts ransomware gang’s 189GB data hack claim
This story looks to be a case of not everything posted on the internet is true: A ransomware gang made a bold claim on...
NetEase opens LA studio Bulletfarm, working on a new game emphasizing ‘co-operative gameplay’
"NetEase opens new studio" might elicit a lot of different reactions depending on whom you ask, but around here it's news that perks up...
Activision faces $680M lawsuit from Call of Duty esports pros over allegedly monopolist tourney terms
The way in which Activision has been managing its esports tournaments for Call of Duty is now undergoing legal scrutiny, as last week saw...
Blizzard is laying off over 126 people from its support center in Ireland
The massive culling of 1,900 workers by Microsoft looks to have had a significant global impact, as Ireland's minister for foreign affairs Michéal Martin...
Microsoft prepares to talk about Xbox’s future in a podcast as multi-platform game rumors swirl
The past several weeks have been some apparently nervous ones for those whose online personas are devoted to Microsoft in general and Xbox in...
Disney invests $1.5B into Epic Games with plans to create a ‘huge Disney universe’ in Fortnite
Seeing Disney's various IPs in Fortnite isn't exactly news by this point, but it appears as if there will be a whole lot more...
Jeff Strain’s indie studio Crop Circle Games lays staff, reportedly without severance
Back in 2022 we saw former ArenaNet and Undead Labs co-founder Jeff Strain open his own indie studio called Crop Circle Games with the...
Tencent buys up majority stake of Swords of Legends developer and gains access to the IP
Tencent has walked over to another games studio and smacked it with its wallet, only this time it's a bit of a surprise purchase...
Former devs of The Day Before recount a workplace of employee fines, shifting whims, and ‘pure megalomaniacal chaos’
However badly managed The Day Before may have looked upon its disastrous early access release, the reality was reportedly much worse than anyone could...
Hasbro is selling the Dungeons & Dragons IP – and Tencent is the potential buyer
There's a potentially big business deal happening in both the world of tabletop gaming and video gaming: Insider sources reporting to Chinese news site...
Nexon’s preliminary injunction against Dark and Darker was dismissed, but the lawsuit presses on
One of last year's more distinct stories was related to the medieval fantasy PvPvE extraction RPG Dark and Darker and megacorp Nexon: Readers may...
Former Bungie legal exec: ‘The company will never love you back, but if you let it, it’ll kill you’
Among the workers affected by Bungie's round of layoffs last October was former chief legal officer Don McGowan, who was the man heading the...
Microsoft lays off 1900 workers: Blizzard sheds Mike Ybarra, its survival game, and its customer support in one day
We've updated this story at the bottom with some of the latest news that has come forth about the scope of the layoffs and...
