industry news
Square-Enix confirms that layoffs are coming to US and EU employees in June
Yesterday we reported on Square-Enix's first quarter outlook for 2024, in which it announced among other things that it plans to "rebuild its ...
MMO Business Roundup: Krafton and Roblox post Q1 2024 gains while Unity bleeds nearly $300M
Welcome back to another quick roundup of some MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news! And this time around, it's the Oops! All Q1 Reports edition!...
Square-Enix Q1 2024: Profits plummet as it promises to ‘reboot and awaken’
The opening quarter of the 2024 fiscal year indeed isn't a good one for Square-Enix. Shortly after the company warned investors of "extraordinary losses"...
Lightforge Games halts social RPG production, downsizes to a skeleton crew
Over the past few years we've been reporting on Lightforge Games, a development studio that entered our general genre radar for snapping up former...
IGDA survey casts a light on game devs’ impressions of industry diversity, job satisfaction, and crunch culture
The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has put together the 2023 version of its game developer satisfaction survey, which continues to take the temperature...
Walmart now has a digital storefront for real-world goods operating from inside of Roblox
Buying things online from Walmart's website? Like some kind of boomer? That's so last decade. If you want to take your digital Walmart shopping...
Game devs are concerned about the sustainability of live-service titles
It certainly feels like live service is being tacked on to many recent game releases (whether it makes sense or not), which of course...
Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive lays off 600 employees and axes game projects
The wave of job cuts flooding the games industry doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon, as this time around Grand Theft Auto...
Former Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra thinks players should be able to tip developers for their work
Now that former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has free time on his hands, he's apparently spending some of it pondering how to make our...
Ubisoft inists its AI-powered NPC tech will be used only if valuable to creatives
When Ubisoft debuted new generative AI NPC tech at GDC this year, it made a lot of promises that it would gather industry feedback...
Jeff Strain shuts down Possibility Space studio via email, blaming internal leaks to the press
Jeff Strain, the owner of Prytania Media, has elected to shut down another of his company's sub-studios. This time it's Possibility Space that has...
Former Prytania CEO blames economic downturn and lack of investor interest for Crop Circle Games closure
At the tail end of March, we finally received word that earlier furloughs of staff at Jeff Strain's Crop Circle Games transformed into a...
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...
‘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...
