Community Management

While Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is under regulatory scrutiny in the West, some Chinese companies have supported the deal. The country’s gaming giant Tencent is reported to be one of them.

Activision allegedly faced a data breach at the end of 2022. Anonymous hackers got access to some internal documents, including content roadmaps.

The European Commission will soon hold a closed hearing on Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. The company will try to convince the EU regulator to approve the deal, with some of its rivals also likely to participate.

Even two decades after its launch, the original Fallout has a large fan base around the world. There is now a new open source project that allows players to run the classic game on their phones natively.

The main scandal of the last day in the Russian game dev is the appearance of a two—hour appeal by the former head of the narrative department of MYTONA, Sergey Gres, to the company’s management. We have prepared a summary and highlighted the main thing.

WN Media Group has shared the results of its latest conference, which took place November 23-24 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Here is some data about the attendees and games showcased during the event.

A company with Russian roots UNIGINE has released a major update for the engine of the same name. In particular, she added an Asset Store to the platform. So far, it contains only free assets of UNIGINE itself, but since November, all users will be able to upload assets to the store.

The third WN CEO Summit took place on September 21. This time, it was held in Istanbul, Turkey, attracting around 100 C-level executives of gaming companies from 18 countries.

From September 1, new rules for the design of game banners will take effect on Steam. For example, developers will no longer be allowed to write about discounts, other games and critics’ ratings on images, and they will also not be able to use quotes from reviews.

For more than two weeks, Game Insight has refused to pay laid-off employees a salary for the last working month. They are also denied compensation, and they also demand to return the equipment (at their own expense). About what is happening, editors App2Top.ru the company’s employees told us.

New Blood CEO Dave Oshry recently shared wishlist numbers for the team’s upcoming game Gloomwood, which performed great during the latest Steam demo fest. Here is what others can learn from this data.

Pac-Man Community is a new adaptation of the classic arcade game about Pacman, developed exclusively for Facebook Gaming*. Yesterday, after four months of beta testing, Genvid Technologies and Bandai Namco announced the official release of the game.

Marketing expert Eric Seufert spoke about five trends that will manifest themselves in the mobile games market in 2022. The analyst believes that Apple and Google will oppose titles with the play-to-earn model, and developers will begin to actively optimize their projects and advertising strategies for Android.There will be no games with the play-to-earn model in mobile stores

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has shared guidelines on creating inclusive games, which it has developed in collaboration with Facebook Gaming. The organization pointed out the main principles of diversity that developers should follow to make their titles more appealing to different audiences.

Recently Ubisoft announced its own Quartz NFT platform. It will sell unique cosmetic items for the company’s AAA titles. Despite Ubisoft’s ambitious plans, the announcement video received over 96% dislikes. Players, among others, do not understand why they should use blockchain to sell “cosmetics”, because there are much more reliable and time-tested technologies for this.What is Ubisoft Quartz?

Game developers from studios across the US and Canada have been sharing their pays using #GameDevPaidMe on Twitter. Here is some of the most interesting data.

Last week, the hashtag #GameDevPaidMe started gaining popularity on Twitter again. Under it, gaming specialists from all over the world share their salaries. We chose the most interesting of the tweets.

It seems that Valve is set against blockchain games. According to the updated Steam rules, titles with NFT will not be allowed in the store. This also applies to projects already placed on the site.Age of Rust

Facebook wants to motivate developers and creators to create content for the Horizon Worlds social VR platform, which is currently in beta testing. To do this, the company launched its own fund.

With the announcement of GXC, indie developers now have a new platform to self-publish their titles. The service, launched by Opera, lets devs release games straight from GameMaker Studio 2 to a browser.

Indie game developers on the GameMaker Studio 2 engine have a simplified way to publish their projects. To do this, Opera launched the GXC platform. It will allow you to publish titles for free by exporting them from the engine directly to the browser.In the announcement, the company noted that this is the first step towards creating synergy between GameMaker Studio 2 and the Opera GX gaming browser.

Cyberpunk isometric RPG Gamedec came out on September 16. The game, inspired by the Gamedec book series by Marcin Przybyłek, puts you in the shoes of a game detective, who solves mysteries inside virtual worlds. A year ago, we discussed the Gamedec demo with the development team known as Anshar Studios. Now, days after the title’s release, we caught up with Mateusz Greloch, Community Manager at Anshar Studios, for an update on what has been…

Zachary Doig, senior community manager of the American World of Tanks team, has left Wargaming. He made this decision because, in his opinion, the unfair dismissal of another employee. According to Doig, Wargaming simply made a member of his team a “scapegoat” in a scandalous situation around one of the ships in World of Warships.World of Tanks

Roblox faces new criticism over people recreating tragic mass shootings on the popular gaming platform. The company promises to fight users who violate rules and create inappropriate content.

A scandal broke out in the World of Warships community related to the monetization policy of Wargaming. Players complain about a large number of loot boxes, randomness and criticize the game for introducing gambling mechanics. Against the background of discontent, dozens of streamers announced a boycott of developers and withdrew from the affiliate program.World of Warships

Last week, a listing for Half-Life 2: Remastered Collection was spotted on the Steam Database. While it’s not an official remaster from Valve, insider Tyler McVicker claims the project has “Valve’s consent.”

They are wanted: a motion designer at Playrix, a community manager at Plarium and a technical game designer at Kefir.

The Indie Publishing Awards 2021 ceremony aired yesterday for the first time.

The hashtag #BoycottGenshin suddenly burst into Twitter trends, under which some users called for a boycott of the miHoYo project. This time, users complained not about gacha, but accused the developers of racism and sexualization of children. However, Genshin Impact fans came to the defense of the game.The hashtag #BoycottGenshin began gaining popularity on April 5, after which it attracted the attention of users in several countries in a few hours.

Microsoft has updated guidelines that might help developers make their projects more accessible for people with disabilities. Now the studios will be able to send their Xbox or PC games for review and receive feedback on how to improve them.

Playtech sold the studio to YoYo Games five years after the purchase. The amount of the transaction was only $ 10 million, and Opera presumably became the new owner of the authors of the GameMaker game engine.The completion of the deal was first reported by Reuters last week.

Wanted: a level designer at MY.GAMES, Unity-a Middle-level developer at VIM Digital, a community manager at Plarium and a UI/UX designer at WN Media Group.

The Last of Us Part II was named the Game of the Year at the 2020 Game Awards. It also took home six other big awards including best direction, narrative, action/adventure game, audio design, innovation in accesibility and performance for Laura Bailey.

The Russian UNIGINE engine has received a large-scale update. The developers have added new features to it, which can also be used for game development. Among them are updated clouds and a new smoothing technology.You can find out more about all the changes to UNIGINE in version 2.13 on the engine’s website, and below you can get acquainted with the main innovations of this release:

The winter edition of the Talents In Games conference will kick off on December 1, 2020, bringing together over 3,000 game development professionals. The event features talks and discussions from people directly involved in making games.

From November 1, Cyprus will suspend the Citizenship by investment program. In conversation with App2Top.ru industry representatives explained why such a decision would have a positive impact on IT and game development in the region.Why was it decided to suspend the program?

A free online course “Business of Mobile Gaming” has opened. Its author was a Chinese developer and publisher Yodo1.

Mike Zaimont, the chief designer of the Skullgirls fighting game, was accused of harassment and racist statements. However, the developer refused to leave the company Lab Zero Games, of which he is the sole owner. Instead, several colleagues left the studio at once. We understand the situation.

Valve has decided to tighten the rules regarding promotion on Steam. Now game developers can promote only Steam versions of their products on the platform.  Other sites cannot be mentioned.

Detroit: Become Human has sold more than five million units, developer Quantic Dream announced via a press release.

Dauntless is a free-to-play online action RPG from Phoenix Labs that is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Switch. On June 11, the developers rolled out a major content update called Call of the Void.

On June 8-11, the Talents In Games conference will go live bringing together over 2,000 game developers.

Maxim Kordonets — Head of Community & Support of Belka Games studio — in his column for readers App2Top.ru he shared his experience of how he rebuilt the community and support department in a mobile company in a year.

Rogue Games couldn’t afford supporting Vainglory anymore. The publisher shut down the servers for the mobile MOBA, but developer Super Evil Megacorp intends to independently keep the title alive.

Stadia came out 70 days ago. Google has kept complete radio silence for 40 of them. No new game announcements, let alone releases, feature updates, or community updates.

IndieDB named the best indie games from the past year. There are two parrallel rankings: the best games across 11 categories selected by the IndieDB editors and 10 best games chosen by players.

Facebook published a report on global trends in video games market. As per its findings, there are two main phenomena defining the industry.

The Game Awards 2019 ceremony wrapped up last night. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was named Game of the Year. Call of Duty: Mobile claimed the victory on mobile.

The French version of CS: GO now has an X-ray feature that allows users to scan loot boxes and see their contents before making a purchase. You would think Valve is making the lootbox mechanic less exploitative, but not it’s not quite as straightforward.

The Steam library has changed its appearance. Public testing of the new design has begun in the store.