Engines and tools

We wrote in detail about the bill this morning, and now we'll note that the published final version is in essence no different from the one obtained by the editorial team the day before. However, there is a nuance

We continue to wrap up 2024 with gaming (or gaming-related) teams. Next up is an interview with Balancy, a company specializing in LiveOps. We spoke with the CEO and CTO, Pavel Ignatov and Andrey Apanasik.

Gaijin Entertainment released a video comparing the capabilities of the Dagor Engine with Unreal Engine 5. The company's conclusion is that its engine is in no way inferior to the giant from Epic Games.

Today, the open beta test for the domestic game engine Nau Engine has started.

EA's Chief Operating Officer Arjun Balaram shared the key principles that help the company maintain user interest in its game services.

At the end of last week, the GameMaker team celebrated the engine's 25th birthday: its first version was released on November 15, 1999

Tomas Sala, the creator of the building simulator Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles, shared his solo development experience and offered advice to fellow developers on Thomas Brush's podcast

Matthew Bromberg, the CEO of Unity, has spoken about the runtime fee controversy and shed light on why it took the company a year to change its stance.

Unity has announced that Jarrod Yahes will serve as its new chief financial officer, alongside the release of its quarterly earnings report.

Unity has announced its financial performance for the three-month period concluding on September 30, 2024, stating that its third-quarter outcomes "surpassed guidance."

In the gaming sector, Netflix is once again shifting its priorities: the company is now focusing on developing games using generative AI. The creation of a new division, GenAI for Games, was announced by its vice president, Mike Verdu, who previously led Netflix Games.

In its gaming division, Netflix is once again shifting priorities: the company will now focus on developing games using generative AI. The creation of the new GenAI for Games unit was announced by its vice president, Mike Verdu, who previously led Netflix Games

The founder of Facepunch Studios, Garry Newman, criticized the size of the annual fees his studio has to pay Unity

Unity has revealed that Alex Blum has been appointed as the chief operating officer.

Unity has revealed the selection of Steve Collins as its new Chief Technology Officer

A developer known by the nickname Henrique Henrique has released an open-source project called Hengo. This solution allows users to work with Godot without knowing GDScript by creating flowchart chains.

Unity has just released a new version of its engine, offering new features and improvements. Its new head is also serious about getting the company back on track and restoring its damaged reputation.

Company Unity has officially released the sixth version of its engine—nine and a half years after the launch of Unity 5. Let's discuss some of the new features.

Unity 6 has been launched for mobile, PC, console, and additional platforms, including extended reality.

Pokémon developer Game Freak has been hacked, resulting in a massive leak of various data. This includes personal information and internal files relating to both existing and unannounced games.

At the Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, a representative from Game Science studio revealed the production budget for Black Myth: Wukong. According to him, more than 300 million yuan ($42.4 million) was spent on creating the game.

343 Industries has suddenly rebranded. The studio not only changed its name, but also revised its approach to making new games based on the Halo franchise.

Microsoft has unveiled significant alterations at 343 Industries, the team responsible for developing the Halo series. These changes include a rebranding of the studio, the introduction of a new game engine, and the commencement of development on several new installments in its renowned shooter franchise.

Another piece of news from the Unreal Fest 2024 presentation is that Epic Games announced the release of the early version of Unreal Engine 5.5. It is already available for trial.

Epic Games has announced the Launch Everywhere with Epic program. It is aimed at developers who are creating games using the Unreal Engine.

Epic Games plans to reduce its Unreal Engine royalty fees from 5% to 3.5% for developers who launch eligible Unreal games on the Epic Games Store either before or concurrently with other platforms

About how the team, which previously worked on hyper-casual games, took on the development of "Sparta 2035," a turn-based tactics game in the style of XCOM for PC, the App2Top editorial team spoke with Gleb Durnovo, one of the founders of Lipsar studio

At this week's Unite developer conference, the engine provider announced that Unity 6 is set to launch worldwide on October 17, 2024.

A new report on Bungie’s upcoming extraction shooter Marathon claims that the game might use a premium model and shares some other details about its development.

The stock market has reacted positively to the cancellation of the Runtime Fee policy. However, this was still not enough to bring Unity shares back to September 2023 levels.

Investors of Unity have responded positively to the company's decision to revoke the Runtime Fee for game developers. By the close of the market on September 12, Unity's stock price had increased by 9.81% to $18.91 per share

Campfire has successfully secured $3.95 million for its generative AI engine, Sprites. As reported by Venturebeat, the seed funding round included contributions from Y Combinator, FundersClub, Immad Akhund of Mercury, gaming entrepreneur and investor Juha Paananen, and Chris Ye, the founder of Uken Games. To demonstrate the capabilities of their technology, Campfire is working on its own game, Cozy Friends. This game will feature characters with the ability to "remember previous interactions, retain key information on topics, and exhibit a high level of emotional intelligence, influencing the flow of conversation and ensuring each user has a unique experience"

Unity has suddenly decided to completely abandon its controversial Runtime Fee policy. However, the company will raise prices for some of its subscription plans.

Unity has decided to eliminate its runtime fee following "extensive consultation" with its "community, customers, and partners." The company had previously unveiled plans in September to implement a Runtime Fee for each installation of a game developed with Unity once it surpassed specified install and revenue limits. This plan faced significant criticism, leading Unity to initially scrap the fee for games developed using a Unity Personal license. In a recent announcement, President and CEO Matt Bromberg admitted that the fee contradicted Unity's fundamental mission to "democratize game development." He confirmed that the company would immediately return to its prior seat-based subscription model.

This was announced by the CEO and president of the engine development company, Matthew Bromberg. The change has already taken effect.

In 2023, Unity made an unfortunate update to its pricing policy, leading some developers to abandon the engine. Specifically, some teams switched to Godot. In a conversation with Game Developer, the leaders of the Godot Foundation admitted they did not view the sudden increase in users as a benefit for Godot and wished Unity would persuade developers not to leave.

Remedy Entertainment announced a deal with the film company Annapurna Pictures, the "parent" of the game publisher Annapurna Interactive. They have become strategic partners

In March 2024, it became known that Chris Barrett, the head of development for the upcoming shooter Marathon, left the Bungie studio after 25 years. Bloomberg discovered that Barrett was dismissed due to inappropriate behavior

Work on the next game in The Witcher franchise, codenamed Project Polaris, is actively progressing, stated CD PROJEKT CEO Michał Nowakowski. According to him, the project will soon move into the full development phase

In mid-August, the GMTK Game Jam 2024 game development marathon took place, with 7,711 teams participating. It was found that nearly half of the participants are still making games with Unity, but the share of projects on this engine is rapidly declining.

Capcom has announced a collaboration with Kinki University in Japan. Its students will be able to take a course that will teach them about game development on the RE Engine—the engine behind Devil May Cry 5, Dragon's Dogma 2, and the latest games in the Resident Evil series

UNIGINE has released a new version of its engine — 2.19. The update came out eight months after the release of version 2.18

The new version of the open-source engine Godot has been released. Let’s take a look at some of the hundreds of changes and key features.

The creators of the open-source engine Godot have released version 4.3. It includes over 3,500 changes contributed by 521 developers

Playgendary may have laid off its entire marketing team, as well as the team working on arcade games. This was reported by a manager from one of the Cypriot companies on social media, citing their sources

We haven't published articles about code yet. This material, dedicated to LINQ syntax, is our trial run along with programmer Dmitry Starokojev, who has worked on games such as War Robots, Everbright, and Fableborne. By the way, his course "Introduction to Unity" starts on September 25

Unity has unveiled its financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 2024, revealing a decline in revenue that surpassed its earlier estimates of $420 million to $425 million for the second quarter. Additionally, the company announced the resignation of CFO Luis Visoso, who had been with the firm since 2021, and the interim appointment of current Chief Accounting Officer Mark Barrysmith as CFO, along with two more executive hires. The Create Solutions segment emerged as the largest revenue contributor for Unity in this period, with game subscriptions increasing by 14% and the industries segment accounting for 18% of Create Solutions' total revenue

Second Dinner studio announced a multi-year strategic partnership with the Irish startup W4 Games, founded by veterans of Godot. They aim to help build an ecosystem around the Godot engine

WN Media Group has announced a new event, WN Connect Cologne’24. It will take place in two weeks ahead of the annual Gamescom conference, with representatives of Tencent, Epic Games, Unity, DECA Games, Behaviour Interactive, and Newzoo among expected attendees.

A group of ex-developers from Unity and Scopely have united to establish Outer Haven Games. This California-based team, co-founded by Austin Ashcraft, Stephen Fong, and Chuck Beaver, focus on product, business, and creative aspects, respectively. They are currently developing a "anime-inspired RPG" titled Techno Infierno. The creative team also includes Kevin Cullen and Eric Ackerman, alongside Beaver