The latest WN Connect event took place on May 24 in Beijing, China. It was attended by local games industry professionals from NetEase, Perfect World, FunPlus, yodo1, Lilith Games, Cocos, and more.
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On May 24, the third Chinese WN Connect was held in the capital of the Celestial Empire. This time, the guests of the event were such companies as NetEase, Perfect World, Lilith Games, FunPlus, Cocos, yodo1 and many others. We tell you about the results of the event.
New details about the drama surrounding Disco Elysium and its creators have emerged thanks to an in-depth investigation by People Make Games. Let’s dive into all aspects of it, from ZA/UM’s shareholder structure and legal disputes to Robert Kurvitz’s creative leadership and his recently registered trademark called “Corinthians”.
Redfall is one of the most disappointing game releases of 2023 so far, especially coming from an prominent studio like Arkane. Here is what was going on behind the scenes during development, leading to some obvious problems.
The first season of AI Talks, a series of weekly discussions on AI, is coming to an end with a new episode. Join the talk to get some insights on boosting creativity with new technologies and the potential challenges that come with it.
Civilization developer Firaxis Games is another studio that has been hit with layoffs. The job cuts come in the wake of the weak commercial performance of its latest game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
CD Projekt has been reducing the size of the GWENT team for a while now. It looks like the remaining employees will be laid off before the end of 2023, when the game enters the so-called GWENTfinity phase (in other words, the end of content support).
Mateusz Kanik, along with several former CD Projekt RED developers, has formed a new game development studio called Blank. The team is aiming for work-life balance over crunch while working on a post-apocalyptic narrative title based on a new IP.
The former design director of Cyberpunk 2077, Mateusz Kanik, together with several other CD PROJEKT RED veterans, has established a new game studio. It’s called Blank.
Green Hell, an open world survival game by Polish studio Creepy Jar, has reached an important sales milestone. The game has now sold over 4.5 million units globally.
David Gaider, former BioWare writer and one of the creators of the Dragon Age series, has shared his thoughts on using AI in video game writing. He believes that while devs will keep trying, this won’t result in really great quests and narratives.
Today, analytics helps not only to monitor the effectiveness of applications, but also to find specific weaknesses in the technical component or game design. More about this tells Maxim Kozhnov, CRO Azur Games.
It seems like Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, a prominent Japanese game producer, has left Capcom. He worked there for more than three decades, contributing to some of the company’s most famous brands.
Games and Names is a new podcast launched by AppMagic in partnership with WN Media Group. The first episode, featuring Niko Partners’ Daniel Ahmad, is focused on mobile genres that managed to beat the overall market decline in 2022.
Now AppMagic has its own podcast (the service launched it with the assistance of WN Media Group). It’s called Games and Names. It is led by Stas Minasov, Vice President of Product at AppMagic. As part of the first issue, he was joined by Daniel Ahmad, a well-known Asian market expert from Niko Partners, and Kirill Vaganov, business development manager at AppMagic. We publish a brief extract.
CD Projekt has released its financial report for the first quarter ended March 31. The company announced a decline in revenue (but an increase in profit), while also sharing the updated sales figures for The Witcher 3 and providing more context about its development pipeline.
On the evening of May 29, the Polish CD PROJEKT group of companies published a report for the first quarter of 2023. Judging by her data, The Witcher 3 has become one of the most successful games in history.
WN Media Group has launched WN Game Finder, a new game searching and business matchmaking service. Its main goal is to help publishers and investors filter titles and make it easier for game developers to find funding for their projects.
CD PROJEKT has terminated its cooperation with Moonlit, the developer of the Model Builder model assembly simulator. She accused the studio of “gross violation” of the terms of the contract.
Developer Soda Den and publisher Crytivo has managed to resolve a dispute that recently led to Roots of Pacha being delisted from Steam. The game is now live again, but the two companies will no longer work with each other.
Recently, rumors began to circulate in the gaming community that Sony is in talks with CD PROJEKT about the takeover of the company. In response to the gamers’ questions, CD PROJEKT senior PR manager Ola Sondej said that this was not true.
By using a neural network in conjunction with their own extension, the team at Skywaylab Studio was able to reduce their creatives’ production time from 20 to 2 days. Right now, the studio is focused on preparations for releasing its own tool for creating 2D animations to fit its new pipeline. Aleksey Emelyanov, one of Skywaylab’s founders, told us how that’s going to work.
It has been one month since the global launch of Honkai: Star Rail. Let’s take a look at revenue and other metrics for miHoYo’s latest hit.
Enad Global 7 (EG7) has announced its decision to close its subsidiary Antimatter Games this summer. The Swedish holding company explored various options, but none of them fit into the target timeline.
Last year, Russian game developers had difficulties with access to foreign software and a shortage of domestic analogues. The Gaming Association A PRIORI decided to deal with the problem.
The humanitarian organization UNICEF wants to increase the number of female game developers. Together with GameLab, the video game development and research laboratory at the Kazakh-British Technical University, she prepared a free course on video games.
AI Talks, a series of free weekly discussions on AI technologies, continues. Today, experienced game and software developer Bjørn Furuknap will explain why he believes that AI won’t replace real people and share his thoughts on the human factor in this area.
Review bombing is often considered useless and destructive behavior, but War Thunder players have come out as a united front against the recent monetization changes. Thousands of community members forced developer Gaijin Entertainment to back down and listen to the criticism.
Embracer Group has tumbled in the stock market after releasing its report for the full year ended March 31, 2023. Here are the key takeaways from the Swedish holding company’s financial statements.
Sony has held a special keynote for investors where it outlined its growth strategy and shared some business plans. PlayStation also revealed sales figures for some of its PC releases and announced a major investment in live service games.
Paradox Interactive has held a special event for investors where it opened up about its business strategy and approach to launching games. The Swedish company has also shared some data on hits and misses across its gaming portfolio.
Preserving educational and professional content is hard work that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Here is a huge collection of recorded gamedev-related talks from the 1999 GDC that have been digitized and archived online.
Deck Nine Games, known for its work on the Life Is Strange series, is another studio that has been hit with layoffs. Dozens of people have lost their jobs, including some team leads who decided to voluntarily leave the company.
Indie sports titles rarely find success in the market, but this roguelite hockey game Tape to Tape is a welcome exception. Marketing expert Chris Zukowski has broken down how small studio Excellent Rectangle managed to find a perfect niche.
Market intelligence platform InvestGame has issued a new report on deal activity in the games industry for the first quarter of 2023. Here are the key findings from analysts.
Nexters suggests calling creatives, in which funny mini-games are shown instead of core mechanics, an advertisement for non-basic gameplay. What is the reason for this, — Anton Yakovlev, CMO of the company, told in his column.
MY.GAMES is strengthening its position in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). She announced the opening of a regional hub in the UAE capital.
Sony has no plans to give up on its strategy of releasing first-party PlayStation games on PC. The time lag between the two versions will remain, but there will be more PS5 exclusives in the future.
Battlegrounds Mobile India, the Indian version of PUBG Mobile, has been approved to be relaunched in the country. This follows a 10-month ban the Indian government has imposed on the game over national security concerns.
While Mundfish is preparing to release the first story DLC for Atomic Heart, we talked to the studio about the design of the game and its individual elements. In an interview with App2Top, the developers talked about creating a combat system, gloves and bosses, and also discussed controversial issues related to the open world.
In the three years since its release, Ghost Of Tsushima has sold a million copies in Japan. Jim Ryan told about this in an interview with Famitsu.
Extremists actively use video games to promote their ideology. This conclusion was reached by scientists from New York University, who interviewed 1,128 gamers from the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France and South Korea.
The Ministry of Finance of Vietnam has proposed to include online games in the list of goods that fall under the luxury tax. In his opinion, this will greatly increase revenues to the state budget.
The New Fortune Magazine has released its 2023 China’s 500 richest people list. It includes founders of large tech companies, as well as all three founders of Genshin Impact maker miHoYo.
A new week, a new episode of AI Talks, a series of free webinars by WN Media Group. Today’s guest Guy Gadney will share his tips on building an AI business from scratch.
Take-Two has released its financial report for the fiscal year ended March 31. The company also shared its stance on AI and provided new information about its business strategy and future game releases.
Nintendo has revealed the first sales figures for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game is on track to become the biggest release of the year.
Nintendo announced that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom took just three days to sell over 10 million copies. This is a series record.
Ubisoft has published its financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31. The company posted significant losses and outlined its plans for the future, which include the focus on core-franchises, F2P, and AI adoption.
TelecomDaily agency shared an optimistic forecast for the Russian mobile games market. Analysts estimate that in five years its volume will grow by 52%: from $1.24 billion in 2022 to $1.88 billion in 2027.