The main thing for the weekend (March 11-12)
Atomic Heart was among the top ten most downloaded PS5 games by the end of February, GSC Game World reported that it has been facing hacker attacks and blackmail for more than a year, the commercial head of the Overwatch franchise announced his departure from Blizzard, — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry this weekend.
▪️Sony has published lists with the most downloaded games in the PlayStation Store for February 2023. One of the hits of the month was Atomic Heart. Mundfish shooter is located in the ninth place of the top with PS5 games in the USA, Canada and Europe. The first place went to Hogwarts Legacy (and in the top with games for PS4 — The Last of Us Part II).
The Mundfish studio did not officially disclose how much it spent on the development and promotion of Atomic Heart, but RBC shared approximate estimates. The portal’s source in the gaming market said that the total budget of the shooter could be “at least $ 25 million.” The founder of the advertising agency Digital Church estimated the annual budget for marketing the game at 20 million rubles, and the editor-in-chief of InterMedia suggested that the use of music in Atomic Heart alone cost “hundreds of thousands of rubles.” Separately, journalist and blogger Alexey Makarenkov, citing sources, said that sales of the game on VK Play turned out to be “very good”, and VK has already “with a good margin” repelled the costs of rights and promotion of Atomic Heart.
Administrators of the VK community “Bulletin of the Stalker”” said that they have dozens of gigabytes of data from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. They threatened to publish the information if GSC Game World does not change the attitude towards users from Russia and Belarus, and also does not return the Russian localization. In response, the developers reported that it was pointless to blackmail or intimidate them. They pointed out that the studio has been subjected to hacker attacks for more than a year, but all this only motivates to work harder.
▪️Jon Spector, commercial director and vice president of the Overwatch franchise, has decided to leave Blizzard after six years of work. He wrote on Twitter that he will leave the company at the end of March, but will continue to monitor the development of the game as a gamer.
The Anno 1800 circulation exceeded 2.5 million copies. Recall that the economic strategy was released on April 16, 2019 and is currently available only on PC. A few days later — on March 16 — Anno 1800 will appear on the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.
