The main thing for the weekend (April 1-2)
Electronic Arts (EA) liquidated a legal entity in Russia, according to media reports, Epic Games switched to economy mode, sales of Darkest Dungeon II exceeded 300 thousand copies, — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry this weekend.
▪️EA has finally stopped working on the Russian market. According to the unified state Register, the company liquidated Electronic Arts LLC, a legal entity in Russia. Recall that EA suspended the sale of games in Russia in March 2022. In November, sources of the Izvestia newspaper reported that EA decided to completely leave the country and move all marketing activities in the CIS countries to Poland.
According to journalist Jacob Wolf, Epic Games is cutting costs. In a letter to employees, the company’s management announced that it would stop hiring new employees in the near future, and would also pay more attention to key projects. In 2023, this is Unreal Editor for Fortnite, the fifth chapter in Fortnite, a racing mode in Rocket League, a music festival on the Harmonix platform and a metaverse for children, on which the company is working together with LEGO. In addition, Epic Games intends to outsource some of the tasks and reduce the costs of UA, hosting and office space maintenance. Despite everything, the management of Epic Games has no plans to lay off employees.
Developers from Red Hook Studios, in an interview with VG247, said that the step-by-step “roguelike” Darkest Dungeon II for a year and a half in early access to the Epic Games Store sold over 300 thousand times. Note that 100 thousand copies of the game were sold in the first day after its appearance in the store. Then sales of the project slowed down.
▪️The creators of Sifu also revealed the sales of their game. They reported that four days after the release on Steam, the fighting game was bought over 50 thousand times. Sifu was originally released in February 2022 in the Epic Games Store and PlayStation consoles (and in November on the Nintendo Switch). The title reached Steam and Xbox only on March 28, 2023.
