The main thing for the weekend (December 2-3)

The next cuts — now at Phoenix Labs, Fortnite records (both in MAU and online), the growth of the user base at Starfield - tell us what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.

• In the Canadian studio Phoenix Labs, cuts have been made. The company, known for the Dauntless fantasy animal hunting freeplay title, has laid off 34 employees. The layoffs affected publishing, HR, IT and the service department. A company representative assures that the teams responsible for game development have not been affected by the cuts. For Phoenix Labs, this is the second wave of layoffs in a year. In May, she got rid of 9% of the staff.
• In November, the MAU of the Fortnite free-to-play shooter reached a record mark of 100 million players for the title. This was announced by Epic Games in the official account of the game. The last time the company reported record values was in May. Then the game's MAU reached 70 million values. The current record can be attributed to the preparation for the large-scale completion of the fourth chapter of the game. For reference: the operation of the title is divided into chapters, which are divided into seasons. The Fortnite map changes every chapter.
• Accordingly, on December 2, the virtual in-game event "Big Bang" took place, closing the chapter. Eminem performed on it. Also, three new Fortnite modes were announced as part of the event, which are essentially full-fledged games inside the existing distribution: LEGO Fortnite survival, Rocket Racing and the Fortnite Festival rhythm game. The event was attended by 11 million people.
• Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said that the number of users who have played at Starfield has reached 12 million people. According to him, the game was included in the top ten most popular titles of studios owned by Microsoft. However, Spencer did not disclose how the audience was distributed among those who bought the game and tried it as part of the Game Pass subscription, in which it has been available since its release.
• The litigation between Krafton and NetEase has ended. The Supreme Court in the California city of San Mateo ruled that the Chinese corporation NetEase had indeed violated an agreement previously signed with the Korean gaming company Krafton. However, the judge refused to accept that the latter had not counted $65 million as a result of the violation. The subject of the dispute is the similarity of the Chinese royal battles Knives Out, Rules of Survival and Survival Royale to the Korean PUBG. In March 2019, the companies signed agreements according to which NetEase had to eliminate the similarity of their titles to the original. This was not done. Now, according to the court's decision, NetEase must pay an unnamed amount to Krafton.