Publishing and Distribution

Krafton has decided to acquire a 10% stake in People Can Fly. The deal will also help the Polish developer finance its updated business strategy.

It is difficult for smaller mobile devs to avoid problems that can affect the development and lifecycle of their games. ZiMAD M&A manager Yana Vesnina discusses the key challenges and shares some professional tips in an article for Game World Observer.

Yana Vesnina, M&A Manager at ZiMAD, told about the challenges facing young mobile game developers in her column.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: a middle-level product analyst at Azur Games, a game producer at Playkot and a game designer at Airicore.

The first edition of the continuation of the book “Kojima Genius” (in the original The Kojima Code) has been shipped to Russian retail, ” Bombora publishing house reports. It’s called “Genius Strikes Back” (in the original A Stealth Game). The author is the same — Canadian blogger Terry Wolfe, who became interested in amateur theology after video games. As for the book, it is devoted to a speculative theory about possible competition between Hideo Kojima…

Tractor manufacturers are now looking to the Farming Simuator series as a powerful marketing tool. Developer Giants Software gets so many requests from companies that it is enough to cover development costs.

US Senator Maria Cantwell is alarmed by the situation on the AAA games market in Japan. At the last meeting in the US Senate, she accused Sony of monopoly, saying that the company owns 98% of the market.

The third material, completing a series of articles about the monetization strategy of Belka Games. It is dedicated to the company’s work with advertising, the cultivation of personnel and trends in the niche.

Metacritic has shared its 2022 game publisher rankings. This year’s list has some shakeups, with Sony taking the top spot and companies like Paradox, Focus Entertainment, and Annapurna climbing up.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: a game analyst at ZiMAD, a chief accountant at WN Media Group and a leading game designer at SVMD.The selection was prepared by Marina Lopatina, Director of Business Development of Talents In Games.

Atari has announced a new acquisition, entering into an agreement to buy Night Dive Studios. The indie team is best known for developing the upcoming System Shock remake.

Metacritic portal has published a list of the highest-rated publishers for 2022. The first place in it went to Sony, and Microsoft, which was in the lead a year earlier, did not get into the top this time.

Atari has agreed to purchase Night Dive Studios, an American company that is currently working on a remake of the original System Shock. The maximum amount of the transaction can be $20 million.

The Bombora publishing house announced the appearance on the Russian shelves of the book “Fallout. Chronicles of the creation of the legendary saga“. The book is written by Erwan Lafleuriel, editor-in-chief of IGN France. It is primarily dedicated to the world of the game and aspects of its plot.

Tencent has announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2022. Let’s focus on the key points and results that the Chinese company achieved in the gaming business.

Supercell has updated information on access to its games in Russia and Belarus. There is now an exact time period when the company’s mobile titles will become unavailable in these countries.

In February, the official comic book for the Shadow Fight franchise appeared on the bookshelves of the CIS. We talked with Nikita Korzhavin, Nekki‘s business development director, about how the comic was being worked on and what task it solves for the game franchise.

The Russian government may help domestic developers with publishing games in China. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko instructed gaming companies that are part of the Competence Center for the Development of System-wide and Applied Software for Gaming Services (hereinafter CCR) to prepare proposals for the necessary measures of state support for the export of games.

On March 20, Remedy Entertainment published a more detailed version of its annual report. The document provides additional information about the company’s production pipeline and business strategy.

China has issued a new batch of licenses to publish foreign games for PC, mobile, and consoles. Some of them will be released in the country by Tencent and NetEase.

Kepler Interactive called the releases of Scorn and Sifu very successful, Ubisoft closed its division in Italy, and Team17 announced layoffs — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry this weekend.

Perhaps Roblox and Unity will soon be “covered”. The announcement of UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite), “a new computer application for designing, developing and publishing games and content directly in Fortnite,” took place.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has posted responses to its provisional findings from six game companies. They shared their thoughts on Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, seeing no reason for this deal to be blocked.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. Wanted this week: technical artist at Lesta Games, game producer at Craft Games and senior designer at WN Media Group.

The simulator of the border guard Contraband Police, developed by the Polish studio Crazy Rocks, has successfully started. The general director of the PlayWay publishing house Krzysztof Kostowski said that 49 thousand people bought the game in the first two days. This allowed us to recapture all development and marketing costs.

On March 2, a chamber event for WN Connect gaming companies took place in the capital of Georgia. It was attended by 180 people, including representatives of companies such as Playrix, Plarium and Unity. The event was sponsored by TapClap, AppsFlyer and Xsolla. We share the results and photos from the event.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney continues to push for more transparency and unity across the various game stores. This time, he had some harsh words about Valve’s Steamworks API and how it limits multiplayer features.

The head of Epic Games criticized Valve for the limited capabilities of the Steamworks API for multiplayer games. In an interview with the PC Gamer portal, he stated that the company has seriously complicated the lives of both developers and other app stores.

On March 9, Epic Games introduced a set of publishing tools that are available to all owners of the developer account. However, each game must meet the following requirements:

From now on, game developers will be able to self-publish their titles on the Epic Games Store. All thanks to new tools available to any studio as long as it meet the platform’s requirements.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: QA-team leader at Playkot, event coordinator at WN Media Group and VFX-artist at ExoGenesis.

Cult Games is a new publisher founded by Helen Burnill, who previously worked as commercial director and VP at Fall Guys maker Mediatonic. The company will initially focus on helping established studios like Brightrock Games and Witch Beam build on their success.

Microsoft and Sony have responded to the provisional findings of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. The main stumbling blocks are the potential exclusivity of Call of Duty and the impact of the Activision Blizzard deal on consoles and subscription services.

The UK’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) overestimates the importance of the Call of Duty franchise, according to Microsoft. The company is now trying to argue that this IP won’t make most PlayStation players switch to Xbox.

The CEO of the South Korean Nexon, Owen Mahoney, said at a meeting with investors that it was incorrect to call his publishing house a gaming company. Because it doesn’t work with video games, but with virtual worlds.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ruled on Sony’s motion to ban Microsoft from searching its internal documents related to the Activision Blizzard deal. The Japanese publisher will now have to mostly comply with the subpoena.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: a product analyst at Dankolab, a game producer at Craft Games and a VFX artist at ExoGenesis.

Poland is home to some of the world’s most recognized game developers and publishers. So what is the net worth of Techland, CD Projekt, and Playway executives?

The Russian age-marking system for video games was proposed at the start to be distributed only to digital publications, Hogwarts Legacy sold over 12 million copies in the first two weeks, the developers of the calendar application TheDayBefore confirmed that they are trying to defend the rights to the trademark of the same name — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry this weekend.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: a game engine developer at MYTONA, a leading UA manager at Dankolab and a game designer at ZiMAD.

Mobile publisher SayGames is changing its business strategy. The company will stop working with hyper-casual games and focus on publishing hybrid-casual projects.

Wild Hearts has just launched globally. Although Omega Force’s new game is appealing gameplay-wise, its technical state could ruin the studio’s plans to build a new monster hunting franchise. Let’s take a look at the title’s market potential and what made Electronic Arts bet big on it.

There's plenty of interesting stuff in the documents released by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) about its investigation into Microsoft's attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard, but the titbit that has perhaps attracted most attention is Microsoft's admission that a game appearing on Game Pass negatively affects its sales for at least a year. That's relevant to the investigations underway at the CMA and elsewhere because understanding Game Pass and how it is reshaping the industry's commercial landscape is crucial to understanding the actual impact of this $70 billion proposed deal. Read more

Embracer Group has published its financial report for Q3 FY 22/23, which is the three months ended December 31, 2022.Net sales: SEK 11.6 billion ($1.1 billion), up 128% year-on-year, but down 3% in organic growth Read more

Robot Teddy, Thunderful Games' self-publishing support agency, has announced additions to its executive team.Joining the company are Amanda Farough, Mike Futter, Alessandro Bovenzi, Hans van Brakel, and Naaila Mohammed. Read more

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. Wanted this week: delivery director at Playkot, game designer at JustMoby and financial manager at Fun to Mass Games.

Ghost Ship Games studio has announced that it will start publishing third-party games. She will work with small teams, helping them with financing and marketing.

No More Robots founder Mike Rose has shared his thoughts on Game Pass and its positive impact on the game’s commercial performance. He also explained why his publishing company would try to add every title to Microsoft’s subscription service.

Mike Rose from the indie publishing house No More Robots condemned the people who have been actively criticizing the Game Pass lately. He stated that he does not consider a Microsoft subscription to be something bad for developers.

VK has started work on the creation of a Russian open source game engine. It allocates one billion rubles for its development. This was announced during a press conference with the participation of Maksut Shadaev and Vladimir Kiriyenko. App2Top has prepared an edited* transcript of the event.