Stores and publishing

Matthew Ball, recently appointed as Xbox's chief strategy officer, has stated that the recent increase in hardware prices presents an opportunity for game streaming.

XBOX head Asha Sharma and content director Matt Booty have published a letter to the staff. They did not comment on the rumors about upcoming layoffs in the division but acknowledged that XBOX is indeed going through tough times

Ubisoft is not the only company planning significant staff reductions. According to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, Microsoft's gaming division will also part ways with some employees.

According to reports, Xbox is contemplating significant job cuts, informing employees that it is necessary to "reassess [...] our investment priorities for the next five years." The company has also cautioned that "we've become too reliant on vendors to operate our systems and must become more self-reliant as an engineering culture to build for the future."

According to sources cited by GamesIndustry.biz, Ubisoft has implemented additional job cuts as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts. The company is shutting down its studios in Winnipeg and Belgrade and is considering further modifications in Barcelona and within its global publishing division. It is reported that 380 positions could be affected.

A few days after its release, we can confidently state that the remake of the first "Gothic" has come to fruition, including from a commercial standpoint. Today, we'll examine the project's journey to release, its initial metrics, and also delve into the historical sales data of the franchise

According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, the gaming industry ought to concentrate on lowering the costs of hardware production instead of exclusively targeting the creation of "most premium, high-performance consoles".

On June 9th, Destiny 2 received its final content update called Monument of Triumph. It attracted many gamers, eager to both say goodbye to the game and prove to Bungie that the series should not come to an end.

At the beginning of the year, the Russian team Cats Who Play released their new game, a real-time military strategy called "Gostomel Bogatyrs." Initially, the new release came out on VK Play (February 24), and later landed on Steam (March 31). It's now known how the game performed on both platforms.

Matthew Ball, the Chief Strategy Officer for Xbox, has provided further details regarding the company's renewed focus on platform exclusives. This follows the recent announcement that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will not be released on platforms other than Xbox.

Another piece of news about wishlists was shared by the Russian-speaking Team VAC and publisher Spaghetti Cat

At the start of its summer showcase, Xbox announced that Gears of War E-day will not be available on PlayStation 5. Additionally, inXile's Clockwork Revolution will also not be released on the Sony console.

Microsoft Corporation has taken a step towards developers who create games using the Godot engine. The company announced the release of a special demo project designed to simplify the process of launching their games on Xbox on PC

After two months of beta testing, the Steam team has officially redesigned the store's homepage. They made a number of targeted improvements.

The scandal surrounding Valve's alleged monopoly in the PC store market has unexpectedly extended to Microsoft. Two gamers from the United States have sued the corporation, claiming it helps maintain high prices on Steam.

In 2023, Valve’s head Gabe Newell provided testimony in a legal case against Wolfire Games, which accused the company of monopolizing the PC store market. A transcript of his speech was recently obtained by Bloomberg.

The consulting company Nordicity, commissioned by King — the creators of the hit puzzle game Candy Crush — conducted a study. It examined the situation in the European mobile gaming industry based on the results of 2025. We have compiled the key figures from the report

Sales of PlayStation's first-party games rose from 28.9 million to 32.1 million copies in fiscal year 2025, indicating a gradual enhancement over the last five years.

The head of Polden Publishing, Kirill Oreshkin, analyzed where indie games on Steam get their wishlists. He shared his observations on LinkedIn

In 2023, Valve's head Gabe Newell gave testimony as part of a legal proceeding with Wolfire Games, which accused the company of monopolizing the PC store market. The transcript of his speech recently reached Bloomberg

In the past couple of years, a trend known as "friendslop" has been noticeable on Steam—unassuming cooperative games for friends. While some developers are following this trend, Tolga Coşkun, the founder of the Turkish indie studio Dumbbell Games, sees the popularity of such titles as a serious problem

The British holding company TruFin has decided to sell its stake in Playstack— a publisher with a portfolio that includes Balatro, Abiotic Factor, Mortal Shell, and many other well-known games.

Asha Sharma, the CEO of Xbox, has stated that the recent reductions in Game Pass pricing are already yielding positive outcomes.

Valve has revealed that it will raise prices by more than 40% for its Steam Deck OLED versions.

Last night, on May 27, IO Interactive launched the full release of the spy action game 007 First Light, which tells the story of a young James Bond's adventures. Prior to this, the game was available for just one day exclusively to pre-order holders

Incremental games are one of the fastest-growing segments on PC. We're releasing a comprehensive benchmark on the state of this niche to understand what the market for idle projects in Steam looks like today

The "Igromir" brand continues to expand. A month and a half ago, a cloud gaming service of the same name was launched under it. Now, a game publishing house has also been introduced

The multiplayer game Destruction AllStars, developed by Lucid Games and published by Sony, is scheduled to be removed from the PlayStation Store, resulting in its online services being discontinued

In October 2025, GameMill Entertainment published the adventure game Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club featuring the adventures of the famous dog Snoopy from the Peanuts comics. Seven months after the game's release, the publisher faced a lawsuit

On May 25, indie developer Alex Massé and his team released Paralives, a life simulation game in the spirit of The Sims, in early access. According to SteamDB, tens of thousands of people decided to check out the game simultaneously.

Irina Borodina, the marketing director of Digital Vortex Entertainment, explained how the company managed to gather over 200,000 wishlists for their new game, DREADMOOR

Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, has made additional adjustments to the brand's leadership team, naming industry analyst Matthew Ball as the new chief strategy officer and Scott Van Vliet as the chief technology officer. Ball is recognized as a venture partner, advisor, and investor, celebrated for his annual industry reports and his acclaimed book about the metaverse. Meanwhile, Van Vliet recently held the position of corporate vice president, managing Azure AI infrastructure.

We continue to publish videos of the reports from the "Gaming Industry" conference, held recently in Minsk, on a daily basis. Today, we have a report from iWorlds. It was presented by Alexander Nasonov, the founder of the studio

Valve has revised its tagging system on Steam by adding 17 new categories, removing 28, and either consolidating or renaming a number of existing tags.

Epic Games announced this landmark event in the news section of its website. The company noted that this result was achieved due to prolonged legal proceedings in the United States.

The game also became available in the Russian version of the App Store.

Fortnite has been reinstated in Apple's App Store globally, with Australia as an exception, as anticipation grows that US federal courts may mandate Apple to reveal its fee structure

From time to time, Valve optimizes the user tag system on Steam by removing outdated tags or adding new ones. This time, the company decided to do both.

Hermen Hulst reportedly stated this during a meeting with employees on May 18, according to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier

Sony has announced an increase in the pricing for its PlayStation Plus (PS+) subscription service

In response to speculation earlier this year about Sony scaling back on releasing PlayStation 5 exclusives for PC, Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, has reportedly informed staff that PlayStation's single-player titles will continue to be exclusive to the company's consoles.

The game was received very warmly.

TT Games announced this achievement in the game's event feed on the Valve store.

Xbox and Discord have unveiled a collaboration that introduces a "starter edition" of Game Pass available to Nitro subscribers

Clay John, a member of the Godot Foundation's board of directors, shared some intriguing statistics about the engine in the Godot blog. Among other things, he calculated how many games created with Godot have been released on Steam in recent years

Shift Up, a development company based in South Korea, has announced its intention to independently release the game Stellar Blade 2.

Sony has outlined its intentions to enhance AI integration across its organization, with a focus on game development.

Forklift Interactive achieved this result after three years of work: the publisher was launched in 2023

The Verge reviewed a letter sent by the new head of Xbox, Asha Sharma, to the employees of Microsoft's gaming division. It discusses leadership personnel changes.

Japanese indie developer Daikichi_EMP stated that he encountered an unexpected problem when trying to release a demo of his new game, Wired Tokyo 2007, on Steam. The moderators did not approve it, citing a copyright violation. However, according to Daikichi_EMP, these rights belong to him and no one else.