Stores and publishing

Another update on wishlists. Hypnohead Studio announced that its game, The King is Watching, has surpassed 200,000 additions to wishlists on Steam

The creators of the Six One Indie Showcase and The Indie Game Awards have introduced their own publishing label

Just a few days ago, the creators of the zombie checkpoint simulator Quarantine Zone: The Last Check bragged that their game had been added to the wishlists of over 500,000 Steam users. Now it has a new milestone—650,000 wishlists.

On May 8, a new crime simulator, Cash Cleaner Simulator, was released on Steam by the indie studio Mind Control Games. The game, which focuses on money laundering, caught the attention of gamers, and by the end of its debut week, its sales exceeded 100,000 copies

While the studio Alkimia Interactive continues to work on the Gothic 1 Remake, Steam users are actively adding the game to their wishlists. As of today, the Gothic remake has amassed over a million wishlists on the platform.

The debut game from Brigada Games studio, titled Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, has attracted significant attention from Steam users. Recently, the number of wishlists for the game exceeded half a million — and it continues to grow

We continue to share videos (and transcripts) of presentations from the Minsk session of the "Game Industry" conference (GI) that took place in April. Up next is a talk titled "How to Review a Publisher Agreement Stress-Free: A Step-by-Step Guide by a Lawyer," presented by Irina Gushchina, a senior lawyer specializing in IT and IP transaction support at Semenov&Pevzner. Plus, a quick reminder that "Game Industry" will take place in Saint Petersburg on July 10.

Epic Games managed to bring Fortnite back to the App Store in the United States. The game became available again in the American version of the store on the night of May 21 — 1,741 days after Apple removed it due to rule violations

Lost in Cult has introduced a new physical games publishing division

In the week from May 13 to May 20, DOOM: The Dark Ages reached the number one spot on Steam's paid chart and the second place overall. In the top chart, which also includes free-to-play projects, it was surpassed only by the consistently leading Counter-Strike 2

Catalis Group sold its subsidiary, the British publisher Curve Games, to the Indian technology company Nazara Technologies. The latter's portfolio includes games like Human Fall Flat, The Ascent, and For The King

This summer, IGN Live will feature participation from gaming companies such as Xbox, Sega, Ubisoft, and 2K

Developers from 1C Games Studios recently shared the initial successes of the action-adventure game "War of the Worlds: Siberia." According to them, by mid-May, the game was added to the wishlists of 56,000 Steam users

Activision has taken down Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile from both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store.

On the night of May 15, the full release of DOOM: The Dark Ages took place. Prior to that, only premium edition holders could play the new game for two days. The initial performance of the shooter on Steam is good

The amount he intends to invest over the next 12-24 months

Over the past 10 years, Valve's annual revenue from commission on game sales in Steam has nearly tripled, calculated by analyst Aldora Joost van Dreunen. If in 2015 the company earned $1.1 billion from this, then last year it was $3.2 billion.

The co-founder of the indie studio Galactic Workshop, Dmitry Zaitsev, decided to help developers with publishing games on Steam. He prepared a detailed guide based on the experiences of participants from the Telegram channel "STEAMizdat + EGS"

One of Steam's partners may have fallen victim to a hacker attack, reports Underdark AI, a company specializing in cybersecurity. They noticed that a database containing information on more than 89 million user accounts of the store was put up for sale online.

Sony has released its financial results for the entire fiscal year, revealing a significant 43% increase in operating income for its Games & Network Services division, reaching ¥414.8 billion ($2.8 billion)

The service SteamDB has published a fresh weekly chart of the top-grossing products on Steam. Counter-Strike 2 has traditionally claimed the first spot in the ranking, while Destiny 2 unexpectedly surged to second place.

Currently, the Steam Deck is the only official portable PC running SteamOS, but this will soon change. By the end of May, Lenovo plans to release the Legion Go S version, which will also operate on this operating system. Ahead of its release, Valve announced that in the coming weeks, Steam will start indicating on game pages whether they are compatible with third-party devices running SteamOS or not

According to a study by the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF), nearly 87% of classic games released in the US before 2010 are now unavailable for purchase or examination. The older the platform, the more dire the situation. For instance, only 4.5% of titles from the Commodore 64 library are available on the market.

Sony PlayStation has launched a new studio named teamLFG

A year and a half ago, developers from Starbreeze released the cooperative shooter PAYDAY 3. During this time, the publishing rights to the game were held by PLAION, a subsidiary of Embracer Group. However, now they are returning to the title's creators

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered briefly topped the Steam sales chart. By the end of the last week, Counter-Strike 2 reclaimed the overall top spot. Among paid games, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became the leader

Great news for all iOS developers. Now they can earn more from the United States market.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered became the highest-grossing new release on Steam for April, reports Simon Carless from GameDiscoverCo. According to the analyst's calculations, by the end of the month, the remaster earned more than all the other games in the top 10 combined

A significant development in the years-long legal battle between Apple and Epic Games. A U.S. court has ruled that Apple must immediately stop charging fees on payments made outside its app store.

Microsoft has announced worldwide price increases for Xbox products, with the Xbox Series X seeing a $100 increase in the United States.

Epic Games has announced a triumph in its legal dispute with Apple following a US court's enforcement of an injunction. This ruling prevents Apple from imposing fees on app purchases conducted outside its App Store.

Microsoft has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, announcing a "record quarter" with a 6% rise in revenue from its gaming division.

We continue the story about studios founded by former Blizzard Entertainment employees. Since 2020, at least two dozen such companies have emerged, collectively raising over $200 million. They are led by industry veterans, but most of the teams have yet to release anything noteworthy

The analytics service AppMagic has compiled a top-10 list of the largest mobile game publishers in terms of net IAP revenue in the main Western markets* based on the results of the first quarter of 2025. As was the case last year, Scopely topped the list

The new leader in the Steam top-grossing products chart is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. The remaster of the cult RPG by Bethesda Game Studios has surpassed all other games in weekly revenue at Valve's store, including the free-to-play hit Counter-Strike 2

On April 28, the role-playing gacha game Wuthering Waves appeared on Steam. It reached Valve's store nearly a year after its initial release in May 2024

Apple has been penalized $568.6 million (€500 million) by the European Union for breaching its Digital Markets Act

Steam is launching accessibility tags designed to assist players with disabilities in finding inclusive games. This feature allows developers to label their games, providing a clearer description of how the games support accessibility.

This morning, on April 24, the action RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released by the French studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive. Steam users warmly received the new title

Last week, the Russian studio Dream Dock Games announced a Lovecraftian fishing adventure called DreadMoor — its trailer was published on IGN's YouTube channel. The team's co-founder, Rostislav Fedorov, spoke with App2Top about the achievements the game has made so far.

WN Media Group announced an event where leaders of the gaming industry will discuss the most pressing topics. Instead of the usual speakers and stage, there will be group work, practical workshops, and networking

The European Commission has indeed recognized Apple as a violator of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and imposed a fine on the corporation. Rumors about the agency's plans to do this first emerged last summer

Valve is preparing to add an optional section to Steam game pages that will inform users about the availability of accessibility features in game projects. For example, whether they include options to adjust text size or a voice assistant for the game menu.

On the evening of April 22, Bethesda Game Studios and Virtuos released an updated version of the iconic The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This caused a huge stir: the Steam version of the remaster alone attracted 182,298 concurrent players at its peak

Schedule I lost its lead in the paid games sales chart. During the week of April 15 to 22, it was surpassed by Jagex's new release, the cooperative survival game RuneScape: Dragonwilds

The Chinese regulator issued a new batch of licenses for publishing games in China. This time, the list of approved projects includes nine games from foreign developers

Infinitize, a digital media agency, has introduced Vendetta, a new division dedicated to 'publishing-as-a-service' for gaming. This unit features a team with experience on campaigns for notable clients, including Devolver Digital, Dreamhack, and SXSW Gaming.

At the end of March, the British indie studio Digital Cybercherries introduced the PlayStation version of the shooter about toy soldiers, Hypercharge: Unboxed. The developers boasted that the announcement garnered significant interest from the audience.

Matthew Emery, the founder of Turbine Games Consulting, decided to find out which platform was easier to achieve success on last year — PC or mobile. To do this, he compared the revenue of around 8,000 new releases from 2024

On April 17, the second season of the action RPG Last Epoch, titled Tombs of the Erased, launched. Its release led to a sharp increase in the game's daily online activity: last night, 150,198 Steam users decided to play Last Epoch simultaneously.