Stores and publishing

AFK Journey, What If…? An Immersive Story, Squad Busters, Thank Goodness You're Here!, and Balatro+ are among the apps that have secured a place on Apple's list of App Store Award winners for 2024

The publisher Game Seer shared the successes of Half Sword with GameDiscoverCo. This is the debut project of the studio Half Sword Games.

Developers from China are investing significant amounts of money in advertising their games and applications on the Russian marketplace RuStore. According to VK's calculations, from January to November 2024, they spent over 60 million rubles on promotion through the "VK Advertising" platform.

Following its successful Early Access launch, Path of Exile 2 has become the highest-grossing game on Steam globally.

We continue to wrap up the year 2024 with teams in the gaming (or game-related) industry. Up next is an interview with Anton Mikhailov, the creative director of the indie studio Tortuga Team

Dauntless has reached its release on Steam five years after its original launch. Users have received it, to put it mildly, coldly. Currently, Dauntless has an "overwhelmingly negative" rating on Steam with only 14% positive reviews.

Grinding Gear Games has achieved another milestone. Path of Exile 2 topped the list of highest-grossing products on Steam for the week of December 3 to 10.

In an article for Game World Observer, Appodeal Publishing shares three proven user acquisition (UA) strategies to help mobile devs and publishers make the most of the holidays. There’re also insights into how Join Blocks used these strategies to increase installs by 6x and revenue by 300% during Christmas.

Grinding Gear Games has finally released a sequel to its successful action RPG Path of Exile. Let’s take a closer look at its impressive metrics.

Wishlists are one of the key metrics that developers pay attention to when preparing to launch their games. Here’s an interesting new analysis of how wishlists are converting to sales, and what that says about the state of Steam in general.

Unlike many recent Game-as-a-Service launches, Marvel Rivals has gotten off to a good start. The question is whether NetEase’s new hero shooter can retain its audience in the long term.

Tencent has high hopes for its new live service shooter Delta Force. And early metrics of its Open Beta are promising, though the launch has been marred by mixed reviews from players.

On December 6, the release of Marvel Rivals, a team-based action game featuring Marvel heroes developed by the Chinese company NetEase, took place on PC and consoles. According to service SteamDB, shortly after its release, the Steam version of the project alone managed to attract over 444,000 concurrent players at its peak

On the night of December 4th to 5th, the open beta test for Delta Force, a tactical shooter by Team Jade, a subsidiary of the Chinese giant Tencent, launched on PC. The game received a mixed reception on Steam.

A court in the United Kingdom has allowed a class-action lawsuit against Apple Corporation. This concerns the commission rate in the App Store.

Many older hits have seen a surge in revenue on Steam thanks to the Autumn Sale. Here are the most notable changes on the charts over the past seven days.

Last week, the autumn sale started on Steam, which significantly changed the landscape in the chart of the top-grossing products on the platform. Here are some observations.

The analytics service AppMagic compiled a list of mobile casual game publishers that earned the most from IAP* from January to November 2024. Scopely took the first place in the ranking

Microsoft plans to integrate a range of important features into the Xbox App for Android users in the United States. Gamers will be able to purchase games directly in the mobile app, bypassing Google Play, and launch them using cloud streaming

A long-running lawsuit against Steam’s 30% cut and its alleged antitrust behavior has been granted a class action status. The plaintiffs are now calling on other game developers to join in.

A new development in the investigation into the alleged Steam monopoly on the PC store market. The court has turned the lawsuit from Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios against Valve into a class action. Now, many other developers can join it.

The head of VK Play, Alexander Mikheev, admitted at the "RED EXPO" conference that, in the early days of developing the platform, his team approached its positioning incorrectly. As a result, players thought that VK Play was intended to become a full-fledged domestic equivalent of Steam, but VK planned to create an auxiliary service for the convenient purchase of games

Microsoft's initiative to allow Android users to purchase and play console games through the Xbox app has been postponed, apparently as a result of the ongoing legal battle between Google and Epic Games

Roblox has joined the ranks of companies opposing the hefty fees charged by Apple and Google for in-app purchases (IAP). Now users can receive 25% more in-game currency, Robux, by purchasing it through the official Roblox ecosystem instead of the mobile app stores.

Repairing a reputation is a long and challenging process. This can be confirmed by the developers of the space action game No Man's Sky. It took their game eight years to achieve 80% positive reviews on Steam

Path of Exile 2 is preparing for an early access release, with the game launching on December 6. According to analytics service VG Insights, more than 1.7 million Steam users have added this action RPG to their wishlist.

The PlayStation 2 has achieved global sales of 160 million units, holding its record as the best-selling console in history

Shuhei Yoshida, one of Sony's veterans, announced his departure from the corporation. In January 2025, he will step down as head of the PlayStation Indies division and head into a well-deserved retirement.

Shuhei Yoshida is set to retire from Sony Interactive Entertainment on January 15 next year

It has been almost a week since the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. GSC Game World has already reported impressive launch sales, but here is some data from analytics platform Video Game Insights.

The analytical service VG Insights shared its sales statistics for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl on the social network X. It conducted a detailed analysis of the game's performance on Steam

According to the results for the week from November 19 to 26, the top spot in the list of highest-grossing games on Steam was claimed by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The shooter led the chart among both paid and free titles.

My Games has revealed the introduction of a new mobile publishing initiative named MGVC Publishing.

According to Bloomberg, Sony is planning to return to the portable device market with a new, yet-to-be-announced console capable of running PlayStation 5 games. The company is in the early stages of developing this project

The French studio Shiro Games announced that sales of the tactical RPG Wartales have exceeded one million copies. This is just on Steam. Considering other platforms, the game's sales should be even higher

The sequel to the popular action RPG Path of Exile 2 has surged into the global top of the highest-grossing games on the Steam platform. This was made possible by the recently opened pre-orders

Sony is said to be developing a handheld console that will integrate with the PlayStation 5 line.

On November 21, Star Wars Outlaws reached its official release in the Steam store. During the first 24 hours, the game's peak online player count didn't even hit a thousand.

Inin Games has taken over the publishing rights for Shenmue 3

Ju Heng, an associate professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics business school, studied the revenues of the App Store in China. The figures turned out to be astronomical

Steam has introduced support for season passes — by this, Valve means not the passes in live-service games, but bundles of already released and future DLCs for games. Pavel Djundik, the creator of SteamDB, noticed this update.

Valve has revised its season pass guidelines, introducing fresh rules concerning release timelines

In the German version of Steam, games without an age rating have stopped appearing for users.

AFK Journey has been honored as the best game of the year on Google Play by the store's editorial team.

Sony is launching cloud streaming support for the PS Portal, available to PlayStation Plus subscribers.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has finally launched globally after long development and several delays. The sequel to a cult first-person shooter has been off to a good start on Steam despite its simultaneous release on Xbox and Game Pass.

On the evening of November 20, the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl took place. The game launched on PC and Xbox Series, including on Game Pass. Judging by the numbers, at least on Steam, its start was successful

On November 19, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was released on PC and Xbox Series. Users on Steam criticized the new flight simulator. Only 14% of the players who left reviews rated it positively.

Google Corporation has summarized the initial results of the outgoing year and announced the best games in its app store for 2024.

During the week of November 12 to 19, Farming Simulator 25 earned more on Steam than any other paid game. This allowed it to top the platform's premium chart, pushing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which had held the top spot for three weeks, down from first place.