World of Warcraft has had a great month. The release of Battle For Azeroth has seen the game's subscription numbers swell to a 4-year high and overtake League of Legends in revenue for the month of August according to SuperData research. This year's Blizzcon, scheduled to start November 2nd, should give both old and new World of Warcraft fans a [...]
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China's gaming industry is in for a long winter, as the ongoing embargo on new game approvals by the Chinese government is now predicted to last another 4-6 months. After a recent list of official "recommendations" were sent to various regulatory bodies in China, which included guidelines such as more stringent approval processes and limiting the number of game licenses, [...]
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After the Star Wars Battlefront 2 lootbox controversy came to a head last year, the Belgium Gaming Commission had launched an inquiry into whether lootboxes offered by SW:BFII and other popular games such as Overwatch and CS:GO were in violation of Belgium's gambling laws. Having concluded the investigation earlier this year, the BGC found that EA, Blizzard and Valve were [...]
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It's been a busy week in financial and industry news and to make it even busier Daybreak announced today that it received a strategic investment from NantWorks to develop H1Z1 and EverQuest for mobile. “NantWorks, a diversified holding company, today announced that it has made a strategic investment in Daybreak Game Company, a leading developer and publisher of multiplayer online [...]
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Carbine Studios and its single MMORPG WildStar will both be shutting down. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone keeping an eye on the game, as its playerbase numbers have been dwindling for years. Even the game's free to play transition in 2015 wasn't enough to stem the bleeding. “Today, we are closing Carbine Studios and will [...]
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South Korean game developer Pearl Abyss, best known for Black Desert Online, announced today that they purchased CCP, the Icelandic game studio behind Eve Online. It looks like Pearl Abyss is putting some of that recent IPO money to work. CCP will be a wholly owned independent subsidiary going forward. As with practically every gaming company acquisition, CCP promises to [...]
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Pearl Abyss reported their earnings last month and some interesting financial figures were disclosed. The most notable figure released is that Black Desert Mobile earns almost 3x as much money as the PC version of the game despite only being available in South Korea. The mobile version's North American / European release is expected to launch in Q1 2019. Just [...]
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With the ongoing government shake up that has led to the continued freeze of game approvals in China, the Chinese government has issued an official notice regarding the new proposed regulations around the gaming industry. With recommendations sent out to 8 different regulatory bodies, the government is rallying a concerted effort with the aim to reduce myopia rates in children [...]
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Square Enix announced today that they signed a letter of intent to forge a strategic alliance with Chinese gaming juggernaut Tencent. While there aren't too many details about the deal just yet, but the official announcement suggests creating a joint venture to develop new 'Triple-A' titles based on new and existing IP. "The alliance will enable us to couple our [...]
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Earlier this month Kotaku published an investigative piece uncovering a culture of sexism at Riot Games. Interviews with dozens of current and former employees painted Riot Games as a hostile work environment for women. In the weeks following the Kotaku piece, several other former employees, including Barry Hawkins, have gone public with their own stories. On August 29, Riot Games [...]
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