Savage Game Studios has raised $4.4 million to create two mobile game studios in Helsinki and Berlin. The company is at work on its first title, a mobile game shooter. The team is headed by Michail Katkoff, CEO and cofounder of Savage Game Studios. The funding comes from seasoned game venture capital funds Makers Fund […]
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Amid a horrible year for everyone, gaming had historic growth in 2020. Market researcher Newzoo estimates all game revenues grew 19% to $174.9 billion in 2020. Steam reported in-game purchases were up 21%. U.S. video game sales were up 27% to $57 billion, according to market researcher NPD. Will it keep going? We’re going to […]
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We had so much fun making a tier list of Nintendo’s consoles last week that Jeff Grubb and I are back at it again with a topic that’s a bit more silly. We’re ranking Sonic the Hedgehog’s friends. Yup, we go through all of the notable anthropomorphic characters that have showed up in the Sega […]
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December saw new records for consumer spending on video games in the United States of $7.7 billion, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. The new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S hardware drove that, but ongoing success for Nintendo’s Switch platform was also instrumental. “December 2020 consumer spending across video game hardware, content and […]
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Nintendo Switch dominated hardware sales in the United States throughout 2020. It easily outsold its last-gen competition in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but it continues to outperform PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S due to their supply constraints. The hybrid home/handheld Nintendo console was the top hardware of the year as well as […]
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Last year was massive for game sales due to more people staying home during the pandemic. With entertainment at a premium, familiar gaming brands surged in popularity. That led to huge sales for Call of Duty, Madden, and anything Nintendo. And you’ll find all of those on the top 20 best-selling games of 2020 in […]
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Blizzard Entertainment has released the biggest update to its online platform, Battle.net, “in years.” Battle.net has been Blizzard’s internet portal for its games since the 1996 launch of Diablo. Since then, it has also become a launcher for every modern Blizzard game. It’s also home to a select few other Activision Blizzard games, including the […]
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Esports competitions are still pretty hot, and Ultimate Gamer plans to give away $1 million in prizes for its tournament that starts on March 1. The Ultimate Gamer Worldwide Open will be a free global competition to find “Best Gamer on Earth.” The company already has two million registered users, and its plan is to […]
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505 Games and its parent company Digital Bros announced today the acquisition of Infinity Plus Two, the studio behind puzzle game hits Puzzle Quest and Gems of War. The deal gives 505 Games a studio with free-to-play experience. Infinity Plus Two’s titles have earned over $200 million in revenue. 505 was already the publisher for […]
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In a new video posted to Twitter, CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński apologizes for Cyberpunk 2077‘s rough launch and lays out a roadmap for the game’s future. Cyberpunk 2077 came out on December 10 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia and PC. While the PC version runs well, aside from bugs, the last-gen console […]
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Ubisoft is making an open-world Star Wars game. Lucasfilm Limited and Ubisoft made the announcement this morning, and you can read all of the known details in our story right here. Electronic Arts, the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order publisher, is continuing to make Star Wars games as well. But it is not renewing its […]
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Last year was a big one for Valve Software’s Steam. The PC game-distribution platform had a massive audience that engaged even more with gaming during the ongoing global pandemic. That led to an increase in game purchases of 21.4% year-over-year in 2021. Valve summed up the growth in its 2020 year in review blog post. […]
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Ubisoft announced today it will make a new Star Wars game in collaboration with Disney’s Lucasfilm Games division. The title from Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment — the maker of The Division open world series — will be a story-driven open-world Star Wars adventure. Massive Entertainment is in Malmö, Sweden, and it has a big team that […]
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The global game market grew 19.6% to $174.9 billion in 2020, and the lion’s share is now mobile gaming, according to Newzoo. And the research firm has now revealed the top trends to watch in 2021. The market could grow to $217.9 billion by 2023, but first the industry will have to get through what […]
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Tilting Point has agreed to spend up to $10 million to market the dating simulator Dangerous Fellows, a game from South Korean developer Storytaco. The deal comes just a month after Tilting Point (a free-to-play game publisher and provider of marketing services) said it would invest $40 million to fund user acquisition for South Korean game […]
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Mobile game spending could grow 20% to $120 billion in 2021, according to a report by mobile data and analytics provider App Annie. App Annie also said that overall mobile app spending hit $143 billion in 2020. The San Francisco company’s State of Mobile 2021 report said that the pandemic accelerated mobile adoption as consumers used […]
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Bethesda has teased a new Indiana Jones title from MachineGames, the studio behind the modern Wolfenstein series. A short teaser trailer, which you can see below, shows off the logos for Bethesda, MachineGames, and the newly rebranded Lucasfilm Games (as of yesterday). It also reveals some Indy iconography, such as his hat and whip. pic.twitter.com/XSaIwjgiOF […]
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One of the best games of 2019 is getting an update to run better on the consoles of 2021. Publisher Electronic Arts revealed a new Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order patch will improve performance to take advantage of the powerful Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles. This update is rolling out now. Star Wars […]
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Nintendo is launching a special edition of its Switch console to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. The publisher revealed the red-and-blue-themed Mario console, which launches February 12 alongside Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury. The Mario-themed Nintendo Switch is similar in scope to the Animal Crossing model. Like that Switch, the […]
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We’ve known for some time that Super Mario 3D World‘s Switch port would come with a new campaign, Bowser’s Fury. Now we have an idea of that will look like, and it’s surprising. Super Mario 3D World is one of the last major Wii U exclusives to come to the Switch, releasing on February 12. […]
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The Consumer Electronics Show has gone virtual this year, but it’s still the same broad trade gathering as always. You’re more likely to find a refrigerator with feelings than a lot of gaming-specific news buried in the headlines of the event. But that doesn’t mean CES is devoid of products gamers should care about. On […]
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Arcade1Up is a leading name in the home arcade market, and the company has announced three new cabinets today during the Consumer Electronics Show. These new machines will host Killer Instinct, Konami’s X-Men beat-’em-up, and Dragon’s Lair. Each cabinet includes more than one game. The Killer Instinct machine also comes with Killer Instinct 2 and […]
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Hypercasual is one of the most talked-about genres in mobile gaming. It took off at an unprecedented rate with Flappy Bird going viral in 2014, and it has remained a leading category in terms of downloads ever since. Despite their easy-to-play nature and quick development-turnaround time, hypercasual games face a number of challenges. Competition continues […]
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The numbers are in and it’s official: Sony’s PlayStation was the top gaming brand spender on TV advertising for 2020, accounting for over 40% of the industry’s total outlay. All told, 34 brands spent an estimated $270.8 million on TV ads, representing a 24% year-over-year decrease. And even though PlayStation was No. 1 for both […]
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My discovery of the Dragon Quest franchise was one of my few happy happenstances of 2020. For decades, I convinced myself that I just didn’t like this iconic JRPG series. Then I fell in love with Dragon Quest XI. Now, I’m on a quest of my own, playing through each game. But I’m not going […]
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Hitman 3 includes a level that is a clear homage to murder-mystery stories from authors like Agatha Christie and the lady from Murder She Wrote. As part of this level, players can even have Agent 47 take on the role of a detective and solve a murder. It’s a dense stage that IO Interactive packed […]
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Nintendo has made some of the most iconic consoles of all time. Now it is up to us to rank them the only way gamers know how: with a tier list. GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb and I spent over an hour debating the merits of every major Nintendo home and portable console. We then put each […]
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Former Sony Online Entertainment president Lewis “Kelly” Flock, a game industry leader who backed classic hits such as the original God of War and Twisted Metal: Black, has died. His passing was not unexpected among friends, as he had been ill, but his death sent reverberations through a game development community that has been hit […]
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This article is part of a Gaming Insights series paid for by Facebook. We spoke with executives from mobile game developers Kabam, Wildlife Studios, and global technology company AppLovin to better understand how they diversify their marketing strategies. Our discussion with these industry leaders focuses on what diversification means for their companies, how they’ve used […]
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The game industry grew 12% to $139.9 billion in 2020 from $120.1 billion in 2019 while many industries shrank during the pandemic, according to a report by market researcher SuperData. But for 2021, SuperData predicts that the game market will only grow 2% in 2021. The division of Nielsen said the double-digit growth of the […]
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Nintendo announced overnight that it is acquiring Luigi’s Mansion 3 developer Next Level Games. The Vancouver-based studio will join Nintendo’s first-party teams like Retro Studios and Nintendo Software Technology as a wholly owned subsidiary. The deal should close in March for an undisclosed sum. So did the recent deluge of acquisitions push Nintendo to make […]
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