Epic Games is introducing Easy Anti-Cheat support for Linux, Mac, and the Steam Deck through its Epic Online Services toolkit. The Fortnite maker had already made Easy Anti-Cheat available to Windows developers for free, and is now extending the same courtesy to creators on Linux and Mac. Notably, the technology will also be supported on Valve's up…

Apple has been hit with a permanent injunction that will prevent it from prohibiting links to third-party payment options on the App Store as a result of the Epic v. Apple lawsuit. As reported by The Verge, the injunction was issued by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers in a bid to increase competition and transparency, and will seemingly allow developer…

Valve has announced that the Steam Deck Dev Kit request form is now open for developers. Valve dropped the announcement and request form over in the Steamworks forum, informing developers that Dev Kit supplies are limited, and they’ll be reviewing requests on a case-by-case basis. Developers interested in acquiring a kit and developing software spe…

It was a challenging first half for the fiscal year of 2021 for CD Projekt. But even after enduring a rough launch for Cyberpunk 2077 and the subsequent delisting of the game from the PlayStation digital store, the Polish parent company of CD Projekt Red and GOG.com still turned a profit—albeit a smaller one than the same period in 2020. Per its fi…

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games, has filed a lawsuit against the modders who reverse engineered Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. As spotted by Rockstar Intel, the lawsuit claims the mod team deliberately "sought unlawfully to copy, adapt, and distribute to the public infringing source code for tw…

This change apparently went into effect in 2020 but was noticed yesterday by AskAboutGames editor Andy Robinson while reviewing the rating for inkle’s latest interactive story game Overboard. Overboard is a reverse murder-mystery simulator where the player attempts to get away with murder on a cruise ship. The game does feature mild violence, sugge…

Longtime BioWare general manager Casey Hudson has revealed his next adventure after departing the Mass Effect studio last year. That new project? A new game development studio with a small, agile team and flat organization structure at its center. Hudson unveiled Humanoid Studios, today, teasing the new company as something "built to unleash the cr…

Vela Games, the Dublin-based studio established in 2018 by a group of former Riot and EA developers, has raised $17.3 million in Series A funding to build out its debut title. The funding round was led by Novator with additional investment from Ubisoft and LVP, and will allow Vela to continue working on 'Project-V,' its codenamed debut release that…

A group of former Riot Games developers have established a new studio called Amihan Entertainment. Amihan co-founder Naomi McArthur, formerly a senior game designer at Riot, broke the news on social media and explained she'll be leading the design on the nascent studio's debut title. McArthur established Amihan alongside Kenneth Liu, who'll be serv…

Room 8 Group has opened a new studio in Canada to provide creative, development, and management services to development partners working on free-to-play mobile titles and console games. The video game holding company provides external development support to studios worldwide, and has worked on notable projects including Control, Call of Duty: Black…

A number of developers appear to be speaking out about the quality of support (or lack thereof) from Sony in regards to pricing and placing games on the PlayStation store. As with all things happening on Twitter you have to pick through a few threads to find the key details, but the gist is this: numerous developers are alleging that Sony offers li…

Turkish mobile studio Dream Games has raised $155 million in Series B funding to continue supporting its debut title, Royal Match. The latest funding round was led by Index Ventures and Makers Fund, and means Dream is now valued at $1 billion. The Istanbul-based company was established by a group of former Peak Games employees in 2019 and had alrea…

Wildlife Studios has opened a new Los Angeles studio called Foxbear Games that will be led by former Marvel Strike Force game director Jonathan Durr. The mobile game company explained that Foxbear will operate independently and work to create RPG titles that bring different audiences to the genre. The news comes a few months after Wildlife opened t…

Drop Fake, a new studio helmed by former EA vice president Katherine de Leon, has raised $9 million to develop multiplayer social games that move people, starting with a cross-platform 4X strategy title for PC and mobile. As reported by GamesBeat, the studio was established with the remit of championing authenticity and diversity in both its game p…

he makers of VRChat have picked up $80 million in funding in a round of Series D investments led by Anthos Capital, with participation from Makers Fund, GFR Fund, and other investors. Per a press release, the company said it intends to build on the services currently used by over 40,000 concurrent users. The $80M will be used to “expedite developme…

Mobile developers will soon be able to reach PC audiences with little added effort on their part thanks to a new feature announced for Microsoft's upcoming operating system, Windows 11. For the first time, Windows will allow its users to download and run Android apps directly to their PC via the official Microsoft store app launching with Windows 1…

Microsoft has told The Verge a new policy change that allows Microsoft Store developers to keep 100 percent of revenue from payments made via their own or third-party systems won't apply to video games. Yesterday we noted that Microsoft would be allowing developers to use their own or third-party commerce platforms within the redesigned Microsoft S…

Two leakers have been told to pay The Pokemon Company a sizable $150,000 each in damages along with attorneys' fees after taking and uploading photographs of an unreleased Pokemon Sword and Shield strategy guide to the internet back in 2019. As reported by Polygon, The Pokemon Company initially filed the lawsuit because the leaks revealed some unan…

Microsoft has quietly announced that its special refund provisions for CD Projekt Red's infamous Cyberpunk 2077 are coming to a close due to improvements made to the game since its catastrophic December launch. The Xbox maker, along with PlayStation and CD Projekt itself, rolled out a special refund policy following Cyberpunk 2077's debut in late 2…

Steam's regional pricing feature allows devs to sell games for different prices depending on where the purchaser is located, a utility that aims to scale each game's price to better match income in different countries throughout the world. While the system makes buying reasonably priced games a possibility for people in countries where $60 USD is a…

The Walt Disney Corporation’s Games division is apparently signaling that it’s open licensing its characters and settings to a broader group of game developers. In a conversation with IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, Disney SVP of Walt Disney Games Sean Shoptaw & VP of Disney & Pixar Games Luigi Priore dropped some tantalizing comments both about unannounc…

Microsoft will use cloud streaming to prevent the Xbox One from becoming obsolete as games become reliant on next-gen hardware. Outlining its future-proofing plans on the Xbox Wire blog, Microsoft said it intends to bring upcoming titles like Starfield, Redfall, and more (unveiled during its recent E3 conference) to last-generation consoles by tapp…

Next Fest, Steam's latest stab at an online demo event, is officially live on Steam with 500+ game demos now playable for the entirety of the week-long event, which runs June 16 to June 22. Over 500 demos make for a lot of different games competing for player attention, but Next Fest looks to address those knee-jerk discoverability concerns by offe…

Rockstar will shut down Grand Theft Auto Online on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on December 16, 2021. At this point you'd be forgiven for forgetting that the lucrative online mode actually debuted two console generations ago, having initially launched two weeks after the main game on October 1, 2013. GTA Online evolved massively as it leaped across t…

CD Projekt quietly announced Cyberpunk 2077's impending return to the PlayStation Store earlier today, but Sony wants to make sure players know the relisting does not mean the game runs flawlessly on PlayStation consoles. Cyberpunk's absence from the PlayStation Store has been sorely felt over at CD Projekt, but until just recently it was unclear w…

Axios has an interview out with PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan today covering a number of different topics—and it includes one eye-catching quote about Cyberpunk 2077’s lack of presence on the PlayStation digital store. Source: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/383188/Delisting_Cyberpunk_was_in_the_interest_of_the_PlayStation_community.php June 11, 202…

Over 20 million players have spent time with Respawn Entertainment’s single-player SoulsBourne-inspired Star Wars game. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

EA generated $1.6 billion in revenue last year from just Ultimate Team modes --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

Monster Hunter Rise has shipped 7 million copies in two months --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

PS4 still expected top be primary revenue driver for PS Store in 2021 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

CD Projekt has named Gabriel Amatangelo as the new game director for Cyberpunk 2077. The news comes after Cyberpunk's former game director Adam Badowski stepped down to focus on other leadership duties at the Polish company. As reported by Reuters, Amatangelo joined CD Projekt in January 2020 as a creative director, and will now lead development on…

"It wasn’t that we felt we had to do Cuba, we realized it’s a complicated island and our game doesn’t want to make a political statement about what’s happening in Cuba specifically." - Narrative director Navid Khavari shares a look at where Far Cry 6 both does and doesn't borrow from reality. Original Article by May 28, 2021 | By Alissa McAloon htt…

Microsoft CEO: Higher platform fees make sense for game consoles --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

PlayStation Plus, the PlayStation brand's subscription for online multiplayer and monthly free game give-aways, is nearing 50 million subscribers. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/382189/PlayStation_Plus_gained_over_5_million_subscribers_in_the_last_year.php --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support…

Crystal Dynamics, the developers behind Tomb Raider and Marvel’s Avengers, has announced a new branch of the studio based out of Austin, Texas. According to a post on Twitter, the new studio is headed by industry veteran Dallas Dickinson, and already includes a number of veteran Crystal Dynamics employees among its ranks. Crystal Dynamics joins a n…

Epic Games has launched an early access version of Unreal Engine 5 to let developers begin testing features and start prototyping upcoming projects. The early access build contains notable new features including a virtualized micropolgyon system called Nanite that lets users create games with "unprecedented amounts of geometric detail," and a new f…

“It feels like the company is just bleeding and taking punches, and realistically, the only thing that is gonna stop that is shipping Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2." - One anonymous Blizzard dev reflects on how a lull in releases has impacted studio morale. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/381895/Burnout_release_drought_have_Blizzard_facing_down_dev_d…

Apple CEO Tim Cook finally took the stand during today's block of the Epic Games v. Apple trial, fielding questions about App Store curation, profit, and policies as Epic Games attempts to prove to the court that iOS is anticompetitive to the point that the legal system needs to step in. Since much of Epic's accusations deal with how Apple conducts…

The ongoing Epic Games v. Apple trial continues to offer interesting and rare looks into how business is conducted for game industry and tech giants alike. So far we've had behind-the-scenes peeks at things like the finances behind the Epic Games Store's free game giveaways (via Bloomberg), Microsoft's since-abandoned plans to reduce its cut of Xbo…

Microsoft has formed a 'strategic partnership' with Tencent-owned Honor of Kings developer Timi Studios to create new game content. Announcing the collaboration in a translated press release, Timi explained it will be working with Microsoft's first-party Xbox Game Studios to "jointly create excellent game content" and bring new experiences to playe…

Today online communications platform Discord rolled out a new set of features and company strategy showcasing a new (but familiar) direction after a year of pandemic-adjacent growth. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/381358/Discord_shows_off_Stages_discoverability_features_push_for_inclusivity.php --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spot…

The pandemic-era trend of all-remote studios with triple-A alumni forges onward. Today a band of Epic Games & Blizzard Entertainment alumni announced the formation of Lightforge Games, a new all-remote studio dedicated to “changing how RPGs are played” In a press release, CEO Matt Schrembi states that Lightforge Games has begun development on a cro…

Digital game marketplace and community Itch.io has announced its first Creator Day event for May 14, and will forgo its usual cut of game sales on the platform for the entire day as a celebration of its community. https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/381428/Itchios_first_Creator_Day_gives_devs_100_of_game_revenue_for_24_hours.php https://itch.io/blo…

Turkish mobile studio Ace Games has raised $7 million in seed funding to continue making casual and hyper casual titles. As reported by TechCrunch, the Mix and Drink and Prison Life developer currently operates two studios and is currently working on a new casual 'hybrid puzzle' title that's due to launch globally in 2022. https://www.gamasutra.com…

Wolfire Games founder David Rosen claims they had "no choice" but to take legal action against Valve after the Steam creator allegedly began interfering with pricing on other storefronts. The Overgrowth developer filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve in April after taking issue with the "extraordinarily high cut of revenue" it takes from Steam d…

Wolfire Games founder David Rosen claims they had "no choice" but to take legal action against Valve after the Steam creator allegedly began interfering with pricing on other storefronts. The Overgrowth developer filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve in April after taking issue with the "extraordinarily high cut of revenue" it takes from Steam d…

The organizers behind this year's virtual E3 have announced a handful of high-profile game makers that'll be in attendance at E3 2021 this June. Given that E3 was undertaking an uphill battle to maintain its relevance in the eyes of companies like PlayStation before the COVID-19 pandemic, it's curious to see which studios are interested in using th…

Microsoft debated reducing revenue share on consoles as well as PC --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support

Only weeks after chatting with Microsoft about a potential sale, Discord has forged a partnership with Sony and landed a minor investment from the PlayStation company in the process. original story By Alissa McAloon https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/380790/Sony_invests_in_Discord_plans_to_integrate_Discord_into_PSN_next_year.php --- Support this …

Minecraft modders peddling wares through the game's official mod marketplace have made a combined $350 million off of their creations since the Mojang-sanctioned portal went live in 2017. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pixel-sultan/support