Here are the Games Industry Highlights | Week 4-5 | 2024

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀
🌍 As has become common, a list of lay-off announcements:
– Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard/Xbox employees. The cuts affect around 8% of the Microsoft Gaming division.
– Riot Games laid off around 530 people
– Embracer Group is cutting 50% of the workforce at Black Forest Games GmbH
– CI Games has laid off 10% of its workforce – mostly from marketing
– Thunderful Group announces restructuring that will cut 20% of its workforce
– Eidos-Montréal cancelled an upcoming Deus Ex game and laid off 97 employees
– People Can Fly Studio laid off over 30 people working
– Reikon Games is laying off 80% of its company

🌍 ID@Xbox has a new editorial feature called “Indie Selects”. A curated collection of indie games chosen by the ID@Xbox team, based on themes their community can suggest.

🌍 Apple announced changes to allow 3rd party apps stores on iOS in the EU, in preparation of the Digital Markets Act by the European Union. This includes lowering their own App Store fees, allowing Xbox cloud and GeForceNow as standalone apps, and charging €0.50 per install past a million. (if you followed the Unity runtime fee debacle, this will ring familiar)

🌍 Palworld is taking the world by storm. With over 8M copies sold on Steam in less than a week. Players have taken to calling it “Pokémon with guns” and Nintendo has issued a statement that they would take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on IP related to Pokémon.

🌍 PSVR2 seems to be losing the VR race to Meta’s Quest 3, selling 10,500 units on Amazon U.S. between Nov. 16th and Jan. 16th, compared to >320,000 Meta headsets.

🌍 Both “Martha is Dead” as well as “Until Dawn” will soon see film adaptations.

𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗴𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀
👉 The Game For Thought series continuous this year, and you can read written recaps on Flemish Games Association’s site if you prefer that format:
https://www.flega.be

👉 Pajama Llama Games’ garbage town builder game, Flotsam, will be published by Stray Fawn Studio and will see its 1.0 release later this year!

👉 Casper Croes released a new MSX2 game, Phenix Corrupta, on Itch:
https://lnkd.in/eBiRg2yW
And that’s not all: Alisa: Developer’s Cut launches on all consoles, February 6th!

👉 In 2023, the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds Game Fund awarded €2,551,051 to 39 game projects.
2023 showreel: https://lnkd.in/ekGQqnRU
More info: https://lnkd.in/eD4Jg3w5

👉 Leuven-based Swave Photonics, a forerunner in the implementation of true holography for augmented reality, adds €3 million to execute on its holographic augmented reality roadmap.

👉 Pandaroo Interactive made a free web browser version of Pawggle available on CrazyGames.
https://lnkd.in/eFmSKXdD