The past year has been a particularly challenging time for the video games industry with several thousand employees having been laid off across dozens of big-name companies. One company that was hit pretty hard was Swedish video game holding company Embracer Group. After a multi-year studio shopping spree that saw it acquire THQ Nordic, Perfect World Entertainment, Cryptic Studios, and [...]
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Embracer Group has slightly recovered from its failed $2 billion deal which nearly resulted in the collapse of the Swedish video game holding company. According to its Q2 2023 financial report, net sales are up by 13% year-over-year, amounting to SEK 10.8 billion (roughly $1 billion) from June to September 2023. Its net debt has also been reduced by 31% [...]
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PAX East is set to return to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center next year to mark the convention’s 20th anniversary. It’s worth noting that its actually celebrating PAX West’s inaugural run in 2024 since PAX East only started in 2010. Tickets are set to go on sale tomorrow, November 16th, if you’re planning on physically attending the convention next [...]
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Amazon Game Studios has laid off another batch of employees in its second round of mass layoffs this year (the third for Amazon overall). Sources told Aftermath that another 180 workers from multiple gaming divisions were given their pink slips, including Twitch, Crown Channel, and Game Growth. The 100 employees that were laid off back in April also came from [...]
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Blizzard Entertainment’s senior art director Samwise Didier has announced his retirement after 30 years with the iconic video game company. He joined Blizzard back in 1991 and has been instrumental in shaping the art style and look of several big-name titles, including the Warcraft and Diablo franchises. “Today is a huge day for me and I wanted to share the [...]
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Sony’s ambitious plan to release a dozen new live service titles by the end of its 2025 fiscal year has gone up in smoke, or at least part of it. During the company’s latest earnings call, Sony President Hiroki Totoki revealed that they’ve delayed six of the twelve live service games due to quality concerns after a “rigorous portfolio review [...]
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Nexon might just be one of the few video game companies that hasn’t faced financial challenges this year. The company’s Q3 2023 financial report shows a whopping 40% revenue increase compared to the same quarter last year. This is the sixth consecutive quarter that the South Korean video game publisher reported double-digit revenue growth, and it looks like the streak [...]
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NCSoft’s revenues are still in a downward trend for three consecutive quarters. According to the South Korean publisher’s latest financial report, revenues are down 4% quarter-over-quarter for Q3 2023 and 30% year-over-year and its not because its PC MMORPG’s aren’t pulling their weight. The revenue drop is largely attributed to the poor performance of its mobile titles. Lineage W, in [...]
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Things are finally looking up for Pearl Abyss as the South Korean publisher finally sees profits after a multi-quarter slump. Q2 2023 in particular was a trying time for the company as it saw a significant drop in its revenue from Black Desert Online even after the launch of its Land of the Morning Light summer expansion. The fantasy MMORPG, [...]
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It’s been almost five years since the Epic Games set out to overthrow Steam with the launch of its Epic Games Store. However, despite Epic’s best efforts to beat the competition, the company admits that it’s still a long way from doing so. In his testimony in the antitrust lawsuit against Google, Epic Games general manager Steve Allison said that [...]
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