Tim Bender, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, discussed why he thinks the way we measure games' success needs to evolve.On LinkedIn, Bender highlighted a post claiming the game showed "the pitfalls of Early Access" due to its declining player base. Often, concurrent players can be used to gauge how a new (or old) game is doing at any given time.But in his view, both industry analysts and players should stop eyeing games through a lens of immediate and constant growth. That line of thinking has caused "so much trouble" in the industry, and led to a "distorted endless growth" perspective."We need to move away from takes [like these]," he said. "Not every game should be aimed at becoming some live-service boom or bust."He went on…
The Nintendo Switch is now the developer's longest-running reigning console.Per VGC, the home/handheld hybrid has been around for 2,687 days (or seven years, four months, and just shy of two weeks). The console originally released March 3, 2017, and beat out the Famicom's (or NES in the west) streak by just a single day.As the outlet notes, distance between other Nintendo consoles has gotten progressively shorter outside of those two. Using global launches, VGC determined the span between the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Gamecube was 1,909 days, while the Nintendo Wii and WiiU had a gap of 1,892 days.Meanwhile, the WiiU and Switch had the shortest leap of the bunch at 1,566 days. It's also worth noting this just concerns home consoles; when it comes to handhelds, the Switch fall…
Free-to-play developer Scopely is bringing on on Mike Seavers to run its technology department as senior vice president.Seavers previously worked as chief technical officer at Riot Games and Yuta Labs. The press release notes his work on League of Legends and Fortnite throughout his 25-year tenure and his skill in "scaling audiences and communities."Per COO Eunice Lee, Seavers will also team with co-founder Ankur Bulsara to "shape the trajectory of Scopely’s technological expertise and ensure we’re leveraging emerging technologies to best enhance our player experiences and empower our world-class gamemakers."Scopely also notes his proficiency in cross-platform technology, which it deemed "essential" for its games on consoles. It added that Seavers comes as…
Nearly a full month after it was bought by Voodoo, BeReal has cut 28 positions.As spotted by GamesIndustry, the social platform made cuts across its engineering, QA, and marketing divisions. Per COO Roman Salzman, the layoffs were "mostly part of a refocus on France/Europe-based talents.""Not going to bore with details, keeping it simple here: these folks scaled a social platform from 200,000 to 25 million daily active users in 18 months," he wrote. "They all had to build it from the ground up and under tremendous pressure, and did it."Voodoo acquired BeReal in mid-June for €500 million (or $536.9 million), and with the express purpose of expanding into the hypercasual market. In turn, BeReal would use Voodoo to have a sustainable growth path previously unav…
A new report from Video Game Insights shows that co-op games have become more prominent on Steam in recent years and that the trend will continue in 2024.Per VGI, nearly 800 games with two or four-player co-op as a core mechanic came to Valve's storefront in 2023. 2018 had 383 games, making this a sizable increase of 108.6 percent.Things really took off in 2020, which saw 647 games co-op games released on Steam. When the pandemic hit, those games made up 6.6 percent of the year's releases and 43 percent of all units solid.For 2023, co-op titles made up 6 percent of Steam releases, but also 36 percent of games sold on the platform. Big titles in that demographic include Remnant II, Diablo IV, and Payday 3.To date, 5 percent of all games released throughout 2024 have been co-op tit…
Sea of Thieves only made the voyage to PlayStation in late April, and already it has become the most-downloaded game on the PlayStation 5.Rare's shared-seas pirate game made the top of the PS5 list across both the US and Europe. Coming in second and third place respectively were Madden NFL 24 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in the US, and Grand Theft Auto V and F1 24 in Europe.While numbers weren't given, Sea of Thieves' milestone is impressive in the larger context of Xbox bringing it and other games to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.Xbox revealed Sea of Thieves would go multiplatform in February alongside Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Grounded. All four have come out in the months since, and this is notably the only real milestone for any of the games that jumped ship fr…
FromSoftware is one of many triple-A studios that's managed to avoid layoffs over the past two years. And if president Hidetaka Miyazaki has anything to say about it, that'll remain the case as the industry's larger rough period persists.Talking to PCGamer, the Elden Ring director was asked about the studio's ability to soldier on as other studios either cut staff or closed entirely. He doesn't want anyone at his studio to get cut "in a million years," a thought apparently shared by parent company Kadokawa."I think the people at Kadokawa…understand that I hold this view very strongly," he said. "While we can't say 100 percent…at least as long as this company is my responsibility, [layoffs are] something I would not let happen."…
Gorilla Tag developer Another Axiom claims the multiplayer parkour jamboree is the most popular title on the Meta Quest Store.The studio explained its VR title has seen over 1 million daily active users and over 3 million monthly active users. Notably, it added its player community continues to expand.Gorilla Tag launched back in 2021 (initially via early acces) and became the first app to hit over 100,000 reviews on the Meta Quest Store. It's also available on SteamVR.Another Axiom dished out those metrics during a recent fireside chat at the Augmented World Expo (available on the company website), and claimed Gorilla Tag's success shows that "the time for VR is in fact, here and now."The studio said Gorilla Tag has attracted over 10 million lifetime players and genera…
The Crash Bandicoot series keeps going strong, as the Crash N. Sane Trilogy has now sold 20 million copies.Activision Blizzard's been cagey on the game's performance since it sold 10 million copies in 2019. But the new milestone shows it's still drawing people in, and it may be the most successful Crash title ever.In April, a Toys for Bob developer quietly revealed the studio's sequel, Crash 4: It's About Time, sold 5 million copies since its 2020 launch. Depending on the the game, earlier entries (per individual Wikipedia pages), reportedly sold between 1 and 6 million copies.Why has N. Sane done so well? Being remasters of the original three games helps, given the nostalgia held for those original PlayStation titles, as does them going on sale on a continuous bas…
Former Ubisoft Massive boss David Polfeldt has taken charge of Barcelona-based studio Bespoke Pixel.As reported by VentureBeat, the nascent studio has raised $25 million and is currently working on multiple projects. The Bespoke Pixel website is scant on details, but notes the studio was founded in 2024 by a group of "industry veterans" and intends to create "world-class entertainment in an intensely collaborative environment.""We commit to the traits that we know will shape a great team; friendliness, professional curiosity, and being 100 percent honest with the players," reads the website. "While we currently are keeping our ongoing projects under wraps, we don’t hesitate to admit that we have sky-high ambitions. We are no fans of compromises, because…