The Industry Checkpoint - Issue #1

Studio News

• Wizards of the Coast entered "exclusive publishing agreement" with Giant Skull. The agreement with Giant Skull is aimed to build "gameplay-driven, story-immersed, action-adventure games". Giant Skull was announced in 2024 and is led by Stig Asmussen (God of War, Star Wars Jedi series). The first title is intended to be set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. GamesIndustry.biz

• Warhorse Studios opens a new office in Brno. The Kingdom Come: Deliverance franchise developer's new office opens in July 1, 2025 with Petr Kolář, formerly managing director of Ashborne Studios, heading it up. The office will allow Warhorse to scale development capacity and manage multiple projects. GamesIndustry.biz

• Surgent Studios, developer of Tales of Kenzera, revealed its next title, Dead Take. Dead Take is a horror game about "power and corruption in the entertainment industry" and will be published by Palworld's Pocketpair. Eurogamer

• Ubisoft reportedly working on another entry for The Crew. The news of an official greenlight was shared on the social media platform X by Insider Gaming owner Tom Henderson. ComicBook Gaming

• Tango Gameworks is back, has unveiled new branding, and confirmed it's working on a new action game. GamesIndustry.biz

• Chief Legal Officer Riley Graebner and Chief Financial Officer Paul Bland have left Build a Rocket Boy on the eve of MindsEye’s launch. Eurogamer

Spotlight: Kickstarts

• Animo Industries launched Kickstarter campaign for Animo Stars Arena. Animo Stars Arena, a 2024 GDC Pitch Finalist, is a casual mech based shooter featuring animal pilots. GamesBeat

• Hawthorn, a co-op sandbox RPG of woodland animals and cozy village life, has ended its Kickstarter having raised $428,193, over double their $200k goal. The game project is brought to you by former Bioware and Bethesda developers at NEARstudios. LinkedIn

Spotlight: In the Workplace

• CWA and ZeniMax have reached a "historic tentative contract agreement". The Communications Workers of America (CWA) says the new contract sets new standards for the industry and includes "substantial across-the-board wage increases as well as new minimum salaries for workers", protections against arbitrary dismissal, grievance procedures, and crediting policy changes to properly credit QA worker contributions. Eurogamer

• Former Ubisoft executives appear in court following allegations of sexual harassment, workplace abuse, sexism, and violence. Events in question were to have taken place between 2012 and 2020. The three executives deny all charges. Serge Hascoet is accused of sexual harassment, bullying, and making sexual and sexist comments. Tommy Francois is accused of sexual harassment, bullying, and attempted sexual assault. Guillaume Patrux is accused of sexual harassment and bullying. Rock Paper Shotgun

Spotlight: 2025 Layoffs Continue

• People Can Fly canceled two projects and reduced its workforce. Projects Gemini was suspended due to its publisher "not present[ing] us with a draft of the subsequent content rider to the Publishing Agreement" and Project Bifrost for a lack of cash flow necessary to continue production and release of the project. Eurogamer

• Outplay Entertainment cut 15% of staff to "align operations with current business realities". The Scotland based mobile studio had previously employed 135 staff and developed the Subway Surfers Blast, Gordon Ramsay's Chef Blast, and Angry Birds Pop! licensed mobile games. GamesIndustry.biz

• Playtika reportedly cuts "as many as 160 jobs" affecting teams in Israel and Poland. Playtika previously reduced its staff by 10% in January 2024 and restructured last May. GamesIndustry.biz

• Job reductions at Jagex pause Project Zanaris. The project aimed to add community servers to Old School RuneScape. The job cuts were speculated by fans, who saw regular game update blog posts were missing developer names from the Runescape 3 team. Runescape mod JagexHooli confirmed the layoffs as a part of a company restructure. Eurogamer

Business News

• Neowiz signed global publishing rights to Shadowlight's inaugural game, Kill the Shadow. GamesIndustry.biz

• Forge launched GameLink and PayLink to test the market for direct-to-consumer games. Forge PayLink enables any game developer to link out from their existing in-app purchase flow and seamlessly integrate payment processing, without disrupting checkout. Games can list their SKUs directly on Forge GameLink for purchase, a dynamic and customizable landing hub for their game. Mobile games can link via PayLink to provide support for existing MOR and alternative payment options. GamesBeat

• Esports World Cup Foundation announced a 3-year collaboration with Amazon Ads. As part of the collab, the companies will work together to extend the reach of the Esports World Cup across the United States, Europe, Brazil, Mexico, the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey, India, and Canada. Content will be delivered through live broadcasts on Twitch, an original docuseries on Prime Video, real-time voice integrations on Alexa, and music-driven storytelling via Wondery. GamesBeat

Startups and Shutdowns

• Zynga will be shutting down Echtra Games four years after its acquisition. The San Francisco based studio had over 60 employees working on a new, unannounced ARPG. The studio will be fully shut down by the end of June. Eurogamer

M&A

• Scopely officially closed the $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic's games business. GamesIndustry.biz

Investments

• Six Welsh game developers secure a total of $1.1m Welsh Government funding to develop their pilots. Cloth Cat, COPA Gaming, Goldborough Studios, Rocket Science, Sugar Creative, and Wales Interactive have been awarded the funding to take their game projects from a pilot to a "substantial and self-sustaining model". GamesIndustry.biz

• Bertheussen IT has donated $50,000 to Norwegian games accelerator Spawn Point. The Wordfeud developer's investment will help support Spawn Point's ongoing expansion and goals to bring in more industry professionals and improve the games sector in Norway. GamesIndustry.biz

• Latent Technology raises $8M to change animation with generative physics. Founded in 2022, Latent Technology provides developers with new workflows to create emergent real-time animation behaviors with minimal input. The tech combines neural networks and physics, enabling characters to move and respond dynamically, in real-time. GamesBeat

• Emptyvessel expands Defect game with $11M raised to date. The company's debut game, Defect, has attracted over 1.9 million views on YouTube and work continues towards a gameplay reveal. The investment will enable Emptyvessel to scale for console development and single player support of Defect. NCSoft has teamed up with the startup for a long-term partnership; NC America CEO Jeonghee Jin (JJ) is joining Emptyvessel's board of directors. GamesBeat

• Tencent has acquired a 15.75% stake in Arrowhead games for $80m. The remaining 84.25% of shares are owned by Arrowhead founders Johan Pilestedt, Emil Englund, Malin Hedstrom, Peter Lindgren, and Anton Stenmark. The investment and bringing Tencent in as partial owners opens up opportunities in the Chinese market for the studio. Eurogamer

Market Insights

• Over 13 million players are expected to purchase a Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025, according to a new report from Ampere Analysis. GamesIndustry.biz

• Switch 2 eShop top sellers are being tracked now on the eShop charts. Check out what people are purchasing and playing on the new hardware via the link. Nintendo Life

• The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has published their 2025 Essential Facts About the Video Game Industry report. Among its findings include a small lift in female identifying gamers (+1%) vs. the prior year, an increase in mobile platform play (+5%), and an increase in console platform play (+6%). Hit the link for stats on game purchases, accessibility, behavior, and more. GamesIndustry.biz

• Elden Ring: Nightreign passes 3.5m players, according to a social media post by FromSoftware. Note - the definition of players is not shared across the industry and can describe anything from installs to logins to active users. GamesIndustry.biz

• Asia and MENA games market generates $86.6bn in 2024. Niko Partners' Market Model Reports, which cover 13 markets in Asia and MENA, predicts that the region will hit $96 billion by 2029. China grew by 3.6% year-on-year, generating $49.2 billion in 2024. India, the firm's fastest growing tracked market, is predicted to see an additional 250 million gamers in the next five years and will become a billion-dollar games market by the end of 2025. GamesIndustry.biz

• Dune Awakening hype continues to drive its sales growth. Dune Awakening has surpassed Elden Ring Nightreign and Counter-Strike 2 to nab the top spot on the Steam top seller's list as of 6/6/2025. The game hit a concurrent player peak over 37.8k during closed beta weekend and a peak of 93,634 on their first day of Headstart. Eurogamer

• The regularly posted Gacha Revenue Monthly report (Reddit) has been updated for May 2025. The top three gacha games by revenue, according to data pulled from Sensor Tower, include Love and Deepspace, Pokemon TCG Pocket, and Honkai: Star Rail. Reddit

Tech Innovations

• Dots.eco is a platform for real-world environmental rewards in games. Through the program, players can plant trees, protect wildlife, clean oceans, and more through reaching game milestones/achievements, purchasing game items, and completing game missions. Dots.eco is a partner in The Playing for the Planet Alliance, an initiative facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The program kicked off June 5 with 57 studios participating in its annual Green Game Jam. GamesBeat

• BMW Group has selected Unity Asset Manager to power its 3D asset management platform. BMW is using Unity’s cloud-based platform to managing its vast 3D asset libraries, address version control issues and inconsistent file formats, centralize and scale, and ease collaboration with partners. GamesBeat

• Nvidia claims Blackwell chips are leading benchmarks in training AI LLMs. On the Llama 2 70B LoRA fine-tuning benchmark, the tested system (with 8 GPUs) delivered 2.5 times more performance compared with a submission using the same number of GPUs in the prior round. GamesBeat

• Fortnite developer Epic will soon be letting players create their own AI-powered NPCs. Players will be able to use a new "Persona Device" to create AI NPCs. Players can select type of voice, delivery, and other characteristics. Rock Paper Shotgun

Government in Games

• Russian courts have seized Lesta Games' assets and founders of Lesta and Wargaming have been declared "members of an extremist organization". This follows Wargaming's public support of Ukraine after Russia invaded the country in 2022. Lesta Games was spun off into an unaffiliated company and had been authorized to operate Wargaming IPs in Russia, without any connection to Wargaming. MMORPG.com

• US court denies emergency motion issued by Apple in legal case against Epic Games. In response to the decision, Apple said it would continue to fight its case during appeals. GamesIndustry.biz

• Apple has less than 30 days to comply with the European Commission's DMA or face further penalties. According to the Commission ruling, Apple must update the App Store and enable app developers to link to external shops and payment methods to become compliant with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple has been in process on an appeal, claiming the decision is "bad for innovation, bad for competition, bad for our products, and bad for users". GamesIndustry.biz

• Nvidia's claims Huawei is picking up ex-Nvidia AI researchers as a result of the United States China chip export restrictions. The growth in AI researchers working in China from a third of the world's researchers to half has been forced by US export restrictions. Nvidia has also confirmed another $8 billion to be lost due to the restrictions of its h20 chips to China in Q2. PC Gamer

In memoriam: The Sims co-creator and former producer Tim LeTourneau has died. LeTourneau worked at Maxis/EA Maxis for thirteen years. LeTournou had also worked at Zynga, Warner Brothers, and most recently was employed at Fortis Games as a senior advisor. Among his credits are SimCity 3000, The Sims, The Sims 2, MySims, and FarmVille 2. Thanks for your work Tim, may you rest in peace. VentureBeat

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