[Last week in games] Nintendo And The Pokémon Company Are Suing Palworld Developer, TouchArcade is Shutting Down, and more news!
News in games that caught our eyes in the last week [16 to 22th of September 2024]
INDUSTRY NEWS
Cheap money and bad bets: How the games industry turned pandemic success into disaster (gamesindustry.biz)
Game hiring is slowing down again (venturebeat.com)
AI x Game Industry in 2025 - The Unspoken Part (deconstructoroffun.com)
Who killed TouchArcade? (mobilegamer.biz)
Australia sets new rules for games with loot boxes and gambling-like content (pocketgamer.biz)
Winners of the UK Best Places To Work Awards 2024 revealed (gamesindustry.biz)
INVESTOR
Kinetix launches $1M AI-UGC gaming fund (venturebeat.com)
Keywords Studios makes $18.7 million loss despite 6.6% revenue rise (pocketgamer.biz)
Campfire secures $3.95 million for AI-native gaming (pocketgamer.biz)
Dirt raises $2M from Mark Cuban and others for sensor-based measurement of player attention (venturebeat.com)
Team17 revenue rose 11% during H1 2024 (gamesindustry.biz)
Gamebeast raises $3.7 million in pre-seed funding (gamesindustry.biz)
Playtika to acquire Dice Dreams developer SuperPlay for up to $1.95 billion (pocketgamer.biz)
Ex-Redmart co-founder raises $2.8 m for kids' gaming venture (techinasia.com)
MARKET DATA
Diablo 4 Players Have Spent $150 Million On Skins And Microtransactions (kotaku.com)
Sandbox VR unveils Deadwood Phobia as Deadwood Valley crosses $52M in sales (venturebeat.com)
Less than 2% of mobile gamers make an in-app purchase (pocketgamer.biz)
Forge hits 1 million players and reveals new set of Web3 investors (venturebeat.com)
Unity: Global rewarded ad engagement rose by 3.2% in 2023 (pocketgamer.biz)
PS5 Pro to sell over 10m units with Asia & MENA playing a larger role (nikopartners.com)
Data digest: Netflix's GTA San Andreas hits 25m, Love and Deepspace spikes, insights from Unity, AppsFlyer, Niko, Perforce, more (mobilegamer.biz)
NEW GAMES
Miraibo GO lets you fulfil your mobile Palworld dreams, now open for pre-registration (pocketgamer.com)
Populus Run is making the jump to Google Play and the iOS App Store from Apple Arcade (pocketgamer.com)
Ex-Zynga Web3 team D20 Labs unveils social casino poker game (venturebeat.com)
Black Border 2 opens pre-registration on iOS and Android so you can put your contraband-busting powers to the test (pocketgamer.com)
Capybara Go! is the new game from Habby that's perfect for any Capybara maniacs out there (pocketgamer.com)
Squid Game Unleashed reportedly in beta test in India (pocketgamer.com)
Wordle is now available in virtual reality (theverge.com)
Lord of Nazarick is Crunchyroll's upcoming turn-based RPG based on Overlord, now open for pre-registration (pocketgamer.com)
Flappy Bird's comeback begins with a Telegram-only game that adds F2P and crypto elements (mobilegamer.biz)
Silver and Blood is a new fast-paced RPG from Moonton that's perfect for vampire fans out there (pocketgamer.com)
Disney Pixel RPG, the retro-inspired title, is set to release worldwide next month (pocketgamer.com)
Dice Route challenges your math skills across a minimalist puzzler, out now on iOS and Android (pocketgamer.com)
SpongeBob: Bubble Pop is out now on Netflix Games (pocketgamer.com)
El Paso, Elsewhere is a flashy, slo-mo run 'n gun shooter, out now on iOS (pocketgamer.com)
Super Tiny Football is a new, casual take on the other beautiful game, out now (pocketgamer.com)
Snaky Cat is a multiplayer cat royale out now in early access for Google Play (pocketgamer.com)
Hexagon Auto Battle is a party-building roguelike where strategy is key (pocketgamer.com)
Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice opens global pre-registrations for the icy city-building survival sim (pocketgamer.com)
Rubik's Match 3 mixes up the classic cube-based puzzle with mobile genre conventions (pocketgamer.com)
PUBLISHER NEWS
Annapurna Interactive team quits after spin-off talks fail (gamesindustry.biz)
Absurd Ventures launches new studio with Ascendant Studios staff (gamesindustry.biz)
Warcraft Rumble and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile teams hit by Microsoft cuts (mobilegamer.biz)
Flappy Bird's creator confirms he has nothing to do with its comeback (mobilegamer.biz)
TouchArcade is Shutting Down (toucharcade.com)
UK VR games developer nDreams set to lay off up to 17.5% of staff (pocketgamer.biz)
IBM wins $44.9m in infringement lawsuit against Zynga (gamesindustry.biz)
Scopely aims to retain employees after scrapping unannounced project (pocketgamer.biz)
Saber Interactive secures investors to help clear debt to Embracer (gamesindustry.biz)
Supercell teams up with Hasbro to bring Transformers to Squad Busters (pocketgamer.biz)
The Minecraft studio and Minecraft YouTuber looking to transform sandbox gaming (gamesindustry.biz)
Ubisoft targets staff to be in the office at least three days a week (gamesindustry.biz)
EA expects to "outpace market growth" through to 2027 (gamesindustry.biz)
EA aims to double audience to over 1 billion in 5 years (venturebeat.com)
Electronic Arts goes deep into artificial intelligence for game development (venturebeat.com)
The Pokémon Company wins $15m copyright lawsuit against Chinese Pokémon clone (gamesindustry.biz)
Metacore ends Everdale development and returns IP to Supercell (pocketgamer.biz)
EA only plans to make “concentrated bets” in mobile following a flurry of cancellations (mobilegamer.biz)
Kabam to shut down Disney Mirrorverse after making $34m in mobile revenue (pocketgamer.biz)
EA to "disrupt the sequel model" by dropping sequential release for the Sims (gamesindustry.biz)
EA working with Amazon MGM Studios on The Sims movie (pocketgamer.biz)
Nintendo And The Pokémon Company Are Suing Palworld Developer (kotaku.com)