[Last week in games] Scopely: From $1B to $10B in 5 Years, Supercell’s first-ever chief marketing officer departs, and more news!
News in games that caught our eyes in the last week [October 14 to October 20 2024]
INDUSTRY NEWS
Pokémon developer Game Freak suffers massive data leak (polygon.com)
2024 UA Playbook: Diversifying beyond traditional channels and the rise of rewarded play (pocketgamer.biz)
Chip industry faces talent shortage as revenues head to $1 trillion (venturebeat.com)
Opening up Google Play offers publishers a three-year window to change mobile gaming (gamesindustry.biz)
Expanding The 4X Audience: Lessons From Last War And Whiteout Survival (appmagic.rocks)
Microsoft settles antitrust lawsuit over Activision Blizzard acquisition (gamesindustry.biz)
Games Done Quick raises over $45,000 for hurricane relief (gamesindustry.biz)
700+ Ubisoft France staff walk out on a three-day strike in dispute over home working and pay (gamesindustry.biz)
Unity 6 goes live: Under the hood of the game engine's latest AI, web and mobile tools (pocketgamer.biz)
Games VC funding is stabilizing, but growth-stage funding is up (venturebeat.com)
INVESTOR
UAE-based Web3 gaming startup PiP World lands $10 million in seed funding (pocketgamer.biz)
Accel-backed Jetapult invests $4.5M in Saudi Arabian game studio UMX (venturebeat.com)
MENA investments recovers after 63 startups raised $282 million in September (pocketgamer.biz)
UMX Studio secures $4.5 million investment from Jetapult to expand portfolio (pocketgamer.biz)
Krafton leads investment round in India studio Deftouch to scale King and develop new games (pocketgamer.biz)
Lidwave raises $10M to improve machine vision with on-chip 4D LiDAR (venturebeat.com)
Loot Labs raises $6 million in Bitkraft-led seed round towards digital collectables platform (pocketgamer.biz)
Ex-Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes GM on raising $42m and building the fourth generation of mobile RPGs at Azra (pocketgamer.biz)
Gladia raises $16M for AI transcription and analytics (venturebeat.com)
Windwalk raises $4.5 million and launches "superfan" social software platform Harbor (pocketgamer.biz)
Indian publisher Deftouch secures undisclosed investment to scale up portfolio (gamesindustry.biz)
Live Aware Labs secures $4.8m in seed funding round (gamesindustry.biz)
Node.vc raises $77.3M for new fund backed by 70 Nordic entrepreneurs (venturebeat.com)
Magic Leap founder is back with $20M funding round for SynthBee (venturebeat.com)
MARKET DATA
Football wins two months in a row as Madden sweeps August sales (venturebeat.com)
August spending drops 7% to $4.1bn despite Madden and mobile success (gamesindustry.biz)
Against the Storm has sold 1.2m copies (gamesindustry.biz)
Metaphor: ReFantazio sells 1m (gamesindustry.biz)
Disney Pixel RPG hits one million downloads a week after launch (pocketgamer.com)
Southeast Asia's mobile game downloads hit 4.2 billion in 2024 (pocketgamer.biz)
Niko Partners: Genshin Impact surpasses $5 billion on mobile in China (pocketgamer.biz)
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero sells 3m copies in 24 hours (gamesindustry.biz)
Report: In-game spending by children decreases to €31 (gamesindustry.biz)
UAE games market revenue could reach $492 million by 2027 (pocketgamer.biz)
Data digest: Wild Rift, Brawl Stars and Genshin numbers, Funplus adds 50 staff, Azra gets $43m, US market stats and more (mobilegamer.biz)
Circana: 71% of US engage with video games (gamesindustry.biz)
Silent Hill 2 Remake Has Already Sold Over A Million Copies (kotaku.com)
Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade hits 5 million pre-registrations for the upcoming RPG, with more rewards up for grabs (pocketgamer.com)
Resident Evil 4 Remake tops 8 million copies sold (gamesindustry.biz)
NEW GAMES
New games digest: Resident Evil 2, The Stanley Parable, Grid Legends, Dredge, Disney Pixel RPG and more (mobilegamer.biz)
Starship Troopers: Extermination debuts on console and PC (venturebeat.com)
The Rise of the Golden Idol, a sequel to the award-winning detective series, is releasing soon (pocketgamer.com)
A new Destiny game set in an alternate timeline is coming to mobile (polygon.com)
Pocket Necromancer is a wacky RPG where you lead the undead, now available on Android and iOS (pocketgamer.com)
Duskfall is a brand-new indie take on the Wizardrylike, out now (pocketgamer.com)
Report: Overwatch Mobile is in development (pocketgamer.biz)
Eldrum: Black Dust pre-registration now open, the third title in the popular text-based RPG series (pocketgamer.com)
Heaven Burns Red pre-registration opens, with plenty of milestone rewards up for grabs (pocketgamer.com)
Golden Spatula pre-registration opens, inviting you to check out the League of Legends-based auto-battler (pocketgamer.com)
DC Heroes United is an upcoming narrative-driven game where big choices are decided by player vote (pocketgamer.com)
Marvel Mystic Mayhem is an upcoming tactical RPG that transports you into the hellish nightmares of your favourite superheroes (pocketgamer.com)
Let Matthew McConaughey tell you about the scariest shit in ex-BioWare devs new sci-fi RPG (polygon.com)
Go Go Muffin opens pre-registration ahead of upcoming closed beta test (pocketgamer.com)
SuperGaming launches Indus Battle Royale mobile esports game (venturebeat.com)
Age of Empires Mobile officially launches, bringing the iconic franchise to mobile with optimised features (pocketgamer.com)
Ben 10 Alien Run is an endless runner featuring your favourite aliens and locations (pocketgamer.com)
PUBLISHER NEWS
Ex-Disco Elysium devs form Longdue, focused on "innovation and trailblazing, not replication" (gamesindustry.biz)
The Xbox Mobile App will allow you to buy and play games directly from later this year (pocketgamer.com)
Summer Eternal is yet another new studio founded by former Disco Elysium developers (gamesindustry.biz)
From $1B to $10B in 5 Years – Scopely’s Journey to Mobile Game Success (deconstructoroffun.com)
Indie game Antonblast delayed by hurricanes (gamesindustry.biz)
Bandai Namco is reportedly cutting workforce following cancellation of "several" titles (gamesindustry.biz)
Riot Games "eliminates" 32 League of Legends roles (gamesindustry.biz)
Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium smashes Kickstarter goal on day one (venturebeat.com)
Supercell’s first-ever chief marketing officer departs (pocketgamer.biz)
Play unveils Build Play development platform for Web3 games (venturebeat.com)
EA pulls Plants Vs Zombies 3 from stores for "major overhaul" (mobilegamer.biz)
Xsolla and Uzbekistan's IT Park sign deal to open game development academy in 2025 (pocketgamer.biz)
Former Edge veterans launch new games publication On (gamesindustry.biz)
Former Assassin's Creed director to lead FunPlus' new Portuguese studio, Studio Ellipsis (gamesindustry.biz)
Stillfront CEO and founder Larsson ousted amid restructure at Swedish roll-up firm (mobilegamer.biz)