The Art Of Struggle.

A number of developers appear to be speaking out about the quality of support (or lack thereof) from Sony in regards to pricing and placing games on the PlayStation store.

As with all things happening on Twitter you have to pick through a few threads to find the key details, but the gist is this: numerous developers are alleging that Sony offers little support when indie developers want to put their games on sale or meaningfully promote their game in the PlayStation store at launch.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384410/Developers_express_ire_over_PlayStations_promotional_policies.php

Turkish mobile studio Dream Games has raised $155 million in Series B funding to continue supporting its debut title, Royal Match.

The latest funding round was led by Index Ventures and Makers Fund, and means Dream is now valued at $1 billion. The Istanbul-based company was established by a group of former Peak Games employees in 2019 and had already raised $50 million in March this year.

Dream CEO and co-founder Soner Aydemir explained the cash will be used to "grow [Royal Match] everywhere," with the match-3 puzzler having climbed into the top-20 grossing charts in the UK, US, and Germany within three months of launch while also racking up over 6 million monthly active users.

"We are very focused on making great games that appeal to all types of players across the globe," said Aydemir. "We are very proud of the early success of Royal Match and will utilize the investment to grow the game everywhere. We are very excited about our investors’ confidence in the potential for Dream Games."

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384428/Mobile_studio_Dream_Games_nets_155_million_in_funding_at_1_billion_valuation.php

Wildlife Studios has opened a new Los Angeles studio called Foxbear Games that will be led by former Marvel Strike Force game director Jonathan Durr.

The mobile game company explained that Foxbear will operate independently and work to create RPG titles that bring different audiences to the genre.

The news comes a few months after Wildlife opened two other studios in Never Forget Games and SuperWow Games, meaning the company now has three in-house studios under its umbrella.

Source

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384437/Wildlife_taps_former_Marvel_Strike_Force_director_to_lead_new_studio_Foxbear_Games.php

July 1, 2021 | By Chris Kerr

Drop Fake, a new studio helmed by former EA vice president Katherine de Leon, has raised $9 million to develop multiplayer social games that move people, starting with a cross-platform 4X strategy title for PC and mobile.

As reported by GamesBeat, the studio was established with the remit of championing authenticity and diversity in both its game projects and company culture.

Source:

July 1, 2021 | By Chris Kerr

he makers of VRChat have picked up $80 million in funding in a round of Series D investments led by Anthos Capital, with participation from Makers Fund, GFR Fund, and other investors.

Per a press release, the company said it intends to build on the services currently used by over 40,000 concurrent users.

The $80M will be used to “expedite development of a creator economy,” develop a “social discovery system for more meaningful experiences,” and expand the software to other VR platforms.

VRChat has stood out as a somewhat unexpected success in the VR World—it’s not a game, but a social space where users can goof around and socialize using custom-made, sometimes copyright-skirting avatars.

The platform has risen to mainstream attention on a number of occasions—including after the 2020 election—where a group of users recreated the site of former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s ill-fated election press conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Landscaping in Philadelphia.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384176/VRChat_scoops_up_80_million_in_funding_with_help_from_Anthos_Capital.php

Mobile developers will soon be able to reach PC audiences with little added effort on their part thanks to a new feature announced for Microsoft's upcoming operating system, Windows 11.

For the first time, Windows will allow its users to download and run Android apps directly to their PC via the official Microsoft store app launching with Windows 11. Interestingly, Android-maker Google doesn't seem to be particularly involved in the process.

Instead, the Microsoft Store will directly host games and apps from the Amazon Appstore, Amazon's partially third-party storefront most commonly seen on Android and Amazon's own Fire devices.

June 24, 2021 | By Alissa McAloon

Microsoft has told The Verge a new policy change that allows Microsoft Store developers to keep 100 percent of revenue from payments made via their own or third-party systems won't apply to video games.

Yesterday we noted that Microsoft would be allowing developers to use their own or third-party commerce platforms within the redesigned Microsoft Store without paying Microsoft any fees -- essentially letting them keep every single drop of revenue if they choose to go that route.

While it's still a notable policy change, the Xbox maker has confirmed that game developers won't be able to take advantage of it when it comes into effect on July 28, although the company didn't offer an explanation as to why.

It's an interesting stance given Microsoft recently outlined plans to offer Microsoft Store game developers an 88 percent revenue share from August 1, 2020,  marking a fairly sizeable increase on the 70 percent split it currently offers.

At the time, Xbox Games Studios head Matt Booty said the upswing was designed to encourage developers to "bring more games to more players, and find commercial success from doing so."

That policy, however, wasn't extended to game developers on Xbox consoles, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella suggesting that higher platform fees make sense on consoles because the hardware itself is being subsidized by Microsoft.

Source

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384131/Everybody_but_game_devs_can_earn_more_on_the_Microsoft_Store_starting_July_28.php

June 25, 2021 | By Chris Kerr

Two leakers have been told to pay The Pokemon Company a sizable $150,000 each in damages along with attorneys' fees after taking and uploading photographs of an unreleased Pokemon Sword and Shield strategy guide to the internet back in 2019.

As reported by Polygon, The Pokemon Company initially filed the lawsuit because the leaks revealed some unannounced features and information including the Gigantamax forms of certain Pokemon.

The company was unsure who was responsible for the leaks when it filed the suit, but after an investigation has named the culprits as Bryan Garcia Cruz and David Andino Maisonave, the latter of whom worked at the company hired to print copies of the strategy guide, LSC Communications.

"Defendant (David Andino Maisonave) took pictures of The Pokemon Company's unreleased strategy guide on or about November 1, 2019. Defendant shared the illicit pictures of the strategy guide with a friend who also knew defendant Bryan Garcia Cruz," reads a court filing.

"Defendant's friend shared the pictures of the Strategy Guide in a group chat that included Mr. Cruz. Mr. Cruz then posted the pictures taken by Defendant on the Internet."

In its original lawsuit, The Pokemon Company said the leaks -- which spread around the internet despite being met with takedown requests -- had resulted in actual damages, lost profits, and reputational damage.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/383988/Pokemon_leakers_told_to_pay_150000_each_in_damages_to_The_Pokemon_Company.php

June 23, 2021 | By Chris Kerr

Microsoft has quietly announced that its special refund provisions for CD Projekt Red's infamous Cyberpunk 2077 are coming to a close due to improvements made to the game since its catastrophic December launch.

The Xbox maker, along with PlayStation and CD Projekt itself, rolled out a special refund policy following Cyberpunk 2077's debut in late 2020 when it was rapidly discovered that the console versions of the game weren't functioning nearly as well as advertised.

According to a support page update, Cyberpunk 2077 will instead start to use the company's standard refund policy for digital games as of July 6.

"The team at CD Projekt Red continues to work hard to improve the experience of Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox players and has made a number of updates," reads Microsoft's note. "Given these updates, Microsoft will be returning to our standard digital game refund policy for Cyberpunk 2077 on July 6 for both new and existing purchases."

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384036/Microsofts_special_Cyberpunk_2077_refund_policy_ends_July_6.php

June 23, 2021 | By Alissa McAloon

Steam's regional pricing feature allows devs to sell games for different prices depending on where the purchaser is located, a utility that aims to scale each game's price to better match income in different countries throughout the world.

While the system makes buying reasonably priced games a possibility for people in countries where $60 USD is an unreasonable sum, the well-intended feature also makes it possible for Steam users to purchase games way below the going rate for their actual country of residence.

Steam's latest change aims to make regional pricing much harder to abuse by decreasing how many times Steam users can change their account's location.

Changes spotted by the folks at SteamDB note that, moving forward, an account's country can only be changed once every 3 months. This follows other changes over the years meant to cut down on unscrupulous use of regional pricing such as requiring an account's location to match that of its payment method.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/384037/Steams_latest_change_aims_to_prevent_buyers_from_gaming_regional_pricing.php

June 23, 2021 | By Alissa McAloon