Atari continues its spree of M&A deals. This time, it announced the acquisition of the studio Hipster Whale.

In the past couple of years, there’s been a noticeable trend on Steam towards what is called “friendslop”—visually unremarkable cooperative games for friends. While some developers are following this trend, Tolga Coşkun, the founder of the Turkish indie studio Dumbbell Games, considers the popularity of such titles a serious problem.

The gaming studio 155.io has signed a content partnership agreement with the iGaming company SOFTSWISS. As part of the deal, its games will become available through the SOFTSWISS Game Aggregator, and platform operators will gain access to the entire 155.io lineup, including Rush Hour, Ducks, and the recently released Snow Run.

He worked at the company for over 20 years.

The California Assembly approved a bill on online game preservation, Mina the Hollower has a budget of $5 million, and Path of Exile 2’s online presence on Steam increased more than 18 times thanks to a major update. Here are the main events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.

The British holding company TruFin has decided to sell its stake in Playstack—a publisher with a portfolio that includes Balatro, Abiotic Factor, Mortal Shell, and many other well-known games.

007 First Light — the first IO Interactive game in nearly 16 years set outside the Hitman universe. To mark the release, we have prepared a detailed analysis of the starting metrics of the new game, as well as compiled sales data from the studio’s previous projects for historical context.

Employees of Rockstar Games announced the launch of the Rockstar Game Workers Union. It includes specialists from offices in London, Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, and Leeds.

On July 9, a business conference for developers and publishers will take place in Moscow, titled “Gaming Industry.” Traditionally, the conference will host an exhibition of games by independent teams, as well as an indie pitch—presentations with project reviews by experts.

The game reached the one million mark in just under a month.

The Supreme Court of India has upheld the legality of the retrospective application of a 28% GST (Goods and Services Tax) on online gambling. The decision was made amidst disputes between tax authorities and gambling companies.

Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, participated in the K-Live podcast, during which he revealed the budget for the spy action game about a young James Bond, 007 First Light.

Polish company group CD PROJEKT reported its results for the first quarter of 2026. The group boasted excellent sales figures for The Witcher 3 and shared some details about the upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past.

The studio of Evgeny Grishakov, Garden of Dreams, boasted about the first major achievement of Meltopia — an adventure game where the objective is to melt snow with a thermal gun and search for mammoth remains.

The South Korean company KRAFTON has agreed to pay the studio Unknown Worlds a promised multimillion-dollar bonus. This was reported by sources from The Korea Economic Daily.

We continue to regularly publish video presentations from the “Gaming Industry” conference, which took place on April 22 in Minsk.

The advertising platform Buzzoola, owned by MTS, came to this conclusion.

Investment firm Yolo Investments has announced the launch of a new fund amounting to $250 million. The funds will be allocated to companies that attract investments within Series A-C funding rounds.

Last week, it became known that Bungie plans to conduct major layoffs. The studio was pushed to this decision after deciding to cease content support for its flagship, Destiny 2. Amidst a series of grim news, discussions began online suggesting that Bungie might cease to exist entirely. However, journalist and insider Jason Schreier disagrees with this notion.