The gaming company Azur Games has announced the start of its expansion into the market of “real money gambling and skill-based products.” They have launched a division called Azur iGaming, which will publish projects in these genres.

The “Green Labeling” of video games, announced last week, uncovered contradictions between the existing young gaming associations in Russia. This has escalated into an open conflict and accusations.

In 2024, gaming companies are downsizing much more aggressively than a year ago. According to the Game Industry Layoffs portal, 10,425 specialists were laid off in the industry from January to May. This is just 41 people fewer than for all of 2023.

According to media reports, Take-Two decided to get rid of Private Division, the budget for Bend Studio’s new game may exceed $250 million, and NVIDIA announced an AI assistant to help with game navigation. Here’s a recap of what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.

Supercell’s new hit is earning superbly. On May 30, Squad Busters’ daily revenue from IAP amounted to $989.8 thousand, according to data from the analytics service AppMagic.

The Microsoft Corporation signed a labor neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA, the American union for communications workers) concerning ZeniMax Media employees. The company has pledged to support unions within its subsidiary.

The New York Times, which owns the word game Wordle, is suing the developer of the puzzle game Worldle, Kory McDonald. The reason is the names and concepts of the games are too similar.

The investment group GEM Capital has announced new deals. This time, they supported three Cyprus-based studios: Weappy, VEA Games, and Game Garden.

On April 25, the Russian studio Cats Who Play released the real-time strategy game “Frontline” in early access. Creative Director Vitaly Shoutov shared the project’s success on his VKontakte account.

On the night of May 31, Konami held a presentation for Silent Hill Transmission. The event was mainly dedicated to the remake of Silent Hill 2, but during it, the company also mentioned the latest figures for downloads of the free horror Silent Hill: The Short Message.

Todd Howard, the head of Bethesda Game Studios, gave an interview to Variety. He shared that in less than two months after the premiere of the Amazon series, the number of daily active users in the Fallout franchise games increased by 600% and exceeded 5 million people.

Analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana calculated that the Xbox Series is selling 13% worse in the American market than the Xbox One did at the same point in its lifecycle and is “slightly” trailing in sales compared to the Xbox 360.

Apple regularly removes from its App Store products that do not meet App Store requirements. Recently, it reported that it removed 116,117 apps last year, 15% of which were games.

The Shanghai Intellectual Property Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man named Jin Xin against Apple in 2021. Jin claimed that the company abused its market position by imposing a high commission of 30% on iOS app developers, which ultimately led to increased spending by users.

A new gaming company has emerged in Cyprus. Industry veterans Alexander Zaitsev, Anton Sinelnikov, and Alexander Kravchuk have launched a studio named Juicy Button Games.

Russia may launch several experiments simultaneously on game labeling, writes “Kommersant.” The Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry (ODVI) and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia are preparing their own projects.

During a business presentation, Sony also revealed that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has been purchased over 11 million times. The game reached this milestone on April 20.

In two weeks, on June 11-12, the next WN Conference will take place in Turkey. The main version of the program is already available on the event’s website. Here we highlight what to pay attention to.

A court in the USA has sided with Activision in a case against the portals EngineOwning, Garnatz Enterprise, and 11 individuals involved in selling cheats. The court has ordered them to pay the company $14.4 million in compensation and an additional $292.9 thousand in attorney fees.