In May 2021, Americans spent almost $4.5 billion on video games, hardware and accessories, according to a new report by NPD Group analysts. Among the best-selling games of the month in the USA were Resident Evil Village and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Yesterday, June 13, Microsoft and Square Enix held their conferences as part of E3 2021. We understand how the stock market and the gaming community reacted to them.

The Chinese giant Tencent decided to support the local indie studio GSQ Games and bought 10% of its shares. The amount and terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Publisher Kalypso Media, known for the games of the Tropico and Patrician series, announced a price reduction for its titles. Now all new projects of the German company will be sold for $10 cheaper. This was made possible thanks to a significant increase in sales in the “digit”.Kalypso Media announced this on June 11 on its official website.

The opening ceremony of Summer Game Fest was held yesterday. At it, Koch Media, a subsidiary of the Embracer Group, presented a publishing label — Prime Matter. However, neither the launch of a new publisher nor the announcement of its games impressed investors.

The official release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, a new PlayStation 5 exclusive, took place today. The project received rave reviews from critics, and the average score on Metacritic was 89/100 based on almost 100 reviews. Rift Apart is called perhaps the most beautiful game for today and is praised for using new technologies, but at the same time criticized for outdated gameplay in places.

E3 and similar events have been criticized for years by both ordinary viewers and people from the industry. On the eve of the new exhibition, a big emotional thread on this topic was written by the head of Raw Fury and a scouting specialist Johan Toresson. He explained why developers and publishers should stop spending money on big events.Toresson’s thread appeared in response to criticism of the E3 media portal by Matt Brown, senior editor…

Apple has named the winners of the Apple Design Award, which is awarded to mobile applications and games for the best design. This year, four games became finalists, among which there is Genshin Impact.

Supercell has started issuing licenses for its brands to teams in which it had previously invested. A few days ago, a new project in the Boom Beach universe was released in softlonch. It is made by Space Ape Games, a British studio known for Clash of Clans clones.

The studio Mythical Games, which developed the online game Blankos Block Party, has raised $ 75 million for the development of its business and the development of new projects. The company relies on so-called “playable NFTs”, allowing players to buy and sell characters created by them.Blankos Block Party

Yesterday, US President Joe Biden revoked the orders of his predecessor Donald Trump, who demanded to ban TikTok, WeChat and a number of other Chinese applications in the country. Instead, he ordered to carefully study all applications from “foreign opponents” and assess their danger.

Many Chinese gaming companies have rather harsh working conditions — specialists work six days a week from 9 am to 9 pm. However, Lightspeed & Quantum studio, owned by Tencent and developed PUBG Mobile, decided to fight crunches. To do this, she made a number of small concessions for her employees.This was reported by analyst Daniel Ahmad.

Roblox allows users to embed special players into the games they create, through which music can be played. Major music labels don’t like it. They accuse the company of lost profits and demand at least $200 million in compensation.The lawsuit against Roblox was filed in the Central District Court of California, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Google has allowed Android developers to register in a program that reduces the commission for a portion of the amount earned on Google Play to 15%. At the same time, she told about the conditions of participation.

January-March was very successful for the hyper-casual genre. Its quarterly downloads increased by 76% compared to October-December 2020. The number of sessions also increased by 36%.

The mobile gaming advertising market is going through a bad time. In many regions of the world, there was a significant reduction in the number of mobile game advertisers and creatives in May.

The Finnish gaming organization Neogames has prepared a report on how 2020 went for the Finnish video game industry. Its total turnover increased by 9% and reached the level of €2.4 billion. Despite the fact that mobile remained the main platform for local developers, more and more studios began to make games for consoles.

LoopMe and IDC presented a joint study on the prospects of mobile gaming after the end of the pandemic. Companies have concluded that record activity will fall by a quarter in the next couple of years. Mobile market revenue growth is also expected to slow significantly after a record 2020.The study is based on a survey that involved 3,850 smartphone users from the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Brazil and Singapore.

The “White Nights” are returning to Northern Venice. WN Media Group shared details of the upcoming summer session of WN St. Petersburg. It will be held offline (but there will also be an online part on the WN Hub). There will also be an exhibition of developers, a pre-party and a big party at the Flying Dutchman.