Five years ago, hyper-casual games were already released. Then one of the first studios in this market was St. Petersburg AYA games. In 2015, she worked with Ketchapp. Today the studio creates hits with Voodoo. Collected 30 million installations in March-May Draw Joust! — one of them. We talked with its founders about how the market and the studio itself have changed over this period. By Artem Merenfeld and Yaroslav Rudakov.

In March, the developer Star Theory Games closed. Before that, he lost his contract with the publisher Take-Two. The studio went bankrupt after the publisher poached half of its staff.

Developers will be able to receive 90% of revenue in MY.GAMES Store. But this only applies to the spending of users, whom the authors of the game brought themselves.

The Black Lives Matter movement affected the schedule of gaming events in June. Companies are massively canceling and rescheduling events as a sign of support for the protests in the United States.

The media once again report on Unity Technologies‘ plans to hold an initial public offering (IPO) in 2020. The company’s valuation may be $6.3 billion.

Homescapes developer continues to expand its portfolio of internal studios. Today it became known that the company Playrix bought the hiddenov developer Cateia Games from Croatia.

Paradox Interactive employees will be taken care of by two leading Swedish trade unions at once. The publisher will sign an agreement with Unionen and SACO organizations.

The Angry Birds developer has taken up M&A again. The company acquired a mobile developer from Denmark — Darkfire Games, formerly known as Wargaming Denmark.

Humble Bundle joined the gaming companies that supported the protests in the United States. Stor will launch a $1 million fund to publish games from black developers.

Sega has announced the re-release of the retro Game Gear console. The new device is called Game Gear Micro. And it’s very tiny!

The head of Bohemia Interactive, Marek Spanel, denied its acquisition by Tencent. The Czech studio remains independent.

Tencent has acquired another major asset in the West. The giant got a controlling share of Bohemia Interactive, according to The Information.

WN Media Group has announced a four-day online conference for gaming specialists. It’s called Talents in Games Online. Its start is scheduled for next Monday.

Today, on June 3, at 13.00 Moscow time, a new broadcast will take place on the WN Hub. This time it is dedicated to hyper-casual games. Developers, publishers and marketers will discuss the future of the niche, as well as discuss how the COVID-19 situation has affected hyper-casual games.

All the gaming deals for the past week in one material.

Wanted: ASO-manager at ZiMAD, VFX-artist at Axlebolt and C++ programmer at Friday’s Games.

At the end of May, it became known that a set of amendments to the laws on digital financial assets and digital currency is being prepared in Russia. Due to the controversial wording, this may lead to the fact that the courts will be able to recognize in—game currencies as real digital ones,” he said in a comment for App2Top.ru Roman Lukyanov, Managing Partner of Semenov &Pevzner Law Firm.

At the end of April, MRGV turned three years old. We decided that this was a great opportunity to talk to its managing director Ilya Karpinsky about the relationship between developers and publishers.

Facebook is suing the company “Eco” from St. Petersburg. The latter has owned the Oculus brand for five years and can produce video games, medicines and other types of goods under it.