The rating of the Elden Ring expansion on Steam dropped to “mixed” due to high difficulty, the creators of Second Wave announced the imminent closure of their studio, and the number of players in Microsoft Flight Simulator exceeded 15 million. Here is what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.

In January, Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu stated that the company would start using artificial intelligence more “aggressively” in game development. Six months later, it seems he no longer considers this such a good idea.

The Swedish holding company Embracer Group has reduced its debt to creditors. The company announced that it recently transferred 3.2 billion SEK (300 million USD) to them.

Sony has shown less interest in the virtual reality market, according to sources from Android Central. As per their information, the company has drastically reduced funding for VR game development.

The educational project WN Academy has launched a new initiative — WN Academy Business. It aims to solve specific business challenges for gaming companies by improving personnel qualifications.

Another top manager at Unity has decided to leave the company. This time, it is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Carol Carpenter.

The Canadian indie studio Cut to Bits has bid farewell to most of its employees. This was announced on social media by its co-founder and general manager Masao Kobayashi, who was also among those laid off.

On the night of June 20 to June 21, FromSoftware studio released the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring. After that, Elden Ring’s online presence on Steam jumped to 589,948 people.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy continues to attract players. Activision announced that the remake of the Crash Bandicoot trilogy has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik wrote in the company’s blog that gamers are showing significant interest in tinyBuild’s new releases. Since January 2024, their games have garnered over 3 million wishlists, with 1 million in the last month alone.

Embracer Group will be more actively using artificial intelligence (AI) in game creation. The company fears that if it rejects such technologies, it will be outpaced by competitors.

Gorilla Tag is a multiplayer VR game in which users can race, catch other players, and participate in slingshot shootouts as gorillas. According to the studio Another Axiom, Gorilla Tag has earned over $100 million in the three years of its existence.

Meta Corporation* has restructured the Reality Labs division, which focuses on mixed reality technologies. It has split it into two business groups: Metaverse and Wearables.

The Polish company CD PROJEKT has agreed on the amount of dividends for 2023. It will spend 99.91 million zloty or $24.8 million on payments to shareholders.

Atlus has announced that the sales of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance — the expanded version of the original fifth installment — have exceeded half a million copies. It took three days to achieve this.

Tripledot Studios became the owner of the Belarusian-rooted mobile studio Zephyr Mobile. The cost of the acquisition is unknown.

The Russian parliament advised the government to tighten control over video games and develop additional mechanisms for their examination. The parliamentarians believe that foreign states might use video games for propaganda among Russian gamers.

We continue our series of publications where experts from game companies talk about their professions. The new article in the series is about game designers. Two game designers from Glera Games — Natalia Sholina and Igor Petrov — shared detailed insights about the profession.

Tiny Glade is an enchanting simulator where players build castles on lawns without resource constraints. Indie studio Pounce Light announced that the project has been added to the wishlist of over one million Steam users.