The Japanese rating agency CERO will resume work this week. In April, the organization went into quarantine for coronavirus, freezing the issuance of ratings for console and desktop games.

Sensor Tower has raised $45 million through a new strategic partnership. The service became a partner of the private investment firm Riverwood Capital.

Another studio has attracted strategic investments from AppLovin. The marketing network has invested in Redemption Games, launched by the authors of Cookie Jam.

Project xCloud streaming service will be combined with Xbox Game Pass. According to the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, this will happen before the end of the year.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 quarantine, Russians have been showing increasing interest in games and, in particular, in esports. This conclusion is made by industry representatives interviewed by Kommersant.

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

Before the release of Half-Life: Alyx, it was predicted that the game would attract new VR users to Steam. And so it turned out. But the percentage of VR helmet owners is still insignificant: only 1.9% of all Steam players.

The introduced isolation has led to an increase in the audience of video games, as well as to an increase in their sales. In turn, we decided to find out if there is a similar trend in Russia with regard to gaming and entertainment media. To do this, we interviewed key market participants.

The coronavirus crisis has hit Kickstarter. The crowdfunding platform will lay off up to 45% of its staff due to a sharp reduction in revenue.

LocalizeDirect has analyzed the game localization market. Her new report lists the most popular languages in the industry for 2020. Spoiler: Russian is one of the most popular.

Russian film director Timur Bekmambetov “entered” the games. His technology startup has created a browser title about COVID-19.

In the era of the coronavirus, Twitch has become even more in demand. And streamers use it. Since February, 89% more videos containing messages from sponsors have appeared on the site.

Microsoft reported for the 3rd quarter of fiscal year 2020. Its gaming division does not shine with success. Its quarterly revenue is $2.3 billion, but the growth rate is rather negative.

Game Division Mail.Ru The Group has announced plans to publish hyper-casual projects. By the end of the year, the company is going to invest up to $10 million in this direction.

Today, Playrix has officially announced the worldwide release of a new game. For the first time in a long time, it’s not three-in-a-row. The novelty is called Manor Matters. This is a free-play game in the genre of “hidden object” (hidden object).

Semenov&Pevzner Law Firm has prepared a large-scale report on the largest legal conflicts in the gaming industry over the past six months.

The British studio Jagex, known for RuneScape, has changed its owner. A Chinese group of companies sold it along with another asset to an American fund. The deal cost the Americans $530 million.

Converting a user into a paying player is one of the most difficult tasks. At the same time, it will not be possible to radically increase their share. More than 4% of the total audience is unlikely to happen anyway. Therefore, Facebook recommends taking a closer look at the hybrid monetization model today. This is when there is advertising in the game, in addition to IAP. The video tells about how to implement such a…

The WN Hub digital game dev platform continues to work. Here you will find the schedule of the site’s online lectures for Wednesday, April 29.