More than a third of teenagers and young people in the UK start buying loot boxes at the age of 13. Many of them spend their parents’ money without permission. In some cases, children’s gambling addiction drives their families into debt and forces them to mortgage property.In recent years, more and more organizations in the UK have been paying attention to the problem of loot boxes and their accessibility for children and adolescents.

Hyper-casual publisher Voodoo continues to show impressive results. In 2020 alone, users downloaded his games more than two billion times.

Not only Apple reduces the commission for developers with low income. The Chinese gaming store WeGame — a local analogue of Steam — said that it would not take deductions from games whose annual revenue is below 10 million rubles ($ 1.5 million).

He spoke about new trends in marketing and the company’s successes on the mobile sceneAlexander Derkach, Marketing Director of Playrix.

Apple‘s IDFA policy hasn’t officially started working yet, but it looks like some developers decided to play it safe. iOS 14 users said that they have already encountered pop-ups requesting permission for monitoring.

Indie publisher Raw Fury decided to take up educational activities. The company shared a sample of the publishing contract that developers sign when working with it. At the same time, the publisher launched a hub with a set of other useful templates.

As a result of the purchase of the Chinese company Leyou Technologies, several game studios came under the management of Tencent at once. Among them are Digital Extremes, the creators of the Warframe shooter. Now many are concerned about the question of whether developers will retain their creative independence.The deal, which was approved by 97.7% of Leyou shareholders, became known in the middle of the month.

Pavel Livshits, Regional Business Development / Growth at AppsFlyer, spoke about important trends in the mobile marketing market. 

One of the most significant transactions of December took place. Israeli developer and publisher Moon Active, known for the cash blockbuster Coin Master, announced the purchase of Belarusian Melsoft, noted for mobile hits Family Island and MyCafe.

This year, users supported video game developers on Kickstarter for a total of $22.9 million. The continuation of the Russian RPG Pathfinder got into the top three in terms of fees. However, this is still several times less than the crowdfunding fees of board games.This became known from the material that was published on the Polygon portal.

Direct replenishment of the wallet on Steam may not be available for some users from the beginning of next year. It’s all about “changes in Russian legislation.”

What legal issues should you pay attention to when releasing the game, — he said Anton Wise, Legal Advisor at Alawar.

Wanted: a level designer at MY.GAMES, Unity-a Middle-level developer at VIM Digital, a community manager at Plarium and a UI/UX designer at WN Media Group.

Large-scale refands failed to spoil the sales statistics for Cyberpunk 2077. According to CD Projekt estimates, ten days after the release, more than 13 million copies of the title were sold on all platforms.

The esports organization Team 33 has signed a contract with an 8-year-old Fortnite player. Many considered the transaction with such a small child illegal, but the organization itself believes that it does not violate labor laws regarding minors.Joseph Dean

Vasily Maguryan, CEO of MY.GAMES, spoke about the growing interest of the market in “women’s” games in his results.

The end of 2020 is not far off. In honor of this, our colleagues from GamesIndustry showed the final figures of the gaming industry in their infographic.

On December 31, a new digital payment authentication policy will come into effect in Europe. It will also affect the App Store. Apple told developers how to prepare for changes.

Nordisk Games has acquired 40% of the MercurySteam studio, known for the game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. This is the first deal of a Danish company outside the Nordic countries.The exact size of the deal was not disclosed, but Nordisk Games calls this amount “significant”.