On May 15, the Tagansky District Court in Moscow held the first hearing in the case of Malik Khatazhaev, the owner of the “Lesta Games” group of companies. A month ago, the top manager was accused of extremism. The hearing was conducted in a closed format, despite the request from the developer of “World of Tanks” and “World of Warships” for an open hearing.

The Chinese giant Tencent also released its report for the first quarter of 2025. We have highlighted the main points from the document.

The funding round was led by Play Ventures. Studio 42 also received investments from GEM Capital and Arcadia Gaming Partners.

The first three months of 2025 marked a period of revenue growth for NetEase. In its quarterly report, the Chinese company reported an increase in all key metrics and confirmed that its gaming division remains the most profitable.

On the night of May 15, the full release of DOOM: The Dark Ages took place. Prior to that, for two days, only owners of the premium edition were able to play the new game. The launch figures for the shooter on Steam are promising.

The mentioned amount is planned to be invested over the next 12-24 months.

On the evening of May 14, Ubisoft shared the financial results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2025. Apparently, investors were not very pleased with what they heard: by the morning of the next day, the company’s stock price had dropped by 20.6% to €9.27 per share.

In June, a multiplayer third-person shooter Bullet Yeeters will be released on Steam. App2Top conducted a short interview with Alexey Doroshev, co-founder of Yeeters Team, to discuss how much the game cost the team and why Concord failed.

Anatoly Vyborny, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, believes that the Russian authorities should penalize gaming companies whose projects contain anti-Russian content. He is preparing corresponding amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses.

The economic upheavals of recent years have not only forced top managers of gaming companies to continuously seek new ways to cut costs but have also negatively impacted regular employees. Unions are intended to protect developers’ interests, but in their current form, they are unable to make a global impact on the situation.

Over the past 10 years, Valve’s annual income from game sales commissions on Steam has almost tripled, calculated analyst Aldora Joost van Dreunen. If in 2015 the company earned $1.1 billion from this, last year it was already $3.2 billion.

One of Steam’s partners may have fallen victim to a hacker attack, according to Underdark AI, a company specializing in cybersecurity. They noticed a database containing information about more than 89 million user accounts from the store was put up for sale online.

In the report on the study of government support for the gaming industry in Russia, APRIORI, IRI, and “EBR” not only shared survey results but also their recommendations. They are confident that a comprehensive strategy needs to be developed in the country.

Russian gaming companies are in need of state support, but only a small number have managed to obtain it. This conclusion was reached by the specialized association APRIORI, the Institute for Internet Development (IID), and the legal company “EBR” based on the results of a survey conducted in March.

In September of last year, the Kupikod platform announced plans to invest in development and publishing. Six months later, the App2Top editorial team spoke with Nikolay Borovikov, who is responsible for this direction in the company, to discuss what has been happening within this initiative.

Yulia Lebedeva, partner and executive director of WN Media Group, shared her thoughts on what to expect from the event.

Sony released its report for the fiscal year 2024, which ended on March 31, 2025. It was revealed that the gaming division was responsible for one-third of the company’s total revenue.

At the briefing dedicated to the relaunch of Squad Busters, the game’s key developers admitted that they were overly optimistic about it at the start.

The layoffs will affect employees at all levels, teams, and locations.