The release of God of War on Sony consoles took place back in 2018, but the title appeared on PC only this January. Thanks to this, the former PlayStation exclusive was able to break into the top of the highest-rated games released on Steam in 2022.

Despite the ban on publishing games in China without a license, some developers are still trying to do it. The other day, the Shanghai authorities reported that they issued a fine for a total of 1.1 million ($ 165 thousand) to studios that decided to circumvent the restriction.

In the first half of 2022, Twitter users wrote more about video games than ever before. By the end of June, they had left a record 1.5 billion tweets, which is 36% more than in the first half of last year. Such statistics were shared by Twitter itself.

Japanese game designer Tomonobu Itagaki will develop AAA-level blockchain games. He founded a studio called Apex Game Studios and has already announced the first project.

The Spotify music service has made its first gaming purchase. He acquired Heardle, a puzzle inspired by the acclaimed word game Wordle. In it, you have to guess the song by the initial notes from six attempts.

On May 25, VK announced the launch of the beta version of RuStore, the domestic equivalent of Google Play. According to Izvestia, with reference to the company’s press service, 500 thousand people have downloaded the store since then.

Contrary to the pessimistic forecasts of a number of analysts, the Chinese authorities continue to issue licenses for the release of games in the country. The National Press and Publications Administration (NPPA) has published a fresh list of approved projects — the third after the “freeze”.

Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands has risen in price. The company specializing in NFT attracted new investments, after which its capitalization grew to $ 5.9 billion.

Last year, Chinese authorities banned young gamers from spending more than three hours a week playing online games. But recently, rumors have appeared in local social networks that during the summer holidays, at least Tencent will remove the restriction in its projects and allow you to play for an hour every day. However, the giant hastened to refute this information.

The developer and publisher of mobile games Nexters has announced corporate changes. The company will no longer work directly in Russia. She also expanded the relocation program.

By the end of June App2Top.ru Together with AppMagic, I have prepared a report on the most popular and earning mobile games in the world.

Supermassive Games is now wholly owned by Nordisk Games, the gaming division of the Danish film company Nordisk Film. It is unknown how much the takeover cost, and the terms of the deal are not reported.

For the ironSource marketing company, the week did not start very smoothly. According to the portal Seeking Alpha, on Monday the price of its shares fell immediately by 8.2% to $ 2.29 apiece.

British indie studio XR Games has closed a new round of funding. Praetura Ventures, Maven Capital Partners and ACT Capital Partners have invested in it.

Finnish studio Kitka Games successfully uses the fact that Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is not available in mobile stores. Shortly after the transfer of the sensational royal battle to the fritupley model, downloads of the Stumble Guys game copying it rapidly went up.

The hacker group ALPHV (also known as BlackCat) managed to infiltrate the internal network of Bandai Namco. The hacking was reported by the organization vx-underground, specializing in malware.

Consulting firm Deloitte together with GameIS has released a report on the Israeli gaming industry. According to company estimates, its revenue grows by an average of 54% annually. At the same time, there are still no AAA studios in the country.

Creating an action adventure game A Way Out was a serious challenge for Josef Fares. As the game designer recalls in a podcast for Sveriges Radio, he could have been on the street if the game had failed.

VK has announced a new educational initiative. Together with the teachers of RTU MIREA, she developed a bachelor’s program in which students will be taught how to make games.