In the management of the Swedish game publisher Paradox Interactive, there has been a castling. Paradox CEO Frederic Wester will head the company’s board of directors, and his post will be taken by board member Ebba Ljugerud. Wester has been the head of Paradox since 2009.

Nintendo has expressed uncertainty about the future of the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. Nintendo Switch is selling well and is enjoying success as a platform for indie titles. Against this background, 3DS support may no longer be appropriate.

The independent studio Beamdog was left by the creative director — David Gaider (David Gaider). Geider is known as the author of the scripts of classic role-playing games by BioWare, where he worked for 17 years. He has created stories for Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age and other games.

Sweden is preparing a new law on gambling regulation. In addition to online casinos, it can also affect video games. The country’s authorities allowed the inclusion of loot boxes in the wording of the law.

Three veterans of the gaming industry joined the British studio Jagex, which created one of the oldest role—playing MMO – Runescape. The staff of Jagex includes Ben Clarke, Steven Tarry and Steve Wilson.

The independent British studio Failbetter Games reported financial difficulties, due to which they had to cut 4 employees. This is a significant loss for the staff of a small company: according to the Failbetter website, only 12 people are employed in the studio.

Mobile game publisher Gameloft has closed an office in New Orleans and laid off about 40 employees. The company has not yet announced the reasons for the liquidation of the division.

On February 6, in an interview with Gamasutra, the author of the Gunpoint stealth platformer Tom Francis admitted that it took him almost 4 years to develop his second game, the space indie bagel Heat Signature. He does not plan to delay the work like this anymore. But on Steam, the approximate circulation of Heat Signature for the first four months amounted to 100 thousand copies.

The American publisher of anime and manga comics Viz Media has opened a gaming direction. The first released title of the company will be the action adventure The World Next Door from the independent studio Rose City Games.

The German authorities saw the mechanics of loot boxes as a threat to young people. The reason for the concern of officials was the research of the University of Hamburg. Scientists have come to the conclusion that video games are increasingly converging with gambling, Welt reports.

Hong Kong-based game company Animoca Brands has acquired the Finnish studio TribeFlame. The total amount of the transaction may amount to €350 thousand. Tribeflame is known for the Benji Bananas series of mobile arcades, whose total downloads have exceeded the 107 million mark.

On February 6, the authors of the RAWG gaming service announced that they had raised €1 million in January of this year. It is already known what the money will be used for.

There have been layoffs at the Capcom Vancouver studio. The company confirmed the reduction of 30% of the staff, explaining this by restructuring the business.

On February 6, the Korean gaming giant Netmarble published a report for the fourth quarter of 2017. It ended very well for the company. She earned $565 million. The commercial success of Lineage 2: Revolution played a big role in this. It accounted for 39% of the company’s revenue.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has included “gaming disorder” in the draft of the new edition of the international classifier of diseases. It will be released this year.

The lead designer of Civilization IV, Soren Johnson, and the art director of the Civilization V project, Dorian Newcomb, have been developing a new strategy called 10 Crowns.

On February 2, the Japanese publisher and developer GungHo Online Entertainment published the results for the 2017 fiscal year. For the company, it ended much worse than the previous one. The main reason is the drop in revenue of the main title GungHo, the Puzzle & Dragons card battler, which entered the mobile market six years ago.

Square Enix will implement the “game-service” model in new single-player titles, said the company’s CEO Yosuke Matsuda. He clarified that he does not mean loot boxes and microtransactions.

The American branch of Nexon Gaming Corporation has laid off an unnamed number of employees.