Former developers of Disco Elysium have opened another studio, Steam has started warning users that they're purchasing only a game license, and estimates suggest the Until Dawn remake on PlayStation 5 attracted fewer players than Concord. Here's what happened in the gaming industry over the weekend.
Until Dawn
- At the end of last week, former ZA/UM employees announced the launch of three studios simultaneously. We've already covered two of them — Dark Math Games and Longdue Games. The third studio is Summer Eternal. It describes itself as an art collective that prioritizes creativity over personal interests and profit. Summer Eternal plans to create a "cultural megaproject" — an ambitious RPG of the highest literary quality. The team includes Disco Elysium writers Argo Tuulik and Olga Moskvina.
- Valve updated the shopping cart in the Steam store. Now, during checkout, it is noted that users are paying only for a license to use the game, not for ownership of the game itself. Formally, nothing has changed for players. It was already stipulated in Steam’s terms of service that they do not own the games but possess only the right to use them. This point has just been made more visible by the company. It is noteworthy that Valve did this shortly after the Governor of California signed a law requiring gaming platforms to clearly and explicitly disclose such information to users. The law will come into effect next year.
- King laid off 7% of its staff in the Barcelona division, reported Eurogamer, citing the company's report to Spanish authorities. According to journalists, 47 people lost their jobs. The layoffs at King are likely part of broader job cuts at Microsoft, which the corporation announced in September. At that time, Microsoft decided to lay off 650 employees from its gaming division.
- The remake of Until Dawn became one of Sony's worst releases, claims TrueTrophies. Citing data from the Game Insights analytics service, they found that 28.6% fewer PlayStation 5 owners played the horror game at launch compared to the ill-fated Concord. It is also reported that the Until Dawn remake attracted 95.5% fewer players on PlayStation 5 than Astro Bot and 98.5% fewer players than the remaster of The Last of Us Part II.
- Crystal Dynamics announced that the Tomb Raider franchise has sold over 100 million copies in total. The last time they disclosed sales figures was in December 2022, when they amounted to 95 million copies. The studio also revealed that, together with Aspyr, they are preparing to release remasters of three more Lara Croft games: Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. The collection is scheduled for release on February 14, 2025, on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.