Media outlets have reported on EA’s plans to become a private company again, Brazil decided to ban the sale of loot boxes in games to minors, and Hades II’s peak online players on Steam exceeded 112,000 people—here’s a recap of the main events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.

Recently, the second part of the iconic WWII RTS “Blitzkrieg 2” turned 20 years old, having been released on September 23, 2005. On this occasion, the founder of Nival, Sergey Orlovsky, announced that the game’s source code is now available on GitHub.

On September 25, the full release of Hades II took place. We analyzed the game’s launch in detail from the perspectives of revenue, online performance, and other metrics, comparing them with the first installment and titles in similar genres.

Complaints have appeared on the itch.io forum, Reddit, and social media. Additionally, some developers reported payout issues in a discussion with the Rascal portal.

The studio Splash Damage is no longer owned by the Chinese giant Tencent. It has been bought out by private investors.

December 31, 2025, will mark Doug Bowser’s final working day at Nintendo of America. The top executive announced his decision to leave the company.

This information was reported by Hideaki Nishino, Head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, at the Tokyo Game Show 2025.

The second half of the month is the traditional time for the deconstruction show “What’s with the Game?,” where industry experts dissect new releases in terms of design, narrative, and other aspects. The latest episode focused on Mafia: The Old Country.

Last week, the Saint Petersburg studio Baba Yaga Games unveiled a new game — a fairy-tale adventure called “The Devil’s Service,” about a demon carrying out tasks for Peter the Great. According to deputy Anton Gorelkin, the imagery used in the project sparked outrage among some citizens.

The Google Corporation is not giving up in its efforts to come out on top in its confrontation with Epic Games. Now, it has decided to appeal to the country’s Supreme Court.

The CEO of Jagex, the developer behind the iconic MMORPG RuneScape, Jon Bellamy, gave an interview to the portal The Game Business. During the conversation, he touched on the topic of AA games and their commercial potential.

Less than a day remains until the full release of Hades II. In anticipation of this, analysts from Alinea Analytics decided to discuss the achievements of the game during its time in early access.

The Playgama platform has published statistics on the use of engines in web games, broken down by top genres. The sample includes games released in 2024 and 2025.

2025 can confidently be called the year of the rise of mid-budget games priced at $50 or less. This begs the question: what does this mean for the industry as a whole? In today’s article, we delve into the trend in detail, backing up the arguments with figures and other data.

The studio is called Cheer Games.

Very soon — on October 16 — the «Gaming Industry» conference will take place in the capital of Russia. We are sharing some initial details of the event’s program.

The Internet Development Institute (IRI), the APRIORI association, and the Skolkovo Foundation conducted a study on the state of the game development industry in Russia. They interviewed 140 developers: both from game studios and solo developers.

The Polish studio Bloober Team released a report for January-June 2025. It revealed that it earned only 67 thousand zlotys ($18,500) on its home market over six months. This is 0.15% of its global revenue.

The Russian Quality System’s Center for Digital Expertise examined ten mobile games for mechanics used to extract money from gamers. It was found that such tactics are employed in each of them—the only difference being how strongly the games manipulate audience behavior.