With the support of AppMagic, the editors of App2Top have prepared a report on the most popular and highest-grossing mobile games in January (we talk about the successes of Attack Hole, Makeover & Makeup and “Spatula Battles“).

Last week, Turkish media reported that Sony had decided to close its office in Istanbul. On February 6, the company confirmed the rumors in a comment for the portal GamesIndustry.biz .

Bombora Publishing House has translated the Russian book “Power Up! How Japan breathed new life into the gaming industry.” Its author Chris Kohler wrote about the history of the development of the Japanese game dev and the impact he had on the global gaming industry. Kohler prepared his book based on many interviews with cult developers like Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima.

American judge William Alsup dismissed the parents’ lawsuit against Nintendo due to problems with the drift of Joy-Con sticks for the Nintendo Switch. He pointed out that there is a clause in the console user agreement that prohibits suing the company.

The New York Times newspaper, citing four people, reports that Microsoft is preparing for a confrontation with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The corporation believes that the regulator may try to block the purchase of Activision Blizzard.

The annual Grammy Music Awards were held in Los Angeles. This year, for the first time, the organizers presented an award in the nomination “Best Soundtrack to a video game”. It went to the composer Stephanie Economou, who created the music for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök.

Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay a fine of $ 35 million as part of an SEC investigation into harassment in the company, the media reported that Microsoft received objections from the European Commission on the deal with Activision Blizzard, the quarterly revenue of the Kadokawa gaming division jumped by 123% amid the popularity of Elden Ring, — we tell you what happened in the gaming industry this weekend.

It became known about the dissolution of the Fridays game studio, which has been based in Novosibirsk since its foundation in 2007.

Hazelight Studios boasted that It Takes Two took the bar at 10 million copies sold. It took the game a little less than two years to do this.

The former technical director of Oculus* tweeted a thread about PS VR2, which is due to be released this month. John Carmack said that despite the excellent technical characteristics, Sony‘s VR headset is unlikely to be very successful.

China’s NetEase continues to strengthen its presence abroad. She launched a studio called Spliced, which will develop an innovative project that “changes the idea of what a game is.”

The Japanese company Square Enix reported for the last three fiscal quarters (ended December 31, 2022). According to their results, both revenue and profit fell.

Despite the rapid growth in popularity of AI services that generate visual content at the request of users, from a legal point of view, their work (as well as the use of graphics created by them) raises many questions. I-Legal lawyers answered the most relevant of them in a special material for App2Top.

The second news about layoffs today. Now they have been announced by the developer of 3ds Max and Maya.

Analysts from Niko Partners predict rapid growth in the gaming market of the MENA-3 region (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt). It is estimated that in five years its revenue will increase by 56% at once.

Velan Studios has announced the imminent closure of the multiplayer action game Knockout City. On February 28, the ability to make in-game purchases will be removed from it, and on June 6, public servers will stop working.

Ubisoft may be preparing to close the Polish branch after 15 years of operation in the country. This is reported by Marcin Kosman, CEO of the better gaming agency. gaming agency.

Korean publisher NCSOFT has decided to conduct a global business reorganization. As part of it, the company will cut a fifth of the employees of the division that operates Lineage, Blade & Soul and its other games in Western countries.

We are publishing a new list with gaming vacancies. This week they are wanted: a game designer at ZiMAD, a 2D/3D animator at Lesta Games and a VFX artist at ExoGenesis.