Chris Barrett, who previously led the development of Marathon, is set to sue his former employers — Bungie and Sony. He accuses the companies of deliberately ruining his reputation and career.

The service SteamDB, which tracks game metrics on Steam, has published a list of this year’s most warmly received new releases on the Valve platform.

We continue to wrap up 2024 with gaming (or gaming industry-related) teams and experts. Next up is an interview with Dmitry Amroyan, CEO of the studio Cubic Games.

The creators of Pokémon TCG Pocket have shared the latest data on their game downloads. They announced that the number of downloads has surpassed 60 million.

The adventure gacha game Infinity Nikki, featuring a girl named Nikki who gains various useful abilities through dresses, is celebrating a new achievement. The title has been downloaded more than 20 million times globally.

Warner Bros. Discovery conducted mass layoffs at its Montreal game development studio, reports Radio-Canada. According to the publication, a total of 99 people left WB Games Montreal. Some of them were contractor testers from the outsourcing company Keywords Studios.

The Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry (ODVGI) has criticized the draft law titled “On the Activity of Developing and Distributing Video Games within the Russian Federation.” Representatives of the organization stated that the initiative would harm the domestic game dev industry instead of supporting it.

The China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association released its annual report on the state of the local gaming market for the year 2024.

The Google Play Store team has informed developers that it will soon stop processing payments globally meant for holders of Russian bank accounts. This limitation will take effect in two weeks on December 26, 2024.

Early in the morning on December 13, the tenth anniversary ceremony of The Game Awards took place. This year, the main triumphant of the event was Astro Bot.

The Chartboost platform has changed ownership. Mobile game publisher Zynga has announced its sale to LoopMe, a technology company specializing in brand advertising.

Shares of the Polish company 11 bit studios have plummeted to their lowest level in seven years. Investors are concerned that the studio may be planning to cancel a game currently in development and write off its assets.

Today, December 12, a bill titled “On the Activities of Development and Distribution of Video Games in the Russian Federation” was submitted to the State Duma. We asked Roman Lukyanov, managing partner of the law firm Semenov&Pevzner, to share his opinion on the proposal.

In the past year, gaming companies from California have been particularly active in conducting layoffs. Journalist Stephen Totilo highlighted in his Game File newsletter that this state accounted for about a third of all gaming industry layoffs in 2024.

We provided detailed coverage of the bill this morning. Now, it’s worth noting that the published final version is not significantly different from the draft that was previously available to the editorial team. However, there is one nuance.

In early December, the capital of Thailand, Bangkok, hosted the WN Summit. Below are the main outcomes of the event.

We continue to sum up the outcomes of 2024 with teams that are gaming or related to the gaming industry. Next up is an interview with Dmitry Fokin, CEO of the CarX Technologies studio.

Glow Up Games is yet another game development studio that didn’t survive the crisis in the gaming industry. Its closure was announced on LinkedIn by CEO Mitu Khandaker.

Not only does Balatro have strong sales: Estonian solo developer Mike Klubnika has also shared new achievements of his creation. He announced that today, the horror game about Russian roulette, Buckshot Roulette, has sold over 4 million copies.