Microsoft has indeed started new layoffs. In a statement to the media, their representative stated that 4% of the corporation’s workforce, or 9,000 people, will lose their jobs. The gaming division will also be affected.

Before wrapping up the first half of the year, let’s take a look at the results of June’s game releases. Today’s piece features plenty of statistics and data about the highly successful launch of Mario Kart World, the initial sales of Death Stranding 2, a surprising FMV hit from China, among other key releases of the past month.

The studio Metacore, known for the mobile puzzle game Merge Mansion, has reported its financial results for 2024. The team proudly announced that they turned a profit for the first time: the annual profit amounted to 18.7 million euros.

The Investigative Committee of Belarus announced the initiation of special proceedings against Nikolai Katselapov, one of the founders of the company Wargaming. He has been accused of financing extremist and terrorist activities.

Analysts from Newzoo attempted to understand how residents of different countries feel about games based on Harry Potter, Pokémon, and other popular IPs. It was found that Europeans are among the least loyal gamers.

On the morning of July 2, Mecha BREAK was released for PC and Xbox Series — a multiplayer shooter about robot battles, developed by the Chinese studio Amazing Seasun Games. In the first hours, its peak online presence on Steam reached 97,006 players.

KRAFTON announced that three key executives of its subsidiary studio Unknown Worlds are stepping down “immediately.”

The developer studio of the new “Heroes” series, Unfrozen, announced a partnership with one of the most successful publishers of strategy games — Hooded Horse.

Rematch held onto the lead in the paid Steam chart for only a short while. For the week from June 24 to July 1, it was pushed from the top spot among premium games by the climbing simulator Peak (although in the top chart of all paid products, Peak secured second place—trailing behind the portable PC Steam Deck).

It turns out that some venture contracts contain a loophole that allows a party to unilaterally exit the deal. Lawyers from REVERA, Diana Kryltzova and Alexandra Kovaleva, explained what this loophole is.

Next week, on July 10, the conference “Gaming Industry” will take place in the Northern Capital. We’re sharing the event’s program.

Recently, the gaming industry has once again been hit by reports of mass layoffs. In June alone, People Can Fly, Build A Rocket Boy, and around ten other companies announced cuts. We looked at data from Game Industry Layoffs to assess the scale for the first half of the year.

AppLovin announced the completion of the sale of Machine Zone, Belka Games, and eight other gaming studios. As of June 30, 2025, they officially belong to the British company Tripledot Studios.

The Nintendo website has released a chart showing the sales of the Nintendo Switch 2 as of June 30. According to this chart, less than a month after its release on June 5, 5 million units of the console have been sold worldwide.

Chris Wilson — one of the founders of Grinding Gear Games and the lead designer of Path of Exile. He left the company a year and a half ago, but he has not left the gaming industry. Recently, it came to light that in 2025, Wilson launched a studio named Light Pattern.

Last Thursday, June 26, saw the release of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. The Kojima Productions studio itself has yet to share any figures about the game, so the analytical service VG Insights did so instead.

The service GameDiscoverCo attempted to determine the real size of the Steam market (Total Addressable Market) and calculate the revenue of different game categories. They conducted an experiment by leaving only two key tags for each game that earned more than a million dollars — one for the genre and one for the subgenre.

The Game Bakers studio, known for games like Furi and Haven, is preparing to release the mountaineering simulator Cairn. Recently, it reached a significant milestone. The number of demo downloads for Cairn in Steam and PlayStation Store has surpassed half a million.

The current direction of Xbox puts an end to the future of Microsoft consoles, according to Laura Fryer — a veteran of the corporation who led the Xbox Advanced Technology Group in the early 2000s.