Swedish publisher Stillfront Group has published a financial report for the second quarter of 2022. Judging by it, April-June passed very successfully for the company. For example, net revenue during this time jumped by 31% compared to last year.

Back in May, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation announced that the Russian mobile marketplace RuStore will be pre-installed on smartphones within the country. Today, the agency published a draft Government decree, in which it officially proposed to add RuStore to the list of mandatory applications.

Leslie Benzies, former president of Rockstar North, is building up the staff of his studio Build A Rocket Boy. He hired three veterans of the gaming industry at once.

In January-June 2022, China’s gaming market earned ¥147.7 billion ($21.8 billion), declining by 1.8% year-on-year. This was the first drop since 2008, when the Chinese Association of Audio—Video and Digital Publishers began publishing data on the local market.

Chinese authorities have allowed NetEase to publish Diablo Immortal, according to Bloomberg sources. While it is assumed that the release will take place on July 25, but “at the last minute” the date may change.

The Hand of Midas Foundation, opened by the founder of Xsolla, supported OnlySpace, a young publisher specializing in the metaverse and NFT. He invested $2.25 million in the startup. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Ken Akamatsu is a Japanese manga artist who recently won a seat in the House of Councillors of Japan. He held a stream on YouTube, during which he promised to try to legally preserve the gaming legacy for posterity.

Last year, residents of the Middle East and North Africa spent $1.6 billion in mobile games, analysts found data.ai . The most generous were gamers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel. They left $546 million, $176 million and $162 million in games, respectively.

TikTok‘s parent company continues to get cheaper. According to Bloomberg, ByteDance is valued at $275 billion in the secondary market — last year its capitalization reached $ 460 billion.

Gamers began to play more mobile games developed by Russian companies. YOTA calculated that in June, the traffic of titles doubled compared to last year. The growth was also reported by Beeline and Tele2.

Japanese Square Enix intends to celebrate the 25th birthday of Final Fantasy VII in an unusual way. She will release collectible figures with built-in NFT. To do this, she entered into a partnership with Enjin.

In 2017, Bruce Straley, game director of The Last of Us and Uncharted 2.4, retired from the gaming industry. Five years later, he decided to return and announced the launch of a new studio — Wildflower Interactive.

The sequel “Tamagotchi” about the talking cat Angela turned one year old. In honor of this, Outfit7 announced that to date, My Talking Angela 2 has already been downloaded 300 million times.

The Chinese NEKCOM announced its expansion into the international market. The studio decided to start in the USA, where it opened its first foreign office — it is based in Manhattan.

The research company Grand View Research has released a report on the esports market. According to analysts, in the next eight years, its revenue will grow by an average of 21.9% and by 2030 will exceed the mark of $ 12.49 billion.

Recently, Rockstar has been actively hiring employees. According to the studio’s LinkedIn page, 307 vacancies are now open, and Rockstar has published 70 of them only over the past day.

Dubai wants to enter the top ten largest metaverse economies in the world. According to Bloomberg, the city authorities have launched a strategy under which the number of companies engaged in the metaverse and blockchain should grow fivefold in five years.

In mid-July, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) talked to Russians about video games. It turned out that almost a quarter of respondents are interested in them.

The HoYoverse brand is based in Singapore. The developers have opened a new office that will be responsible for publishing and operating studio games around the world, and will also help develop new projects.