Second Life, one of the first metaverse games of the 2000s, is still alive and generating revenue for its creators. Key metrics and future prospects were discussed by Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale and its executive chairman Brad Oberwager in a conversation with VentureBeat.

The studio has only now announced the attracted investments. According to Crunchbase, the funds were secured back in the summer during a seed funding round.

Recently, Valve opened a special section on Steam where each user can view their gaming statistics for 2024. Some of the data in this section is compared with the entire Steam community.

Former and current employees of the GOG gaming platform shared with the Polish publication CD Action about the working environment in their division. They claim that CD PROJEKT conducts significant layoffs at GOG every two to three years, with the most recent ones having taken place two months ago.

We continue to wrap up the year 2024 with gaming (or game industry-related) teams and experts. Up next is an interview with Rikani Koyoko, the CEO and Art Director of RIK ANIMATION. Joining her in the responses is Vitaliy Terletski, founder of Terletski Games.

Investors of the Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa reacted coolly to the deal with Sony. As noted by Kantan Games analyst Serkan Toto, the company’s stock sharply fell in after-hours trading on December 19, with the price dropping by 15.95% immediately.

As of today, gamers have installed games from the Hill Climb Racing franchise on their devices 2.5 billion times. According to developers from the Finnish studio Fingersoft, this milestone makes Hill Climb Racing the most downloaded racing game series in the world.

Musician Johnny Gioeli from the band Crush 40 has filed a lawsuit against SEGA. He accuses the company of using the main theme he wrote for Sonic Adventure 2 in other projects without a license and failing to pay due royalties.

We continue to reflect on the outcomes of 2024 with teams and experts from the gaming industry. Up next is an interview with Sergey Efremov, COO of Astrum Entertainment.

The Chinese giant Tencent owns significant stakes in many gaming companies worldwide, giving the holding the right to appoint its people as observers or full members of their boards of directors. However, Tencent recently had to forgo this opportunity in the case of Epic Games.

The Sony Corporation has decided not to acquire the entire Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa. Instead, it has agreed to purchase 12 million of its new shares for 50 billion yen, or approximately $318.5 million, by January 7, 2025.

The analytics company Circana has prepared a report on the state of the American gaming market in November. Below are the main findings.

The Nintendo Switch has become the second best-selling console in the American market ever, reports analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana. Until recently, this title was held by the PlayStation 2.

Released on November 20, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl* has already broken even and started to turn a profit. This was revealed in an interview with Forbes by Maksym Kryppa, co-owner of the GSC Game World** studio.

We continue to wrap up the year 2024 alongside gaming and industry-related teams. Up next is an interview with Denis Khamin, co-owner of the game localization and 2D/3D art outsourcing studio, Allcorrect.

On December 11, the WN iGaming Summit took place in Limassol, Cyprus. This was WN Media Group’s first event dedicated to online gambling.

Simon Carless from GameDiscoverCo calculated how many wishlists on Steam the games gathered from December 12-15, which had their trailers shown at The Game Awards 2024 ceremony.

Gaming expert Simon Carless, using data from his GameDiscoverCo service, has summed up the year. He has compiled charts of the most successful paid new releases of 2024 on the main platforms — PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

We continue to wrap up the year 2024 with gaming (or gaming industry-related) teams. Up next is an interview with the representatives of Door 407, the studio’s founders Oleg Sakharov and Andrey Belousov, as well as its marketing director, Stas Ignatov.