Several analytical agencies suggested that marathon revenue is just about $55M, compared to the budget of over $250M (before marketing and support).

Most of the people are playing on Steam, there was a small boost about 2 weeks after the release when people got curious and bought more premium upgrades. But since then the revenue plummeted.

Analytics noted that despite the support from PlayStation, the game is simply too hard for consoles. It makes people leave much earlier (at about 16 hours for active players on PS5, compared to 28 hours on PC).

#Bungie@GameDEV
#PlayStation@GameDEV

Did it happen? 😧

#meme@GameDEV
#Legal@GameDEV

Via ElBolMe

Unity said they're making more money now so the best shortcut to grow even further is to sell and close some of their key assets to "simplify the business".

Supersonic (game publisher) will be sold out and IronSource ad network will be fully closed. They will continue to serve the basic Unity ads.

#Unity@GameDEV
#Business@GameDEV

Here are some pricing changes from PlayStation: the hardware gets significantly more expensive! About 50$/€ more for Portal, ~100 for PS5s, and even more for PS5 Pro.

For USA:
- PS5 $549 -> $649
- PS5 Digital $499 -> $599
- PS5 Pro $749 -> $899
- PS Portal $199 -> $249

#PlayStation@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV

Since Nacon publishing has no more money and so are its studios, the company just secretly placed Spiders (Greedfall, Steelrising) on sale. If you're interested, here's the lot where you can buy the studio.

Nacon previously acquired Spiders in 2019 after the success of the original Greedfall. Now they forced the team to "make another game to raise their own price before sale". Something is in early development but sources say that the team is rather broken with all that, not inspired by the new chance.

In addition, according to Origami, Nacon Tech (motion capture studio) is also going to be sold. And all physical releases of Nacon games are canceled in North America.

#Nacon@GameDEV
#Finance@GameDEV
#Business@GameDEV

If you were curious about financial issues of literally every game and IT company out there: they all gambled on AI and got wrecked by it this specific quarter.

Microsoft is currently aiming for the worst quarter since 2008 and these results are not even caused by the war. And it's not the end of this downfall. NVIDIA is also in decline (as we mentioned before).

The craziest part is that even AI-fans among investors are selling Microsoft shares. They believe that the whole SaaS market will be pointless if AI Microsoft bet on will get more advanced. So Microsoft is ruining it's real business by betting on the virtual one.

#AI@GameDEV
#Finance@GameDEV

🔥 Noice

https://itch.io/jam/gdevelop-big-game-jam-9
#GDevelop@GameDEV
#NoCode@GameDEV
#GameJam@GameDEV

A cute animation Lynte_ made for Cvnka_

#PixelArt@GameDEV
#Animation@GameDEV

Not a fan of this channel in general, but this one is a good overview of what, when, and how went wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpI_v2S-jPY
#Fortnite@GameDEV
#EpicGames@GameDEV

The cozy game from The Stanley Parable author got positive reviews but failed commercially:

Ivy Road will be closed next week due to lack of funding for the next game. They will release the last update before the closure.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299460/Wanderstop/
#IndieGames@GameDEV

I mean, I haven't heard of this game at all: zero reviews in my feed! Just found out was set to Ignored on Steam (I kinda thought it's a cute-slop-farm genre and I have a bunch of those already).

How much was it in production that it didn't work financially?

Warhorse fired their translator and replaced him with AI (Reddit). Previously Daniel Vavra defended AI and said it would be nice to replace actors with it "so they will not spend months on boring background lines, for example".

Reddit mods confirmed he was employed at Warhorse and it's not just a joke or bait.

#Warhorse@GameDEV
#RPG@GameDEV
#AI@GameDEV

Just for the context: Daniel also defended DLSS5, he hopes it will replace even more people. So slop-shit-games will obviously play themselves or whatever. Warslope announced Slope Come: Deliverance III.

#AI@GameDEV

Literally no one:

Bandai Namco: here's 1 hour of game music for your deep work or study focus!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww6hP8pLZZc
#Music@GameDEV
#BandaiNambco@GameDEV

Somehow this meme is relevant again

By the way, I wrote this back in 2019: that's before Covid, before the war (you may need a translation, it was in Russian):

- Covid is not accounted for
- War in Ukraine isn't
- AI-boom isn't there too

All three multiply the issue

https://www.gameunion.tv/ru/obo-vsyom/chto-zhdet-igrovuyu-industriyu-vo-vremya-ekonomicheskogo-krizisa-89

My mentality back then was something like this: this is the problem for future me! But I was 100% sure that this whole thing is nearly inevitable.

Covid and the war in Ukraine weren't on my list though. They delayed the outcome and made it all worse.