Landfall Games revealed Content Warning has hit a pair of new milestones. In the two months since it launched, the co-op horror game has garnered 8.8 million players and sold 2.2 million copies.According to the publisher, the player count makes Content Warning one of its most successful titles. Also in the running are 2017's Stick Fight: The Game and potentially Tabs from 2021.The two milestones go somewhat hand-in-hand since at launch, Content Warning opened as a free-to-keep game for a full day. In turn, 6.2 million players picked it up, and it started at nearly 205,000 concurrent players.Two weeks later, it would go on to actually sell 1 million copies. Being only $8 and having word of mouth from its free opening day paid off.At the time of launch, the developers called it a "…
Tim Bender, co-founder of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, claims that publishers across the industry should eliminate recoup terms and clauses to ensure developers are getting a fairer deal.During a wide-ranging interview with Game Developer (more on that soon), we asked Bender what developers should be wary of when negotiating publishing deals. He claims one of the biggest red flags you can encounter is the presence of recoup clauses that deny "critical cash flow" post-launch.Although he understands why recoup terms are still commonplace—he claims the idea of using them has simply become "ingrained" in the industry—he believes publishers should seriously reconsider leveraging terms that place developers at risk."If we went by what I thought was fair, it wo…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a nationwide ban on noncompete agreements in the United States in a move that could have a notable impact on the video game industry.Noncompete agreements have been used to prevent workers from changing roles within their industry, prohibiting them from leaving one company to immediately join another.Last year, Game Developer spoke with a number of developers who suggested noncompetes were being used to dictate where and how they ply their trade.During those conversations, we were told noncompetes can be used to intimidate or exert control (often before lawyers are brought into play), and that despite being banned in California—which plays home to a number of major studios—many workers in the region still found language in their contracts t…
Playdate maker Panic isn't a startup, despite what you might think. The 30-person company has been around for 25 years but is often viewed as a fledgling go-getter that has just burst onto the scene.During his GDC 2024 talk, Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser dissected the company's origins through the lens of Playdate, and posited that Panic is often billed as a startup because it practices something called "slowbiz.""Let me explain what that means. We're a different kind of tech company. We're playing the long game. We gradually level up year after year. We never had investors. We never had shareholders. I think when you have shareholders, they're kind of used as a scapegoat for your bad decisions," he says."We have no one to scapegoat. Every …