Koei Tecmo recently filed a lawsuit against Singaporean developer Youzoo, according to Automaton Media, for consistent and "extremely malicious" copyright infringement.The Japanese publisher claims Youzoo used music and in-game assets from the former's Nobunaga’s Ambition and Taiko Risshiden series in online ads for its own mobile games. Despite multiple notices sent, this has allegedly gone on for years.It's further claimed these ads refer to Koei Tecmo by name, even though the two companies aren't involved with each other."We have determined that the defendant’s conduct is not only detrimental to users and [our] partner companies," wrote Koei Tecmo, "but also undermines the efforts of all parties who were involved in the development of our game…

Developers at Avalanche Software have successfully unionized. The Swedish developer entered a collective bargaining agreement with trade groups Unionen and the Engineers of Sweden.Last year, over 100 developers (or one-fifth of staff) at the Just Cause studio formed a group through Unionen. At the time, workers were negotiating with Avalanche leadership.The contract starts in the second quarter of 2025, after which it runs for two years before negotiations begin again. It applies to all Sweden-based staff specifically, and "standardizes frameworks" around areas like salary and benefits.Specific union benefits weren't listed, but it's worth remembering one of the topics during negotiations was switching to a four-day work week."Over the past years, we’ve taken sig…

Spooky influencer simulator Content Warning has sold 1 million copies in around two weeks.Publisher Landfall Games shared the news on X and noted those sales are in addition to the 6.2 million downloads it amassed throughout its barnstorming launch campaign.For those who missed the memo, Content Warning initially launched for free on April 1, 2024, and attracted over 200,000 concurrent players shortly after.Landfall explained that over 6.2 million people nabbed the title for free during that 24 hour promotional window, after which point Content Warning began retailing for $8.The company has pledged to continue supporting Content Warning with updates and fixes, but given the core development team comprises just five people, has asked fans to be patient."It's been a real treat watc…

Roblox Corp is letting more people sell in-game items on its Roblox creator marketplace. It's also rolling out a new 'publishing advance' fee to help it "raise the bar" on the quality of those user-made assets.Yesterday, the company announced it's now possible for more people to publish and sell 3D avatar items on Marketplace, which it claims is visited by millions of people each day."Until now, the ability to create and sell 3D items on Roblox was by application only. Over the last year, we’ve seen a growing increase in interest to create and sell avatar items in Marketplace from 3D artists and developers of experiences," it wrote."In that time, we’ve also enhanced our policies and enforcement capabilities to ensure the community stays safe…

After two years, Rovio is pulling the plug on Moomin: Puzzle & Design on July 8.Development on the mobile game, per PocketGamer, wrapped last week on April 11. The title had a soft launch in 2022, and recently came to the US, Japan, Poland, and Finland.In a statement to the outlet, Rovio explained Moomin failed to reach the "very high standard for games that we launch globally."

Rovio and Moomin's partnership

Rovio entered a six-year partnership to make Moomin games back in 2021. Under the agreement, it can make titles for "any platform" and mobile games exclusively.To date, Puzzles & Design is the only game to come fr…

The European Union has put a total of €7.5 million (or $8.05 million) towards game development through its Creative Europe program. Per GamesMarkt, the €7.5 million will be distributed across 22 countries.Creative Europe focuses on the country's cultural and creative sectors, such as games. At €818.2 million, Germany has the second-highest amount of funding behind France's €831.9 million.Those funds will be spread across projects from studios in the DACH region, like Vienna's Mi'Pu'Mi Games and Leipzig, Germany's Reynard Films.Both studios, plus Proxy Studios and Tübingen, will receive €150,000 each. Kiel's The Games Foundation and Vest Games get €140,000-€145,000, and Nürtingen gets a little over €830,000.Coming behind Germany are Italy…

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 …

2023 and 2024 have seen significant layoffs across the game industry. Studios of all sizes have been affected, and 18,000 layoffs are estimated to have hit since 2023.According to Omdia analyst Liam Deane, the layoffs are such where companies aren't as bothered by them anymore. In fact, he speculated studios are less image-conscious about them now than in previous years."Companies become less worried about the risk of losing talent to the competition," he said in a chat with Game Developer. "Making cuts two years ago would have made you look bad to investors; now it's just part of an industry-wide trend."A survey from Game Developer Collective revealed 44 percent of participants experienced layoffs at their company in 2023. Before 2024 is over, it'll easi…

Disney Games has added five new members to its executive leadership team. Two wholly new hires with Blizzard and Blizzard experience have joined as three longtime Disney and Marvel staffers were promoted.Ray Gresko, a co-lead on development for Overwatch and Diablo 3, has been brought on as Disney Games VP. Chiefly, he'll team with Epic Games on the pair's previously announced $1.5 billion collaboration.Interestingly, Gresko's hiring is a semi-homecoming. He began in the industry at Lucasfilm working as a programmer on Star Wars: Dark Forces and its sequel.Marvel Games leader Jay Ong will now lead Disney's global games licensing business. At Marvel, he helped launch Marvel Snap and the recent Marvel's Spider-Man games, and he'll now support all franchises unde…

"[My junior staff] have progressed so much…but they also don't have something they can point at and say 'here is the game I shipped'."–Free Radical founder Steve Ellis on the new studio's younger staffLate last year, Embracer closed down Free Radical Design. The studio had been resurrected in 2021 specifically to make a new Timesplitters game, which died with its developer, again.Speaking with GamesIndustry, two-time studio director Steve Ellis recalled how he sought out Plaion (then Koch Media) in 2018 once he learned it had the TimeSplitters rights. He suggested a new game, and proceeded to build a prototype with a small team.Normally when a dormant franchise is getting revived, it starts with a remaster of the older games, as we've seen with Dead Sp…