Friday, 16 August 2024

Game News Round-Up

Daily curated games-industry news digest for 16 August 2024.

General5 stories

Hugely-promising indie The Plucky Squire launches next month, day one on PlayStation Plus

  • An innovative 2D and 3D platformer based in and around the pages of a picture book, The Plucky Squire is the first project from All Possible Futures, the indie development studio set up by former Pokémon artist James Turner.
  • PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S/X on 17th September
  • It'll also be a day one launch via PlayStation Plus, for anyone signed up to Sony's subscription service.
Eurogamer

Evercade announces its next cartridge, Legacy of Kain Collection

  • Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
  • The cartridge can be played on all Evercade and Super Pocket devices, including the upcoming Evercade Alpha tabletop arcade machines.
  • Unrelated to the rumours of a Legacy of Kain remastered collection, apparently in development for current gen consoles.
VGC

Epic Games Store is available now on mobile, including Fall Guys and Fortnite

  • iOS (EU only) Install Instructions (open on device): https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/download/ios
  • Android Install Instructions (open on device): https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/download/android
Business5 stories

Reforged Studios acquires Ground Shatter and Extra Mile Studios

  • Ground Shatter is led by founder and director James Parker, and is the developer behind roguelike deck-builder Fights in Tight Spaces.
  • Extra Mile Studios is led by Bobby Farmer, and is known for providing co-developer services on Revolution Software's Broken Swords series.
GamesIndustry.biz

New DDM (Digital Development Management) report says the games industry is "showing signs of a recovery"

  • DDM's Games Investment Review reports "sizeable uptick" in investments, recovering ground lost in 2023
  • DDM suggests the half-yearly uptick suggests in just the first half of 2024, investments totalled $8.1bn – almost doubling the $4.5bn investment volume seen for the whole of 2023.
  • However, though Q2 was "great for games investments," the report authors say M&As reached $845m across 40 transactions, which is "a drastic decline QoQ" (-59% in value and -5% in volume over Q1’s $2.1bn across 43 transactions).
GamesIndustry.biz

Embracer Q1 results

  • Net Sales: SEK 7.9 billion ($754 million, down 24% year-on-year)
  • Net Loss: SEK 2.2 billion ($210 million, compared to loss of SEK 2.3 billion / $219.4 million for the same period last year)
  • Net Debt: SEK 14.3 billion ($1.37 billion, compared to SEK 16.8 billion / $1.6 billion as of June 30, 2023)
  • Tabletop games still generating the bulk of Embracer's revenue, net debt decreased to $1.37 billion
GamesIndustry.biz