Football Manager 25 cancelled, as Sega shifts focus to FM26
- Refunds offered for anyone who pre-ordered twice-delayed project
Friday, 7 February 2025
Game News Round-Up
Daily curated games-industry news digest for 7 February 2025.
General3 stories
E3 organiser ESA launches new event called ‘iicon’
- The "Interactive innovation conference" has support from Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and others
- The conference will take place in Las Vegas between April 27-30 next year
- The ESA says the event will be an opportunity for attendees to gain “exclusive access to visionary keynotes, engaging discussions and workshops, and elite networking opportunities with executives shaping the future of entertainment, business and technology”.
Capcom is ending service for Resident Evil Village’s pack-in multiplayer game (Resident Evil Re:Verse)
- The multiplayer game will be removed from stores on March 3, alongside the removal of the game’s DLC.
- On June 29, the game will no longer be playable. The game will also no longer be included when purchasing digital copies of Resident Evil Village. It appears that players will still be able to download the application once the service has ended, however, it won’t be functional.
Business6 stories
GTA 5 has now sold 210m copies
- 5m copies over the last three months of 2024, up until 31st December
- Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold 70 million copies, up 3 million units on the previous quarter
Roblox shares drop by 20% as platform misses target active users
- For the fourth quarter (ending 31st December), the number of daily active users fell by four percent to 85.3 million compared to the previous quarter
- Overall player engagement also declined by 9.7 percent in the same period to 18.7bn hours.
- Bookings, the company's measure of sales, totalled $1.36bn (£1.09bn), also falling shy of its forecast of $1.37bn(£1.1bn).
Take-Two Q3 FY2025 Results
- GAAP Net revenue: $1.36 billion, slightly down from $1.37 billion last year
- GAAP Net loss: $125.2 million, increased from $91.6 million last year
- Total net bookings: $1.37 billion, a 3% year-over-year increase
Blind Squirrel Games acquires Distributed Development
- The new team will initially focus on co-development
nDreams establishes new internal studio, shutters two others
- New studio Compass to be led by industry veteran Callum Godfrey following closure of nDreams Studio Orbital and nDreams Studio
Paradox acquires Haemimont Games
- Publisher says acquisition is "a further step in [its] strategic focus on growing in the management games genre"
Rumors2 stories
Rumour
Hi-Rez lays off devs, ends development for three games
- Unclear how many would be affected (at least 30 according the rumour)
- Rumour states that Smite 1, Rogue Company, and Paladins are ending development to prioritize developing Smite 2
Rumour
Bandai Namco has reportedly reduced its Japanese workforce by over 100 in the last year
- A filing on Japan’s online pension database shows that between April 2024 and February 2025, 117 staff have left the company. This doesn’t clarify if those who left the company did so voluntarily or not.