VGIM’s Video Games Year in Review: Part 2, 12/12/2024
It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times
Sportswashing, Concord flopping and one Hindenburging in VGIM’s review of the second half of 2024
Tencent continues to explore management buyout of Ubisoft
Indiana Jones cracks the whip in the top release of the week
| Find me on Linkedin | Follow me on Bluesky | Pre-order my book | Email me |
Welcome VGIM-ers,
It’s time for the penultimate free newsletter of the year.
In just one week’s time, VGIM service will round off for the year so I can do two important things: tie off my last bit of client work for the year and have a lunch next Friday that is so good that I risk pulling a Gavin Ewart.
However, if you do want to start thinking about 2025 - you rampaging sadist - there is one thing that you might want to mull over.
Between late January and mid March, I’m booking interviews to help guide my research for the next chunk of work I’m doing on Power Play.
To support that, I’m looking to interview experts who know their stuff about the use of game engines within the wider economy, the evolution of games hardware as a comparatively low cost piece of computing gear (no PS5 Pro jokes, please) and competition policy experts.
Think that you, or someone in your team, can help me with any of the above? Email me via george@half-space.consulting and we’ll look to set something up either over Zoom in January/February time or in person at GDC in March.
But enough of thinking about next year. Let’s remind ourselves how 2024 ended so we can wave off what has been a truly crummy year for games.
Huzzah!
The big read - VGIM’s Video Games Year in Review: Part 2
Welcome back to the second part of the Video Games Industry Memo year in review.
For those of you who missed the first part last week, I’m taking a look at both halves of the video games year to summarise the top stories that shaped the industry and link you back to VGIM passim to pump my readership numbers. Selfish, I know.
Anyway after last week’s newsletter outlined what happened between January and June, I thought I’d take the dramatic and utterly surprising step of writing a big read about what happened between July and December.
Read on below for the biggest developments during the period.
July - Esportswashing up
Accusations that the esports industry has become a new front of oil state reputation washing grew in July, as Saudi Arabia made punchy moves to assert its position at the heart of the sector.
Its first move was to kick off the inaugural Esports World Cup in Riyadh, dishing out prizes worth a combined $60m to dozens of teams competing across 21 popular video games during the course of one month of competitive gaming action.
This was followed shortly afterwards by an announcement of the first ever Olympic Esports by the International Olympic Committee, which will be hosted in Riyadh next year. An event that both esports enthusiasts and geopolitics nerds will be watching closely (a wonderful venn diagram of interests, you’ll agree).
In other “we’ve got loads of money” news, Keywords Studios was snapped up by private equity group EQT at a valuation of £2.2bn after a bit of haggling on the price due to the impossible-to-avoid industry head winds.
Meanwhile, Roblox got into hot water with Bloomberg after an investigation that accused the platform of having a problem with child predators, arguing that the platform did not have enough moderators to push back against a torrent of abuse aimed at children. This, as you’ll see, had repercussions later in the year.
And finally, some bozo announced that he was writing a book. I’ve heard it’s going to be great, for what it’s worth…
Most read VGIM: I am writing my debut non-fiction book
August - Summer Horror Days
The games industry’s crisis year continued apace in August, with plenty of stories about layoffs and upheaval to really piss in everybody’s poolside cocktails.
Bungie’s decision to lay off 220 people shortly after shipping the last bit of DLC for Destiny 2 generated serious “I don’t recall saying good luck” vibes within the wider games industry.
Meanwhile, The Financial Times reported that Warner Bros was looking to sell off its games business in an effort to avert a wider crisis within its entertainment business.
Despite having a bumper 2023 due to the magic of Hogwarts: Legacy (geddit), Suicide Squad’s massive flop in February 2024 encouraged WB to look for some much needed cash for the business. Keep an eye on this one into the new year.
In better news, Epic managed to finally launch its Games Store on iOS and Android in the EU. Sure, it’s an absolute nightmare to install anything due to the ongoing intransigence of the major app stores. But we’ll see what competition regulators have to say about that in the year to come.
And in miraculous news, actual video games were announced during gamescom’s Opening Night Live.
As well as teeing up a final trailer for surprise triple A hit of the year Black Myth: Wukong, which launched a week after the event, the trailer packed curtain raiser featured first looks at Borderlands 4 and a new entry in the Mafia franchise - suggesting that we will actually have games to be excited about in the next 18 months.
Most read VGIM: gamescom 2024: four things we learned from Opening Night Live
September - Concord crashes
Sony Interactive Entertainment opened up September with the spectacular news that it was shutting down Concord, a live service game that reportedly cost in excess of a hundred million dollars to develop, a fortnight after it had launched.
In addition to releasing a massive flop, the company also lifted the lid on a PS5 Pro that most people agreed was too expensive (£700!) to make much of a dent in the wider console market. Ah well.
In other news, Nintendo finally sued Pocket Pair - the creators of Palworld - for infringing multiple patents. Given the fact that the legal team from the Japanese giants is known for enforcing the company’s rights aggressively, it was hardly a surprise that this would happen eventually (and we eagerly await the outcome).
And in bad news for the wider business, the European Consumer Organisation filed a complaint with the European Commission claiming that video games companies are misleading players into spending cash in games - putting the whole industry’s approach to business under the microscope.
But hey, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions came out. Cheer up, everyone!
Most read VGIM: How video games became a front of the global information war
October - Hindenburg blows up (Roblox)
Short-selling firm Hindenburg swung its fists into the side of Roblox in October by accusing the platform of being a “pedophile hellscape for kids”.
The report, which also alleged that the user generated content platform was also cooking its books on its user count, led to the company attracting serious heat from both mainstream media and the political elite - giving it a hefty headache and forcing it on the defensive.
Meanwhile, Epic Games continued to swing its weight across the world. As well as winning a permanent injunction in the US against Google to force the company to show users alternative app stores (eventually, pending appeal), it also sued Samsung in the same country for enabling software that blocks app installs from other digital shops as standard.
Elsewhere, Ubisoft’s terrible year continued. It followed up the comparative flop of Star Wars: Outlaws, which launched to little fanfare in August, with the news that it was delaying Assassin’s Creed: Shadows into early 2025 - missing a prime opportunity to flog the samurai dream to players in a comparatively quiet Q4 and sending its share price into a tailspin.
But in better video game release news, we did at least get to enjoy the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 - the first game in the series to appear on Xbox’s Game Pass from launch.
A bargain for Microsoft at just $69bn, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Most read VGIM: Honk! Inside the Untitled Goose Game Exhibition
November - From Soldware?
After a woeful September, Sony moved back on the front foot with some intriguing background stories revealed across November.
First up, Reuters broke the news that Sony was in talks to acquire Kadokawa - the entertainment biz which owns Bloodborne and Elden Ring developer From Software.
And next, there were credible rumours that the company is working on a new handheld capable of playing PS5 quality games to give it a chance to compete in the Steam deck/Switch market. All of this is unsurprising, given the company’s need to pivot out of its currently dangerous console strategy.
In other developments, Roblox announced a fresh suite of parental controls for its platform as it continued to fight back against its Hindenburging earlier in the year.
Meanwhile, on the acquisition front, a couple of big deals were concluded in November.
Miniclip acquired Easybrain from Embracer for a surprisingly hefty $1.2bn, while Modern Times Group nabbed Plarium - they of Raid: Shadow Legends “why is every influencer doing paid adverts for this game” fame - from Aristocrat for up to $820m: putting some much needed winds into the industry’s sale in the process.
And in another sense, we all got involved in acquisitions because we all bought stuff on Black Friday when loads of video games and hardware went on sale.
Yes, this is not my best joke. I am very tired, ok?
Most read VGIM: Why Space Marine 2's AI punishes you for being a wuss
December - Punching while down
And finally, the year ended as it began: with painful layoffs rolling across the industry.
Ubisoft continued to be the unfortunate villain of the industry piece on this front, laying off the best part of 300 employees after it decided to take its games as a service shooter XDefiant to the same farm that Sony took Concord to earlier in the year.
People Can Fly also got in on the depressing job cutting action, reducing its headcount by 120 roughly two weeks before Christmas. Sigh.
But in better news, App Magic reported that the refreshed Pokémon Trading Card Game had racked up $200m since it launched at the end of October. That’s something to be happy about, I guess?
Most read VGIM: VGIM’s Video Games Year In Review: Part 1
The bluffer’s guide to 2024 in video games
Do say: 2024 was a challenging year for the games industry, with waves of lay-offs, company closures and strategic acquisitions taking place as the sector sought to adjust to an absence of releases, a tough funding landscape and changing player habits.
Don’t say (too loudly, anyway): THANK GOD THAT’S OVER.
News in brief
Counting the Tencents?: Tencent’s likely acquisition of Ubisoft rumbles on. Reuters reports that the company is exploring its options on how to buyout the company, with the one caveat that the Guillemot family, the company’s founders and largest shareholders, want to retain control of the business - despite coming under pressure from its minority partners to consider selling up. One to watch as we come to the end of the year…
Applied too much press-ure: There is only one person left working at Games Industry Biz from 2025, according to reports from Nathan Grayson over on Aftermath. The publication’s headcount reduced after Ziff Davis, the parent company which acquired the site after it swallowed up Gamer Network earlier this year, offered employees buy-outs as part of cost cutting measures due to a decline in organic revenue in its wider portfolio. Some thoroughly needless vandalism of a gold standard media brand, then.
Happily ever BAFTA: The longlist for the video games BAFTAs has been unveiled, with indie hits Balatro and Animal Well securing flipping loads of nomination nods. The long list will be whittled down into a more manageable short list (and even more manageable winner) early next year, when the BAFTA judging panels meet ahead of April’s awards show.
itch-in for a fight: Indie game store itch.io was briefly taken offline over the weekend due to an allegedly bogus AI powered phishing report from the creators of Funko Pop. In a statement on social media, itch said that its whole site was briefly taken offline by its web registration service after an automated tool called BrandShield reported the domain for ‘fraud and phishing’ on the basis of a single post from an itch user showing off their support for the game Funko Fusion. Right.
Moral panic watch: In tedious reporting news, The New York Times has the scoop that Luigi Mangione, the person charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a “background in [the] games industry.” I’ve obviously explored credible links between participation in video game communities and extreme actions before, but having read the NYT’s piece - as well as this article from NBC News about Mangione playing Among Us (which was, funnily enough, quietly amended earlier this week to add context about what the game actually is) - the only thing I’m hearing is the noise of a dog whistle being blown from the other side of the Atlantic.
On the move
Tristan Sharp has been bumped up to the role of Deputy Director at the Australian Classification Board…Simon Hope has taken on a contract role as Global Talent Partner at Plaion alongside his work at Aardvark Swift…Charity Joy is heading up Scopely’s new Riyadh arm…Zynga has snapped up Agata Lukasiewicz as VP, Strategy and Operations…And UK games industry comms legend Paul Almond has announced that he is retiring from his role as Head of Communications for Xbox in UK and Ireland in March next year. Truly, one of the GOATs *salutes*...
Jobs ahoy
In “definitely 100% related to the last sentence” news, Microsoft is recruiting a Senior Comms Manager, Xbox for UK and Ireland…Amazon Games is hiring a Lead Publishing Producer, Global Production Group in its London office…Splash Damage is picking up a Senior Development Director…LA based readers might consider going for the Senior Franchise Producer, Walking Dead role at Lighthouse Entertainment…Or if you’d consider a move down under, Riot Games is still hunting for a Game Producer for Valorant in Sydney…
Events and conferences
The Game Awards, Los Angeles - 12th December
Pocket Gamer Connects, London - 20th-21st January
Taipei Game Show, Taipei - 23rd-26th January
Yorkshire Games Fest, Bradford - 10th-25th February
DICE Summit, Las Vegas - 11th-13th February
Games of the week
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - The well-reviewed whip-cracker is out now on Xbox and PC, including for everyone sporting the right Game Pass.
Monument Valley 3 - Third entry in the gently mind bending puzzle series lands exclusively on Netflix.
For the King II - Turn based roguelite launching just in time for Christmas? Don’t mind if I give it a go then…
Before you go…
Sometimes, I feel like I need to roll the pitch for the palate cleanser at the end of VGIM.
And some weeks, Aardman Animation - they of Wallace and Gromit - announce a partnership with The Pokemon Company to work on a ‘secret project’ due in 2027.
Cracking news, Gromit!