Thursday - August 1, 2024

Daily Digest

• Fable developer Playground Games appears to have opened third studio (GameIndustry.biz).
  • JR's Thoughts: A bit of a gossip scoop, but a scoop nonetheless. Playground Games, developer of the upcoming Fable game and the Forza Horizon studio has expanded. The ramp up comes as Fable's development is likely kicking into full gear, with a likely Forza Horizon 6 somewhere on the, well, horizon. Not much else to be said, except for one thing: I hope this isn't the result of short-term decision making that may lead to layoffs in the long-term for the existing and new hires at Playground.
• NCsoft invests $3.5m in Moon Rover Games (GameIndustry.biz).
  • JR's Thoughts: Moon Rover is a new studio founded in 2023 by former developers of the Far Cry and Battlefield series. They are currently workshopping an "emergent multiplayer co-op action" game, whatever that means. NCsoft is a Korean publisher known primarily for their mobile action games, so we'll see if this investment marks a shift into console/PC, or if Moon Rover's emergent game will be a mobile-first experience. I would bet on the latter.
• Modern Warfare 3 players are less likely to play the game when there's no skill-based matchmaking, according to new Activision study (TechRadar).
  • JR's Thoughts: Activision secretly disabled SBMM in MW3 to see if it made a difference, and it did! Just maybe not in the way many players may have wanted it to. This is a solid representation of how the vocal population of streamers who play upwards of 10+ hours a day are maybe not representative of the vast majority of the player population. It's crazy to me how many viewers of said streamers agree with their takes too, considering Activision found a nearly 80% increase in mid-game quitters during this test period. I encourage anyone interested in matchmaking or competitive video games in general to check out the full study.
• Warner Bros hires Bethesda studio director to lead WB Games Montreal (GameIndustry.biz).
  • JR's Thoughts: Yves Lachance is the new studio head of WB Games Montreal, developer of the Arkham series. It seems as though WB Games Montreal is currently working on a game in the DC Comics universe, so time will tell the effect he'll have on the overall execution of the game. After Gotham Knights' good albeit mediocre release, this is a great leadership switch up for the studio.
• Steam insider claims Valve is working on a system to ensure players get their season pass content (GamesRadar).
  • JR's Thoughts: More accountability for developers to players in this industry is always better. I'm not confident something like this could actually work, but I'm glad Valve is using it's immense resources to workshop something. In either case, it's a good direction for the industry to take towards compensating players for time and money spent.

That's all for today! If you have a topic or news item you want featured on the newsletter - hit me up at MorningGamesBeat@gmail.com.