Game industry business news

The global games market will reach $108.9bn (84bn) in 2017, according to Newzoo’s latest quarterly update, showing a growth of 7.8 per cent year-on-year. The vast majority of that figure will come from digital game revenues, says Newzoo, reaching $94.4bn (72.8bn), or 87 per cent of the global market. This …

Former general manager joins with an impressive back catalogue

Almost 20 years after its original release, German gamers can now legally play an unedited version of Valve’s Half-Life for the first time. Polygon reports that the game has finally been removed from Germany’s ‘list of objectionable media’, which is compiled and managed by the Federal Review Board for Media …

A record period of growth for Overwatch has been rewarding for Activision-Blizzard’s finances. Blizzard has seen a 58 per cent jump in their revenue in the last quarter, exceeding analyst expectations with a respectable $441m in revenues. It still hasn’t quite hit the numbers seen by mobile outfit King, who …

Publisher 505 Games has announed former general manager of 2K Games InternationalNeil Ralley as its new president. Ralley, who previously worked at 2K for 11 years and oversaw the international rollouts of BioShock, Borderlands, Mafia, Civilization, XCOM, NBA 2K and WWE 2K, will now use his expertise to take 505 …

It was the surprise hit of late 2013, but DayZ still, remarkably, remains in alpha on Steam Early Access. That’s all about to change, however, with the game’s next patch preparing to take the game into beta. The still PC-only DayZ shifted nearly 1m units and made over 20m in …

A 58 per cent jump in revenue at Blizzard has played a big part in Activision beating analyst expectations for the last quarter. Blizzard revenues for the period reached $441m, although that doesn’t quite match revenues from the company’s biggest contributor, King, which hit $475m. Activision generated $215m. Both Blizzard …

This week, MCV is all about VR and peripherals. First, we talk to Scuf’s CEO Duncan Ironmonger about the firm’s controller revolution and how the company won eSports. We also speak to the teams behind the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Sony’s PlayStation VR to see what went right, what …

After many years of struggling to recapture the glory years of the casual gaming bubble, Zynga has reported one of its best quarters for some time. GAAP revenue for the period grew four per cent year-on-year to $194.3m, with GAAP net losses reducing from $35.4m to $9.5m. The EBITDA numbers …

Developer Brendan Greene has confirmed that the possibility of bringing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to Xbox One and PS4 is being investigated. "We have a team working already on looking to port it to at least the Xbox One," Greene told BusinessInsider. "We’re looking at both consoles of course, but we have …