Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox

Triple Topping is bankrupt, Florida Man is asking $2M from Rockstar and Alan Wake 2 will get an update today

Author

Bobby Voicu
December 11, 2023

Despite the rise in downloads, the market isn’t as financially robust as it was. - Dmitry Yaminsky, cofounder, Azur Games

Hey there!

📣 If you only read one piece of news today 📣

⚔️ Baldur's Gate 3, which won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023, is now available on Xbox Series X/S, expanding its availability beyond PlayStation 5 and PC.

The game had issues with Xbox Series X/S feature parity when related to same screen multiplayer. Larian Studios, the developers, were allowed to not offer parity on Series S, the first title to do this.

🎉 But we have so much more:

Verdansk is coming back to Call of Duty next year, The Day Before has a drastic drop in players and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will have an offline story mode. 

Don’t miss The Power-Up Chronicles section at the end of this newsletter. It has stories about

  • How Azur Games has topped 8B installs

  • Gaming has hits, but few know how big they are

  • With GTA 6 not due until 2025, what will drive games in 2024?

Play on:

Welcome to The Power-Up #49

Biz-Up

🪧 Microsoft has agreed to integrate 77 contract workers into the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union, with 23 of them becoming full-time employees. The move is described as a "historic development" by union members.

🦑 Squid Game Virtuals generates $4.56M for Sandbox VR in first two months. I just found out this game exists 😅

👩‍💻 W4 Games raises $15M to drive video game dev with Godot Engine. After Unity messed up really bad this year, Godot has a real chance in making a dent in the game engine market.

🔊 Odeeo claims over 90% of audio ads are not skipped by gamers. Even 95% if the ad is shorter.

🎩 Monopoly Go is a success, but Scopely supported the growth with more than $1.5 Billion (yes, Billion, with a B).

🚀 Game spending is expected to recover to $111 billion in 2024, predicts Data.ai.

Industry Level-Up (or Down)

✋ Indie game studio Triple Topping has declared bankruptcy, leading to staff redundancies, as announced by CEO Astrid Refstrup. Despite the bankruptcy, plans are being made for the studio's upcoming title Dead Pets Unleashed, which is expected to release in 2024.

Round-Up

🗡️ Arkane Lyon announced Blade without specifying it as an Xbox exclusive, despite being a Microsoft-owned studio. The game's announcement and subsequent promotion notably lack direct references to Xbox, unlike other titles from Xbox studios. 

🏎️ Forza Horizon 5 has exceeded 35 million players, marking a significant increase of 5 million since May 2023. The game, which launched on November 1, 2021, is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

🧟‍♂️ Zombie MMO The Day Before has experienced a drastic 75% drop in player count just two days after release, following overwhelmingly negative reviews and player criticisms of it being a "cash grab."

🃏 A Florida man, known as the "real-life Joker," is demanding $2 million from Rockstar Games, claiming a character in the GTA 6 reveal trailer was inspired by his likeness.

🪓 God of War Ragnarök has surpassed 15 million units sold worldwide on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, an increase from 11 million in February 2023 and a record-breaking 5.1 million during its launch week in November 2022.

Game-Up

💽 Rocksteady Studios has confirmed that an offline story mode for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will be added post-release, allowing players to experience the main campaign without an internet connection. 

⚔️ Baldur's Gate 3, which won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023, is now available on Xbox Series X/S, expanding its availability beyond PlayStation 5 and PC.

🔫 The original Call of Duty Warzone map, Verdansk, is set to make a comeback by the end of 2024, likely aligning with the Black Ops Gulf War Season 1 release schedule.

🔦 The upcoming Alan Wake 2 update, set for today (December 11), will introduce a New Game Plus mode, a new ending titled "The Final Draft" and a challenging Nightmare difficulty. 

Some of the games launching this week:

  • December 12: Stargate: Timekeepers (PC)

  • December 13: Pioneers of Pagonia (PC)

  • December 14: House Flipper 2 (PC), My Little Blood Cult (PC), Raccoo Venture (PS4/PS5, Xbox One/S/X, Switch), SeaOrama: World of Shipping (PC)

  • December 15: Towers & Powers (PC VR, PSVR 2, Quest)

The Power-Up Chronicles

Azur Games has reached a staggering eight billion installs for its hypercasual and casual games, driven by a strategy of tapping into the hyper-casual market, diversifying their portfolio, and engaging in mergers and acquisitions.

Despite the global gaming market's challenges, Azur Games has adapted by focusing on internal development, enhancing existing games, and exploring new niches in casual and midcore genres.

➡️ An interview with Dmitry Yaminsky, cofounder of Azur Games, on VentureBeat.

The video game industry, while booming with blockbusters, remains secretive about the sales figures of its games, especially in the U.S., making it difficult to gauge their success compared to the openly reported box office stats of movies.

The industry's shift towards digital sales and post-release micro-transactions further complicates the transparency of game performance, with publishers being selective in sharing their success, as seen in Activision Blizzard's reporting of "Diablo IV" reaching a significant revenue milestone.

➡️ An article by Stephen Totilo on Axios.

The delay of Grand Theft Auto 6 to 2025 shifts the gaming industry's focus for 2024, with analysts predicting a significant impact on market dynamics.

Despite this, the anticipation for GTA 6 remains high, with expectations of it being a major success upon release.

In the meantime, new console launches and other big titles are likely to drive the market in 2024, with live-service games playing a key role in maintaining industry growth.

➡️ An article by James Batchelor on GamesIndustry.biz.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Stay powered-up until next time.

Bobby & Andrei

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Did you know?

Verdansk, the original map in Warzone, was themed after the fictional city in Modern Warfare, divided into sectors and zones with distinct points of interest, and modeled after the real-life city of Donetsk.

An updated version, "Verdansk '84," was released in April 2021 with significant thematic and structural changes, including new locations, revamped areas, and a focus on integrating elements from both Black Ops Cold War and Warzone.