Game Ninja : Smartphone Exploration featuring Enor

Ubisoft touts 'solid' early 2024 financials, thanks xDefiant and reliable franchises

Ubisoft posted its financials for the first quarter of the 2024-2025 fiscal year, and the French developer is pleased with its performance in several areas.
Net bookings for the quarter (which ended on June 30, 2024) hit €290 million (or $316.5 million). Not only is it up 8.3 percent from the same quarter for 2023-2024, it's also 5.5 percent ahead of the initial target of about €275 million.
xDefiant, the studio's new shooter which released back in May, was singled out for its "encouraging" start. The game amassed over 10 million players in the first two weeks, and has generally outperformed expectations and "strong" average revenue per day.

Digital Sun's Cataclismo surpasses 120K Early Access sales in two weeks

Cataclismo launched in Early Access in late July, and it's already sold 120,000 copies.
Tim Bender, CEO of the game's publisher Hooded Horse, bragged about the RTS' success, also highlighting its high 93 percent rating on Steam. "We're honored to serve as publisher for the amazing devs at Digital Sun," he wrote.
Meanwhile, the studio separately called it the fastest-selling game of its history to surpass 100,000 copies. It's also its highest-rated Steam game ever, surpassing the League of Legends spinoff Mageseeker (84 percent) and Moonlighter (82 percent).

Valve confirms ROG Ally, other handhelds are getting SteamOS support

After recent patch notes drummed up interest, Valve has confirmed its Linux-powered SteamOS will support upcoming, non-Steam Deck handhelds.
Designer Lawrence Yang told The Verge third-party devices can eventually run its operating system, beginning with ASUS' ROG Ally. Yang told the outlet support was in the cards back in late 2022, as a potential herald for the Steam Controller or Machine's return.
However, he stressed this feature "isn't ready to run out of the box yet." Valve is making "steady progress," and it sounds like it wants to have support for multiple handhelds prepared before pushing it out.

Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty remain big drivers behind CD Projekt's revenue growth

Financials for the first half of the 2024-2025 fiscal year show CD Projekt had "strong" results in multiple areas from January 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024.
Revenue-wise, the Polish studio boasted 424.8 million PLN (or $109.8 million), up 30.6 percent from the first six months of the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion were deemed the primary drivers for this growth.
This has been the case previously in May and March, and it looks to continually sustain CD Projekt, much like The Witcher 3 did as Cyberpunk was being improved on.
Financial reserves and net profit were also said to have grown during the six-month period. Reserves increased to over 55 million PLN, while net profit hit 170 million PLN, up 88.4 percent from 90.2 million PLN in 2023-2024's first half.

Games featuring paid loot boxes will soon receive a mandatory 'M' rating in Australia

The Australian Government is tweaking how video games containing in-game purchases are classified in the region.
New classification guidelines will debut on September 22, 2024, and mandate that titles featuring "in-game purchases with an element of chance" must have a minimum classification of 'M' (not recommended for children under 15 years of age).
As noted by Australian game industry trade body IGEA, the updated guidelines define purchases with an "element of chance" as "mystery items players can use real money to buy without knowing what they’ll receive, such as loot boxes."
The changes will apply to video games on computers, console, phones, and tablets (so pretty much the whole gamut) and are being made to "align video game classifications with age-based restrictions that are already in place in the real-world."