Sherbytes: Industry News Megathread, v.2

[My Spot]

 

[rikwebb]

Keywords Studios have acquired Halo co-developer Certain Affinity, no value disclosed as of yet

Keywords acquires Halo co-developer Certain Affinity

Keywords Studios has acquired US developer Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum.

www.gamesindustry.biz

Its Keywords second acquisition in the last few months after Wushu Studio in August

 

[rikwebb]

Pretty Sizeable new Vampire Survivors DLC coming 31st October

Vampire Survivors join forces once more with KONAMI, this time featuring their notable Castlevania franchise, in a new DLC which many have been anticipating!

The Vampire Survivors have come a long way in their honorable hunt, and after joining forces with the Belmont Family, they are the closest they've ever been!

This all-out celebration has over 20 new characters, 40+ weapons including more whips than you can count on one hand, 30+ music tracks, and the BIGGEST stage we've made yet! Even though we're literally at Dracula's Castle, there's still zero vampires?

And the cherry on top: a man.

Available on October 31st on Steam, Xbox X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation5, PlayStation4, Nintendo Switch, Android & iOS

 

[The Clark]

Pretty Sizeable new Vampire Survivors DLC coming 31st October

I wish I liked this game more, but I love Castlevania, so I will probably get this. I think this is the third or fourth Castlevania crossover like this I have seen, so Konami knows there is demand there. But will they ever make a new Castlevania game? I know I am in the minority, but I just want a new classic (non-Metroidvania) title.

 

[rikwebb]

Netflix has shut down thier "AAA" studio Team Blue which included some notable industry veterans

Scoop: Netflix shuts down 'AAA' Team Blue gaming studio, amid gaming shake-up

The SoCal studio boasted senior veterans from Halo, God of War and Overwatch

www.gamefile.news

In late 2022, Netflix wooed Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny from Blizzard to build its SoCal studio. (Sonny had stints on Call of Duty and Sony Santa Monica before that).

In spring 2023, Netflix's SoCal studio added Joesph Staten, a longtime creative lead on Microsoft's Halo franchise at Bungie and 343 Industries. Staten was exiting the Xbox camp for Netflix to work "as creative director for a brand-new AAA multiplatform game and original IP," he said at the time. That move was widely covered in the gaming press, a sign that Netflix was very serious about this gaming thing.

That same spring, Team Blue also recruited art director Rafael Grassetti, who had nearly a decade of experience at Sony Santa Monica where he'd most recently been the God of War studio's overall art director.

As of October 2024, however, all three are gone and Team Blue has been shuttered, a Netflix rep confirmed to Game File.

Netflix declined to say how many people overall have been impacted by the closure, but Team Blue had included other seasoned veterans, too.

Its director of technology, Jerry Edsall, had more than a decade of experience in senior roles at Microsoft's The Coalition before joining Netflix's studio in spring 2023.

Gavin Irby, design director on Team Blue until this month, had a decade of experience in lead roles at Blizzard, Bungie and Jagex.

 

[Madmick]

Keywords Studios have acquired Halo co-developer Certain Affinity, no value disclosed as of yet

Keywords acquires Halo co-developer Certain Affinity

Keywords Studios has acquired US developer Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum.

www.gamesindustry.biz

Its Keywords second acquisition in the last few months after Wushu Studio in August

I saw this, and I looked up Keyword. I didn't realize how big they'd gotten. $841m in revenue in 2023, and that's a lot of properties:

Keywords Studios - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Keywords Studios plc is an Irish video game industry services company based in Leopardstown. Founded in 1998...the company completed its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in 2013.

Keywords Studios has acquired several other companies, including Certain Affinity, Blindlight, Climax Studios, Forgotten Empires, GameSim, Heavy Iron Studios, High Voltage Software, Smoking Gun Interactive, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Workshop.

List of acquisitions by Keywords Studios (filtered: development studios)

Name	Acquired	Business
GameSim	May 2017	Development
D3T	October 2017	Development
Sperasoft	December 2017	Development
Fire Without Smoke	May 2018	Development
Snowed In Studios	July 2018	Development
Studio Gobo	August 2018	Development
Wizcorp	April 2019	Development
Marching Cube	January 2020	Development
Coconut Lizard	June 2020	Development
Heavy Iron Studios	September 2020	Development
High Voltage Software	December 2020	Development
Tantalus Media	March 2021	Development
Climax Studios	April 2021	Development
Wicked Witch	December 2021	Development
Forgotten Empires	June 2022	Development
Mighty Games	August 2022	Development
Smoking Gun Interactive	September 2022	Development
Hardsuit Labs	May 2023	Development
The Multiplayer Group	December 2023	Development
Wushu Studios	August 2024	Development
Certain Affinity	October 2024	Development

A number of those studios, including the aforementioned Certain Affinity, as well as Wushu Studios, who makes Sniper Elite, State of Decay, and helped co-developed Forza 5, have very close ties with Microsoft. I wonder if at some point Microsoft will acquire Keyword.

 

[rikwebb]

I saw this, and I looked up Keyword. I didn't realize how big they'd gotten. $841m in revenue in 2023, and that's a lot of properties:

Whilst being in the middle of a being taken over themselves too

Keywords Studios agrees £2.1bn takeover in further blow to London market

Dublin-based Keywords, which is listed on London’s junior Aim market, has backed a cash bid worth £24.50 a share from Swedish private equity firm EQT.

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Madmick]

Whilst being in the middle of a being taken over themselves too

Keywords Studios agrees £2.1bn takeover in further blow to London market

Dublin-based Keywords, which is listed on London’s junior Aim market, has backed a cash bid worth £24.50 a share from Swedish private equity firm EQT.

www.standard.co.uk

Ahhhh...well, that greatly decreases the chances Microsoft will purchase them. Private equity would sooner chop up an asset to piece it off during an opportune market cycle than sell it wholesale outright at a fair price.

 

[rikwebb]

Ahhhh...well, that greatly decreases the chances Microsoft will purchase them. Private equity would sooner chop up an asset to piece it off during an opportune market cycle than sell it wholesale outright at a fair price.

I did think for a while though that Microsoft would probably acquire Certain Affinity due to the amount of work they do on Halo and there is a lot of ex Halo era Bungie people there too

 

[Madmick]

I did think for a while though that Microsoft would probably acquire Certain Affinity due to the amount of work they do on Halo and there is a lot of ex Halo era Bungie people there too

I was thinking Microsoft might acquire Keyword Studios itself, but if they get taken over by a private equity outfit, I suspect the chance of that suddenly becomes effectively nil.

 

[My Spot]

TIL that it's been almost 40 years and no one still knows the exact day Mario 1 was released in North America.

 

[KaNesDeath]

From monitoring employee menstrual cycles to now getting physical biometric data of their players:

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Has Built-in Support for Better Audio Tech That Costs $20 for 5 Years - IGN

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has built-in support for a third-party audio tool that charges $20 for improved sound.

www.ign.com

Activision/Blizzard just need to burn down to the ground at this rate.

 

[SwamiLeoni]

From monitoring employee menstrual cycles to now getting physical biometric data of their players:

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Has Built-in Support for Better Audio Tech That Costs $20 for 5 Years - IGN

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has built-in support for a third-party audio tool that charges $20 for improved sound.

www.ign.com

Activision/Blizzard just need to burn down to the ground at this rate.

Reminds me of I think BMW when they wanted to charge a subscription for Seat warmers on a car you purchased. Insane.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Few day old news. Netflix shutdown their game studio:

Netflix Closes Its All-Star AAA Video Game Studio, Which Made Zero Games

Netflix formed an internal studio (codename Blue) that was meant to make a AAA multiplatform game based on an original IP. It is now dead.

www.forbes.com

 

[rikwebb]

New game unveiled called [REDACTED} set in the Prison from The Calisto Protocol

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

New game unveiled called [REDACTED} set in the Prison from The Calisto Protocol

Not that I have anything against twin stick shooters (at least I assume that’s what this is based on what they’ve shown) but I can’t say I like the cartoony aesthetic as a follow up to Callisto Protocol. For all that game’s faults, I think it nailed the atmosphere and art design, both of which appear pretty much absent here.

 

[Wrath of Foamy]

Watching Like a Dragon on Prime...

 

[KaNesDeath]

Sony shutting down two game studios:

Sony closes Concord studio and permanently shuts down the game

The company is closing a mobile studio, too.

www.theverge.com

 

[rikwebb]

For anyone looking forward to that Exodus game (Ex Bioware Devs + Wizards of the Coast) and loves video game store based books

There was novel released recently based in the universe of that game (set after the events of the game) weighing in at 928 pages and theres a part two coming at some point too

Amazon.com

 

[rikwebb]

Looks like there's PS5 / Xbox Series versions of Divinity 2 coming