Welcome back to yet another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news! We have got quite a bit to cover in this bundle, so we’re just gonna get right on into it, if you don’t mind. You don’t mind, do you? Sure you don’t.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma says that the brand has “started to return to growth” according to <a href="https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-ceo-asha-sharma-speaks-at-internal-town-hall-we-must-strengthen-for-cxbox-series-x-s-xbox-helix-and-xbox-game-pass” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>an internal town hall meeting she held with staffers recently. The CEO previously described Xbox as in “free fall,” but now says that it’s “[grown] more than two to three times what we were, and we expect that to continue,” particularly in the case of its first-party titles. This, of course, doesn’t paper over the fact that there are still thousands more job losses on the horizon for game devs, but at least one person is happy, right?
Bobby Kotick is back on a board of directors, only this time he’ll be holding a seat on the board for Skydance, otherwise known as the company that’s been formed as a result of Warner Bros. and Paramount’s recently completed $111B multimedia merger. “Bobby led a global entertainment company through three decades of sustained growth, and he brings real perspective on building enduring franchises and connecting with fans,” crows Skydance CEO Larry Ellison.
NCsoft’s earnings forecast has been lowered due in part to Aion 2’s global release, or at least so says an analyst from South Korea’s NH Investment & Securities. According to Google translated statements from analyst Jaemin Ahn, the MMORPG had a “decent” global release, but that “it is difficult to conclude that it significantly exceeded market expectations,” which has in turn resulted in a slightly lowered projected earnings estimate. That said, Ahn also suggests that Aion 2 will still earn a hefty chunk of revenue over the next three months. So really this reads like someone attempting to blend math with reading tea leaves, as is the wont of investors.
Necesse developer Fair Games has been acquired by Fireshine Games on the strength of the 2-D survivalbox’s 2.5M box sales, effectively becoming the publishing partner for the title. Fireshine promises to “add key long-tail support to the PC title and its millions of players,” while an announcement from the devs confirms that development and updates will continue on, and that updates will perhaps even be a bit bigger. “[W]e’re just going to have more time to do that, as Fireshine will be helping out with a lot of the larger time consuming tasks such as publishing and porting,” reads the Steam announcement.
Finally, a studio from former devs of Journey and Sky: Children of the Light has secured funding. The studio, known as Gardens Interactive, has gotten $35M in Series B funding from the likes of Lightspeed Venture Partners among others. The funding will help the studio to put together Gardens, a self-described multiplayer “social roleplaying strandbox […] where what you do stays behind for whoever passes through next, where the consequences of your actions can be felt by those you may never meet, and where players can deepen their bonds in a multitude of ways.”
eers Ken), press release, Steam, Infostock Daily
