GIES | W22 | 2024

Games Industry Executive Summary | Mighty Diamonds | May 31st, 2024

Highlights

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Confirmed to Launch Day One on Xbox Game Pass

• Rainbow Six Siege fans roundly boo the announcement of a new monthly subscription service

News

• Sony made a PSVR 2 adapter for PC support

• Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II debuts with fewer players than Redfall and Hi-Fi RUSH on Steam

• Nobody Working On Cyberpunk 2077 For The First Time In A Decade

• Just 2 weeks before its early access release, Life By You is delayed again, this time without a new date

• Overwatch 2 Is Removing Another PvE Mode, Saying It 'Hasn't Resonated With Players'

Numbers

• Star Citizen Pushes Through the $700 Million Raised Mark, and No, There Still Isn’t a Release Date

• Dragon's Dogma 2 Sales Top 3 Million Units

Rumors

• Report: Batman: Arkham Knight Director Making AAA Game For Xbox

• Rumor: Doom: The Dark Ages Will be a Multiplatform Title and Also Release on PS5

• Valve's unannounced hero shooter had nearly 1,000 concurrent PC players over the past 24 hours - but the developer is staying silent

• Next Resident Evil Remakes Reportedly CODE: Veronica and Zero

Trends

• Older gamers are a growth opportunity for AA(A) publishers – here is how to capture it

• YouTube launches in-app Playables arcade

• Hyper Light Breaker dev opens up about the stress of depending on a publisher under the corporate carousel of acquisitions, layoffs, and closures

• We're getting a Lenovo Legion Go 'Lite' — Lenovo is potentially working on a more affordable PC gaming handheld

• Gamers Have Become Less Interested in Strategic Thinking and Planning

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The take

If you look closely, you'll notice the industry is still struggling to stabilize revenue through subscriptions and live service. Microsoft may be using Call of Duty to bring headlines back to Game Pass, but Hellblade II shows it's still an uphill battle to get wide recognition for the kinds of games the subscription service was always supposed to boost.

Elsewhere, Overwatch 2 and Rainbow Six Siege struggle with the monthly pressures of running a successful live service. Traditional single-player shows up to play with the success of Dragons Dogma and Capcom doubling down on Resident Evil Remakes. And Star Citizen has found the infinite money glitch.

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Thank you for reading this far. This is the first edition of GIES. We eagerly await your feedback and look forward to conducting more in-depth analysis in the future.

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