Pearl Abyss, the Korean developer of hit MMO Crimson Desert, has sold Eve Online developer CCP Games back to its CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson for $100 million in cash and $20 million in "token acquisition rights", eight years after buying it for $225 million in cash plus $200 million in performance-related payouts. The figures were reported by Korean outlet Digital Today.
Sony Interactive Entertainment is expected to pay $7.8 million in refunds to US customers after a lawsuit alleging antitrust practices on the PlayStation Store.
2026 is meant to be a key year for Valve's ambitions in the hardware space, and next week, the first piece of the puzzle falls into place. Reviews for the Steam Controller – the compan's redesigned gamepad, a decade on from the original's troubled debut – are in, and they're good. Remarkably good, in fact: a chorus of near-universal praise from outlets that you might expect to pick apart the idiosyncrasies of a $99 controller with far more relish.
This week's GamesIndustry.biz podcast is now live, once again recapping the main stories of the last seven days. This week, Lewis called in from GamesCom Latam to share the view from the Brazilian development scene, and I shared my thoughts on two days with some very high-level executives at the ESA's iicon conference.
Eliana Russi, head of B2B at Gamescom Latam, gives an emphatic answer when I ask what Brazil's game development scene needs to take it to the next level. "Money!" she cries, hands in the air.
The ESA's first event since the late, largely lamented E3 has been built with a very different objective. Rather than a brash, sprawling conference centre with consumers as the explicit audience and implicit attendees, iicon took place on one stage and a handful of meeting rooms in a new, sparsely-populated casino towards the bottom end of the Las Vegas strip. The audience could be counted – just about – in hundreds, rather than tens of thousands; the stage presentations were about strategy, government policy and brand partnerships. The attendee list was ruthlessly policed, the news value was negligible, the coffee was good: the only similarity to E3 was the timezone and the logo on the invite.
Roblox reported strong first-quarter revenue and bookings growth in its latest financial results. However, the company lowered its annual growth outlook due to mandatory age checks and new safety measures.
In a talk at the Self-Publishing Toolkit event at the London Games Festival in April, Inkle co-founder Jon Ingold laid out in black and white why the studio has been doing very well all these years without a publisher, thank you very much.
Following its shift to a PC-first strategy, Ustwo Games CEO Maria Sayans said the studio must dramatically reduce development budgets by relying more on contractors.
Blue Prince won Best International Game at the German Computer Game Awards 2026, with The Darkest Files receiving awards for Best German Game and Best Serious Game.
Microsoft has published its third-quarter results, reporting a 5% decrease in Xbox content and services and a significant 33% drop in hardware revenues.