🕹️ Age restrictions

Happy Wednesday. Players are usually clamoring for developers to fix bugs in their favorite games. However, Palworld dev Pocketpair recently took to social media to apologize for “inadvertently fixing a bug” when their recent patch unintentionally fixed a fan-favorite bug that allows players to catch tower bosses.

— Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST: Major PlayStation layoffs

Sony Interactive Entertainment will be laying off ~900 people across its PlayStation unit, approximately 8% of its global workforce. Their London studio will close entirely and other regions will be affected as a part of the restructuring efforts. The closure will result in the Twisted Metal live-service game being canceled and London’s unannounced title being canned.

This comes a few weeks after Sony cut their PS5 sales forecast for the fiscal year by approximately 16% and posted record revenue for its gaming division growing 16% YoY. Additionally, with the PlayStation President planning to retire in March, the company will face the added challenge of leadership transition as they are restructuring.

Despite the news, Sony’s stock fell less than 1% following the announcement.

Step Back: The primary reasons to buy a console have been affordability compared to a computer or console exclusives. Recent breakout games are shipping to PC or multi-platform first and are not investing a ton into pushing hardware limitations for these games. This combined with the lean into open and constant communication between developers and players has paved the way for titles like Lethal Company and Palworld to succeed.

HUD

• 🔫 The next installment of the Battlefield franchise is expected to be released sometime in 2025, with EA looking to bounce back from the ill-received Battlefield 2042. There are reportedly also plans to launch a free-to-play battle royale game alongside the next installment of the franchise.

• ⚖️ Nintendo is suing the developers of Switch emulator Yuzu in US court, accusing the Yuzu of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations and copyright infringement. Nintendo is seeking a permanent injunction, seizure and destruction of Yuzu’s hard drives, and monetary compensation.

• 🥷 Epic Games is investigating claims that ransomware group Mogilevich carried out an attack on them resulting in over 200GB of stolen data, including passwords, payment information, and source code. Epic says they have not seen proof that the attack occurred.

MAJOR W

• ✈️ Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile has an official worldwide launch date of March 21, after spending the past year in limited release. Available on iOS and Android, the game features fan-favorite maps Verdansk and Rebirth Island.

• 💰️ Remedy Entertainment acquired full rights to its Control series from 505 Games for EUR 17 million. This includes Control, Control 2, and codename Condor.

F IN THE CHAT

• ⚔️ The official RuneScape X (Twitter) account was shortly banned yesterday when it was flagged for being created by someone under the age of 13. When the account was created the game’s 2001 release year was used jokingly as a birthdate, and was flagged by X’s algorithms 15 years later.

• 👎️ Deck Nine Games is laying off a fifth of its staff, the 3rd studio to suffer layoffs this week. The Life is Strange: True Colors pointed towards worsening market conditions as the cause.

CAREER CORNER

• Product Manager — Trailmix Games (Hybrid, England)

• Senior Producer — Super Solid (Hybrid, England)

• Experienced QA — Super Rare Games (London, England)

HIVE MIND

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