Month: December 2024

After a year of laying off developers, Behaviour Interactive is bringing some new ones into the fold. The Dead by Daylight developer/publisher announced today that it is acquiring Red Hook Studios, the company behind Darkest Dungeon and Darkest Dungeon II.It's incredibly rare for a game studio to announce an acquisition like this so soon after a year of layoffs and studio closures. So rare, in fact, that the only comparable example feels like Activision Blizzard's establishment of the Polish game studio Elsewhere in May 2024 while parent company Microsoft axed jobs across the company.The news may be bittersweet for plenty of the game development community. On the one hand, the Red Hook acquisition looks to be a coup for both companies. On the other hand, so many other developers lost work—and an entire studio was closed down—on the road here.In an interview with Game Developer, Red Hook Studios co-founders Tyler Sigman and Chris Bourassa, joined by Behaviour Interactive CEO Rémi Racine, explained why both parties pursued this transaction. For Red Hook, it was a chance for stability that would fuel bigger and loftier dreams, and according to Racine, it's a move…

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PlayStation 4's Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition got a price bump ahead of the recently revealed remaster for PlayStation 5 and PC.The bundled version of Guerrilla's sci-fi RPG was $20 for several years (thanks, PSPrices), but has now been doubled $40. The PS5 and PC version will be $50 (its original price in 2017), and PS4 owners can upgrade to that for $10.Sony is basically looking to prevent players from exploiting a loophole and paying only $30 for the new version of Horizon, in turn losing out on $20 from PS4 owners.PlayStation 5 games are no stranger to odd upgrade structures. Before Horizon Forbidden West's release, Sony required PlayStation 4 owners to buy another copy if they wanted it on PS5, a console which could be hard to get at the time.After backlash, Sony reversed course and made the upgrade path free for all players, regardless of what version they bought at the time. However, this was a one-time deal: cross-gen first-party titles (like God of War Ragnarok) cost $10 to upgrade from PS4 to PS5.That method has stuck as recently as the PS5 remaster of The Last of Us Part II from earlier this year, and will remain for whatever other remasters PlayStat…

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Roblox parent company Roblox Corporation shared some fascinating news today at Roblox Developers Conference. The company announced that developers making "paid access experiences" (think premium games) on Roblox will soon be able to earn a higher revenue share than developers making free-to-play games.This increase applies to games that are purchased with "real currency value" on desktop. If you make a game priced at $9.99, $29.99, or $49.99, your revenue share will respectively rise to 50 percent, 60 percent, and 70 percent.The company says it has plans to expand the increase to "other supported devices" in the future.The announcement is packed in the middle of a slew of other economic updates, including an upcoming partnership with Shopify and a new creator affiliate program that will reward Roblox developers that bring new users to the platform. A specific revenue-share increase for premium developers is worthy of pause however, as it could mark a major shift in what developers make on Roblox.Premium games understandably have struggled on newer platforms that also facilitate free-to-play games supported by ads or microtransactions. After all, especi…

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