Author: Grace Johnson

Developer Echo Chunk, a studio focusing on AI-powered games, has raised $1.4 million in a pre-seed funding round. That money will go towards its debut title Echo Chess, and other projects it's working on that'll use the technology.Included in that funding was a16z Speedrun, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, and Roblox Corp's AI head Stef Corazza. Echo Chunk founder Sami Ramly commended all funders, saying they "understood our passion for AI’s role in the co-creation process of the future."Echo Chess is a free-to-play title with daily puzzles and sees players become the chess piece they just captured on the board. It went viral after its launch in April, and Ramly described it to VentureBeat as "a collaboration between humans and AI."

GenAI in game dev still on shaky ground

Generative AI in games is still controversial, though some developers have figured out how to use the technology. Last week, developer Volley also raised seed money, which it plans to use for its own projects made with generative AI.The idea…

Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV's new Dawntrail expansion this week, and the new adventure is doing big numbers. In a new blog, director/producer Naoki Yoshida claimed the MMO hit a new record of concurrent players.Hard numbers weren't posted, but Yoshida noted the concurrents were its biggest since the soft reboot A Realm Reborn launched back in 2013. He considered it even more impressive given the game's launch issues."It has been a joy to watch you all play, each in your own unique way," he said. "But we’ve become aware of several issues that may have proven a hinderance to your overall experience. For that, I sincerely apologize."Charting Final Fantasy XIV's numbers is a little tricky, given its multiplatform status. On SteamDB, it had a recent 24-hour peak of 71,208 players, which puts it not that far behind the peak of 95,150 players back when Endwalker launched in 2021.So big was Endwalker that Square Enix had to stop selling the game ahead of launch because it'd gotten too popular. Even with that expansion's issues, it went on to become a big revenue driver for Square Enix at the time.Dawntrail's importance was…