Over 150 developers from 49 countries took part in the WN Dev Contest last month, competing for a $150,000 prize pool. Let’s take a look.

For this week’s indiedev interview, we spoke with Hong Kong-based team Distilled Gaming. It is now working on Death or Glory, a bold attempt to mix the CCG and fighting genres. The studio’s founder and game designer Roy Loh opened up about the game’s development, monetization, and being inspired by both MTG and Street Fighter.

CD Projekt has revealed the amount of dividend payments to its shareholders. They will receive over $20 million, which is almost half of the company’s annual profit but five times less compared to the previous year.

Another report on mass layoffs at a major game company has appeared. Unity has cut hundreds of employees across the globe and stopped hiring new people.

Nexters has joined a handful of game companies conducting mass layoffs over the last few weeks. Almost a quarter of total staff have lost their jobs, with this situation affecting people located in Russia, Cyprus, Turkey, and other countries.

Proletariat, known for making fantasy battle royale Spellbreak, has officially joined the Blizzard family. The team will be working on World of Warcraft and upcoming expansions to satisfy fans’ “voracious appetite” for new content.

Fntastic has responded to criticism and allegations of using free labor as part of its volunteer program. The Day Before developer shared more details about its policy of attracting unpaid volunteers, saying that they have a chance to get full-time jobs at the studio.

CD Projekt’s QA partner Quantic Lab has responded to allegations that it misled the Polish developer to keep an outsourcing contract for Cyberpunk 2077. The Romanian company noted that this report lacked understanding of the whole game testing process.

BIT ODD is a new Helsinki-based studio founded by several Clash of Clans lead developers. The team has raised €5 million to develop a multiplayer game inspired by the 80s aesthetic.

New Blood CEO Dave Oshry recently shared wishlist numbers for the team’s upcoming game Gloomwood, which performed great during the latest Steam demo fest. Here is what others can learn from this data.

A group of scientists have shared the results of a meta-analytic examination of sexualization in video games. They found no evident connection between games and male players’ sexist views or the threat to female players’ mental health.

It’s been reported that QA company Quantic Lab could have deceived CD Projekt and failed at testing Cyberpunk 2077. However, several CDPR devs have claimed that they knew about the bugs, blaming mismanagement for the game’s state.

South African holding company Naspers, which is one of Tencent’s largest minority shareholders, has decided to gradually sell its stake in the company. The Chinese tech giant saw its stock fall as a result.

It was believed that it would take around $100k to max out a Diablo Immortal character. However, a new calculation suggests that the actual sum might be five times more due to a hidden mechanic aimed at the so-called whales.

Outsourcing company Stepico has acquired fellow Ukrainian studio Inkration, which provides art and design services. The deal will allow both sides to create full-cycle game production.

Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland is an upcoming platformer / metroidvania by indie developer DIE SOFT. We have reached out to the studio’s founder Dave Mauro to discuss how he started his journey and decided to make a game inspired by retro comics and NES classics from Nintendo and Capcom.

Germany’s Ministry of Economic Affairs has invested €5.6 million in the country’s games industry. The funds were allocated to several local studios and startups, including Deponia developer Daedalic Entertainment.

Juno Blees, senior game producer at Riot, has opened up about mobile game monetization. While not calling out particular titles, she explained the problem with P2W mechanics and developers thinking about revenue KPIs rather than trying to protect players.

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has allegedly forced its employees to return to the office after ditching its vaccine policy. One of the studio’s testers now claims to have lost his job for trying to stand against this decision.