Embracer has acquired another studio through its subsidiary Saber Interactive. The Swedish holding company now has a 100% stake in Russian studio Bytex. The financial terms of the deal, however, remain undisclosed.

Only users aged 13 and older will be able to use Roblox’s upcoming voice chat. To check a person’s identity, the platform has introduced a special two-stage age verification system.

Over 300 police officers have carried out a massive raid to arrest 469 online scammers in China. They tricked men across the country into spending real money on games by pretending to be female players.

In August, indie developer Arnold Rauers decided to make his mobile games free-to-play on the App Store. As a result, his revenue has grown by 41%.

Activision Blizzard is now facing another investigation in the wake of the ongoing scandal. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has subpoenaed the company, including its CEO Bobby Kotick, to find how the publisher handled the allegations of discrimination and harassment.

Quantic Dream has won the libel case against French newspaper Le Monde, which published claims by the studio’s employees of alleged harassment, homophobia, racism, and sexism in the workplace.

Netflix has released a free-to-play VR game called Eden Unearthed for Oculus Quest. The game is available through App Lab, rather than through the Oculus Store, meaning the title hasn’t gone through the full Oculus review process and could be experimental or still in development.

After years of being criticized for its loot boxes policy, Electronic Arts has decided to make the so-called “Preview Packs” a permanent feature in FIFA 22. These packs let players look at all specific items inside loot boxes before buying them.

Quantic Dream, known for games like Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain, might be working on its new game. According to a few sources, it will be a title based on the Star Wars franchise.

1C Entertainment technical art director Alexey Vlasov has shared some details about the development of King’s Bounty II. The main production took only about two years, so it was a challenge for the whole team to make everything on time and optimize the game for all platforms.

Indie developer Jan Wojtecki has shared his experience of promoting its roguelike Pawnbarian. Although he had no budget for marketing, he managed to attract more than 10,000 wishlists on Steam.

MY.GAMES has announced the acquisition of Minsk, Belarus-based Mamboo Games, which publishes hyper-casual and hybrid-casual titles and develops its own games. In total, the Mamboo Games portfolio includes over 30 titles.

Blackbird Interactive CEO and founder Rob Cunningham revealed that the studio is investigating if any cases of emotional abuse and manipulation have taken place at the studio. This is in response to the harassment allegations against Jennifer Scheurle, who joined the studio in January 2021.

BioWare co-founder Trent Oster has revealed that his studio tried to pitch a “reforged” version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The pitch, unfortunately, failed, but now we have a little sneak peek of it.

Jennifer Scheurle is no longer chair of the IGDA Women in Games Special Interest Group. She stepped down from the role after being accused of emotional abuse and manipulation.

The trailer for the upcoming sci-fi brawler Aeon Must Die! has been taken down from YouTube following a copyright claim from animator Arsen Shakhbabyan.

SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik has shared a few screenshots of what the Steam Deck UI looks like. It is worth noting that it is still work-in-progress, so some things might change at the official launch.

China’s government continues its crusade against gaming addiction. Following the latest regulations, the authorities launched a special website urging gamers to report companies that violate state rules for playtime limits.

Neil Druckmann may have been confirmed as the director of at least one episode of the upcoming The Last of Us TV show. That’s in addition to his role as the show’s co-writer.