With E3 2021 slated to start less than ten days from now, the organizers have revealed the official schedule.

TikTok company ByteDance has acquired a 36.2% share in Umi Game. Tencent is opening a new office in Los Angeles which will be home to the company’s growing video games business.

Larian continues to expand and opens a new office in Barcelona. It consists of the BlitWorks development team, a studio known for porting games on different platforms.

Sony has officially announced the newest addition to the PlayStation Studios family, which is Team Asobi. The Japanese studio is known for creating Astro’s Playroom and will now focus on “colorful games for all ages.”

Developers and publishers will now be able to create customized bundles on Steam, which contains games from different studios. So Valve’s new feature creates new opportunities both for devs and players.

Riot, which isn’t new to mobile gaming, has announced its plans to bring Valorant to iOS and Android. The new version of the online shooter has no release date yet, but developers revealed the first details about it.

Voodoo wants to support developers of hyper-casual games by starting its new Summer Game Competition this month. Studios will have a chance to receive money prizes and the publisher’s support.

Dark Horse Comics, known for franchises like 300, Sin City, and Hellboy, is now expanding to the video games industry. The company started a new gaming and digital division to work on AAA titles based on its IPs.

Last year’s big hit Among Us is still attracting new players. After the game became free on Epic Games Store, its DAU reached 2 million players.

As Google Play is officially banned in China, there are dozens of third-party Android stores in the country. They have to fight for users’ attention, using different rules and even hijacking competitors’ links. Here are the main characteristics of this huge and complex market.

CD Projekt has released a financial report for the first quarter of 2021 (ended March 31). Although the company saw a little increase in sales, its profit experienced a major drop.

Embracer Group has announced its plan to build an archive to “embrace the history of games.” The Swedish holding is now working on collecting and cataloging titles from different consoles, countries, and ages.

Rockstar hasn’t officially announced GTA VI yet, but the game is already surrounded by different rumors and speculations. The latest leak spotted online dates back to 2016 and comes from an anonymous source who accurately detailed Red Dead Redemption 2 before.

Jernej Česen, General Manager and Senior VP of Distribution & BI at Outfit 7, discusses the company’s expansion into new IPs, including upcoming strategy RPG game Mythic Legends.

On May 19, NCSOFT released its new free-to-play game Trickster M, which is an heir to the 2003’s MMORPG Trickster Online. Although the title is now only available in South Korea, it is now earning almost $1 million a day.

Although Biomutant was met with mixed reviews, the game showed a strong debut on the Steam chart. It took over the first two places, all thanks to the title’s strong pre-orders.

GameRefinery has released a new match-3 snapshot report. Analysts broke down the genre’s latest trends and top-grossing mechanics on the US App Store. Interestingly, Project Makeover became the first game in years to break into top-5 highest-grossing Match-3 titles.

Malte Burup, creator of Mind Scanners, discusses game design choices behind his quirky Orwellian brainchild.

Small Giant Games has officially become the second largest game developer in Finland after Supercell. The studio’s net sales were over €400 million last year, with its other financial metrics also increasing.