It’s that time of year again. With Christmas and New Year’s just around the corner, we caught up with Jehanne Rousseau, CEO at French indie studio Spiders, to reflect on what 2019 meant for the company and its latest hit GreedFall.

While the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher saga got an uneven reception from fans, it apparently underscored just how good of a job CD PROJEKT RED did on the IP created by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Facebook published a report on global trends in video games market. As per its findings, there are two main phenomena defining the industry.

Google announced that it has purchased Montreal-based Typhoon Studios. It will become part of the Stadia team and will work on exclusives for the platform.

Facebook is developing its own operating system. Once it’s created, Facebook can move its hardware away from Android.

Belarusian indie studio BlitzTeam claims Wargaming is suing its former employees over an open source project.

NetEase enabled AI to create lifelike gaming avatars. NetEase’s MMORPG Justice allows players to turn their selfies into in-game models.

Facebook has purchased Spanish cloud gaming company PlayGiga. It cost Facebook $78 million, according to CNBC.

Activision Blizzard reported on the success of the latest Call of Duty. The company said that since its release on October 25, the shooter has brought in over $1 billion.

On January 23-24, the White Nights conference will be held in the capital of the Netherlands for game industry professionals. As part of it, a game developers exhibition will take place. Submit your game for approval, and if your project is selected, you will receive one free indie ticket for the event.

Valve’s store published the list of November’s highest-grossing new releases. There are 20 items on the list, including indie and AAA titles.

The Keywords Studios group of companies has purchased three companies. The deals will bring the Group another step closer to becoming the ‘go to’ technical and creative services platform for the global video games industry.

With 2019 coming to a close, here’s a bunch of end-of-year stats from gamesindustry.biz.

Activision Blizzard will rely on select players to make its marketing strategy more effective. The company has launched a community of users to provide direct feedback though various formats including online surveys. The initiative is called King’s Council.

App Annie published two rankings. One features the most downloaded games of the past ten years, and the other – those that generated the most revenue.

Julia Lebedeva, CBDO and partner at WN Media Group, caught up with Alex Willink, General Manager of Berlin studio, Voodoo.

A Beijing-based mobile gaming company was fined $99,000 for publishing a game without government approval. This is the first penalty of this kind after the licensing freeze was lifted.

According to analyst firm Newzoo, games will generate over $160 billion next year. The market will grow 7.3% from 2019, but the growth continues to slow down after the explosive 2018.

The Game Awards 2019 ceremony wrapped up last night. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was named Game of the Year. Call of Duty: Mobile claimed the victory on mobile.