While Blizzard continues to look for a new partner to publish its games in China, NetEase has refused to extend their previously expired partnership. So the future of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and other games in the country is still vague.

Motorsport Games hasn’t paid salaries to its Russia-based development team for months. As a result, one of the employees reportedly decided to take more desperate action, threatening to leak the source code for several games online if the company continued not to pay wages.

Game Insight caused controversy after exiting the Russian market, not paying salaries, and laying off 600 employees last year. The company’s entity in the country had already been declared bankrupt, but the whole process was really tricky and lousy, according to new information provided by a bankruptcy administrator.

Tencent continues to fight corruption within the company. The Chinese gaming and tech giant has fired more than 100 employees over bribery and other violations, also reporting some of them to the police.

COLOPL, best known for its mobile free-to-play RPG White Cat Project, has decided to help its employees cope with global price hikes. The company will start providing a monthly allowance throughout the year.

It looks like The Callisto Protocol didn’t live up to publisher Krafton’s expectations. This led market analysts lowering sales projections and share price targets.

Some new shifts are taking place in the European video game market. Amid Ubisoft’s latest struggles, CD Projekt has managed to surpass the Assassin’s Creed publisher by market capitalization. Again.

Google and Nvidia have expressed their concerns over the Activision Blizzard deal, supporting the US Federal Trade Commission on its way to block the merger. They are afraid that Microsoft could make competition in the video game market unfair.

Using ready-made 3D assets can save time and money for some teams, but there are also a lot of pitfalls. Maksim Nikifarovich, lead artist at Belka Games, has opened up about the key challenges that game developers may face.

miHoYo’s ambitions go beyond Genshin Impact. The Shanghai-based company is aiming to build its own virtual universe with a user base of roughly 1 billion players.

John Smedley, experienced executive and one of the creators of EverQuest, has stepped down as the head of Amazon Game Studios San Diego. He has been with the company for six years, but hasn’t shipped a single game.

Ubisoft is going through harsh times as it prepares for a targeted restructuring. This includes cutting costs, layoffs, the cancellation of several games, and lowering revenue targets amid weaker sales and an empty release schedule.

Counterplay Games has made its now-closed card battler Duelyst open source. This means everyone can now use its source code and assets to make their own projects based on it.

Blizzard Entertainment may soon reveal its new partner to operate World of Warcraft and its other games in China. And it looks like it won’t be able to renew a licensing agreement with local tech giant NetEase.

Having found success in the 90s, John Carmack helped many people, including game designer American McGee. While most of them chose to forget about the money, the Alice creator eventually managed to pay off his debt.

Garth DeAngelis has stepped down from his role as a senior franchise producer at Firaxis. He spent 14 years at the company working on the XCOM series and Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

Blizzard Proletariat leadership has decided not to voluntarily recognize a workers’ union. Instead, they requested an anonymous vote as part of the election process through the National Labor Rleations Board (NLRB).

Maverick Games is a new independent studio founded by several Playground Games veterans. Former Forza Horizon developers are working on an announced AAA game for consoles and PC.

WN Belgrade’23, the upcoming business conference for developers and other games industry professionals, has been announced. Let’s take a look at the first details about the two-day event, which will feature an expo zone and lectures from various experts.