Swedish video game trade association, Dataspelsbranschen, has selected 15 titles it believes should be added to the country's "cultural canon" to improve recognition of the artform.The list includes classic and contemporary titles such as Stugan, BackPacker, Ground Control, Minecraft, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, It Takes Two, and Sayonara Wild Hearts.It was curated by a panel of expert historians, industry leaders, and academics following hundreds of nominations from the general public. Dataspelsbranschen has released the list after Sweden's minister for culture Parisa Liljestrand laid out plans to develop an official culture canon.Although Liljestrand didn't specific which artforms would be included in that canon, Dataspelsbranschen began developing one for video g…
Game Developer can confirm that Studio Wildcard has laid off six employees in the last week, in a move that the company said "will not impact" development on Ark: Survival Ascended or Ark 2.Workers impacted by the cuts shared news of their dismissal earlier this week on LinkedIn, prompting us to reach out to the company.In its response, Studio Wildcard emphasized that approximately 120 employees and contractors were still with the company, making these cuts one of the smaller ones we've seen in 2024. It added that it does not anticipate the need for additional cuts for the rest of the year.That said, a layoff is a layoff, and it's curious as to what financial conditions would have led the company to eliminate jobs. Ark: Survival Ascended (a remaster of Ark: Survival Evo…
Steam has a sizable number of games that openly use generative AI, according to developer Ichiro Lambe.Lambe previously worked at Valve on Steam Labs, a tool focused on discoverability. While investigating Steam games using genAI, he found 1,000 titles on the platform have disclosed using the controversial technology in some fashion.Those games include The Finals (whose genAI usage was known last year), Tribes 3, and Atman: Rebel Flame. Some of these, per their store pages, only used genAI for their human staff to have as a reference point.In January, Valve gave the green light for developers to put games made with genAI on the storefront. As long as it didn't have anything illegal or infringing, it could go to Steam, a standard the "vast majority" of titles cleared.Valve&#x…
Chilling survival title Frostpunk has sold over 5 million copies in six years. That's according to developer 11 Bit Studios, which shared the news on Steam.The studio said the milestone comprises sales across all platforms. It also divulged a number of playtime metrics, and revealed that on average people play Frostpunk for 24 hours.Around 3 percent of players currently have over 100 hours of playtime on record, and the rarest achievement—an accolade called 'The City Must Survive' that can only be earned when all other settlements distrust you—has only been unlocked by 0.6 percent of Steam players.Frostpunk launched on April 24, 2018, to critical acclaim and enjoyed years of support, with 11 Bit releasing a number of substantial add-ons and updates to deliver new feature…