A new developer by the name of Blue Scarab Entertainment has formed over in Stockholm, Sweden, securing $7 million in funding for its debut project, an MMORPG running on Unreal Engine 5.The funding round was led by NetEase Games, which has previously invested in startups like Rebel Wolves. Other key contributors include Behold Ventures, Raw Fury founder Jonas Antonsson, and Creandum founder Stefan Lindeberg.Blue Scarab will be led by CEO Colin Cragg and CTO Enno Rehling. Both have extensive experience with MMOs: Cragg directed and designed Funcom's Anarchy Online, while Rehling was a programmer on the same game and also Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.Other notable additions include DICE veteran Craig Morrison (operating here as studio director), Helldivers 2's community director …
While Netflix is still figuring out where it stands in the games space, the streamer thinks it's sorted out most of its growing pains and knows what to do next.Talking to the Washington Post, external games VP Leanne Loombe spoke about how the company's video game umbrella will keep its eye on mobile titles, at least for now. According to her, Netflix's 270 million subscribers are a fan of quick-hit "snackable" phone games.As such, it's looking at being a home for smaller studios with mobile expertise, but don't want to be locked to free-to-play games. Getting a mobile foothold is "definitely first" in what Loombe said would be a "phased approach" toward expanding Netflix Games' reach.Visibility has one of the service's large…
The Xbox showcase had more than games on hand. During the event, president Sarah Bond unveiled a new trio of consoles launching during the holiday season.Both the Xbox Series X and S will receive white, all-digital versions with 1TB hard drives, priced respectively at $449 and $349. The Series X will also get a special edition console in black that comes with 2TB of space and costs $599.Additionally, Xbox stressed these new consoles have "the same speed and performance" as their predecessors.Price-wise, these new consoles are roughly in line with the original $499/$299 pricing of the Series X|S at launch. Unlike the newer iterations of the PlayStation 5 from late last year, it doesn't appear Microsoft is phasing out the original versions of these systems.Last year, Xbox head…
Skybound is on an executive recruitment drive and has brought in former Activision Blizzard VP of marketing Kaleb Ruel to lead its marketing efforts.Ruel will serve as VP of marketing within Skybound's in-house game studio. He most recently worked on the record-breaking launch of Diablo IV during his time at Activision Blizzard.Skybound has made seven major executive hires in 2024, bringing in a number of game industry veterans including Activision Blizzard's former VP of product Chris Paulson and EA's former head of corporate Jeff Chaiken.Paulson worked with Ruel at Activision Blizzard and believes he'll be able to accelerate Skybound's publishing capabilities."I loved working with Kaleb previously, and I'm thrilled to have him join me at Skybound. Kaleb…
LucasArts veteran Matt Shell, known for his work on numerous Star Wars titles, has passed away.The news was shared on X by The Game Awards organiser Geoff Keighley and others within the industry. Keighley, who also resurfaced an interview he conducted with Shell back in 2007 for television show Game Head, described him as an "incredible person with a huge heart.""Kind, loyal, hard working and always funny. He brought a smile to every meeting," he continued. "RIP to Matt Shell, one of the truly great people in the gaming industry."Shell joined LucasArts in 2003, initially serving as an integrated marketing manager. Eventually, he was promoted to senior product marketing manager and tasked with promoting and developing the creative briefs for multiple LucasArts …
There's a new Steam game going viral, and its name is Content Warning. Launching as a free-to-keep title on April 1, the co-op title saw nearly 204,440 concurrent players.Additionally, it was picked up by 6.2 million people (at time of writing). "Never did we imagine that we would get over 200K concurrent players," said publisher Landfall, "and over 6.2 million owners of the game in 24 hours!"While it's now $8, that doesn't appear to have hurt Content Warning's prospects. Currently, it's got around 125,000 players and is among Steam's top sellers, below Dragon's Dogma 2 and Destiny 2.Content Warning is similar to Lethal Company in that it tasks players with working together in horror scenarios. Here, though, players have to do things t…