World of Warcraft lead designer on why 7M players stuck around — and why 3M left
We chat with lead game designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas on WoW's success, subscriber ups and downs, and new content for players coming "Soon.™"
Square Enix takes another top franchise to mobile with Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ
Square Enix announced this week that it plans to release a new game in its Kingdom Hearts role-playing franchise on mobile devices later this year in Japan, with a vision for an overseas release. Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ (pronounced “qui”) will be a free-to-play title for iOS and Android devices, with paid items and elements.
King is planning to bring its games to Windows 10, starting with Candy Crush Saga
Microsoft announced today that King will bring its blockbuster mobile game Candy Crush Saga to Windows 10. The game will be automatically installed for all customers that upgrade or download Windows 10 for a certain period of time following the game’s launch.
Puzzle & Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition is much more than a mobile game port
A wildly successful Japanese mobile game goes portable with the help of a famous plumber.
Grand Theft Auto V leads April’s $1.1B digital games market in the U.S.
Social games are down, but everything else is up.
Beware the dark: H1Z1 players switch off when night falls on the zombie apocalypse
The massively multiplayer online zombie game has a realistic day-and-night cycle, but developer Daybreak Game Company — formerly known as Sony Online Entertainment — crunched some data and found a much higher percentage of players log out when it gets dark.
Galactic Civilizations III reminds 4X strategy fans what it truly means to go beyond Earth
For even the casual 4X strategy fan, the space-conquering features of Galactic Civilizations III make for an attractive time investment.
Mobile studio Pocket Gems gets a minority investment from Tencent to move into China
Tencent to benefit from Pocket Gems' Western roots.
Japanese role-playing game studio Imageepoch has gone bankrupt — but its latest game is still coming out
Japanese game developer Imageepoch and affiliate company Smile Online Games have begun bankruptcy procedures in Tokyo this week following a stretch of declining sales. Research provider Teikoku Databank reports (via Siliconera) that Imageepoch has a debt of $9.2 million (1.1 billion yen) owed to 43 different creditors.
Day-one patch will fix The Witcher 3’s framerate issues on PlayStation 4
CD Projekt's community coordinator took to Twitter to say that the problem's already fixed.