Byte Action - Issue 87
Byte Action is a newsletter for game developers and fans
Hello, and welcome to the 87th edition of Byte Action newsletter!
Last week was a busy week for the industry as we had a number of new studio openings. IO interactive - a developer behind Hitman and Project 007 announced a new studio opening in Istanbul, Yellow Brick Games - a Canadian developer opened a studio in Montréal which was followed by Creative Assembly announcing Creative Assembly North in Newcastle.
And that wasn’t everything! We also had a 2 completely new studios getting announced - Fuse Games led by EA veteran Matt Webster was formed in Guildford, UK to develop a new AAA IP and also top it off ex-Blizzard devs formed a studio called Magic Soup Games - it’s a fully-remote game studio dedicated to creating "massive AAA games that have positive themes”.
In other news - Polygon reported that Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, has told the Financial Times Microsoft would like to launch Xbox-branded mobile gaming app stores on both Android and iOS — ideally as soon as next year.
Lastly, we unfortunately had some layoff announcements also. This time from Twitch and Team17. Twitch had laid off 400 people whilst Team17 staff had reported a round of layoffs, as the Worms developer and indie game publisher seeks to restructure its business.
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The Byte
The Action
China Games Association publishes draft for industry self regulation guidelines
There are 11 requirements new titles must meet before they can be distributed in the region.
Retro Byte
Studio Byte
Yager is a PC/Console developer based in Berlin. It was founded in 1999 by Uwe Beneke, Roman Golka, Philipp Schellbach, Timo Ullmann and Mathias Wiese. They are best known for developing Spec Ops: The Line (2012). The studio also worked with Deep Silver on Dead Island 2. Currently the studio is working on and has released The Cycle - a PVPVE shooter. Tencent has acquired a majority stake in Yager in June 2021.
Legal Stuff
Acquisitions/Investments
New Game Corner
This iconic action RPG is due to be released on June 6th. Meanwhile you can sign up for the open beta and play it on March 24th.
Resource Byte
This week in this section we’ve got a Workmotion. Workmotion allows you to onboard and manage teams in 160+ countries within minutes whilst staying 100% compliant. If you are studio that’s looking to hire employees remotely and want to do it legally these guys are great at handling it.
Who’s Hiring?
Audio Programmer - Liquid Swords - Stockholm, Sweden
Lead Game Designer - Carry1st - Remote
Audio Team Lead - Behaviour Interactive - Montréal, Canada (Remote)
Graphics Programmer - Supermassive Games - Guildford, UK
Technical Designer - Embark Studios - Stockholm, Sweden
Creative Director - Avalanche Studios - Stockholm, Sweden
Lead Environment Artist - Lightforge Games - Remote
Lead AI Programmer - Smilegate Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain
Senior Game Designer - Mountaintop Studios - Remote
Gameplay Animator - Rogue Factor - Montréal, CA (Remote)
Online Game Director - Techland - Warsaw, Poland
Senior Engine Programmer - Keen Games - Frankfurt, Germany (Remote)
Rumours
Dev Talks
Interview with Ukrainian developers Red Mountain Games
“Tactical Squad: SWAT Stories is a game about American special services, and accordingly, the weapons will be the ones that they use. As for localization, the interface and subtitles will be in Ukrainian, but the voice acting is only in English. I think that for all this we will receive a lot of negativity as if the game is not Ukrainian enough. Why it is SWAT, not KORD, why there is no complete localization? But, unfortunately, Ukraine is not the main market for our game, and we are limited in resources. And it’s not about greed. We are still an unknown team, and the success of this project will directly affect how our games will be developed in the future. Although we did think about a DLC where we could add something related to our special services, but that is after the release depending on the results.”
Events
PAX East is a celebration of gaming and gaming culture featuring thought-provoking panels, a massive expo hall filled with the best publishers and studios, new game demos, musical performances, tournaments, and a community experience unlike any other.