Year of the Indie

Hi, Tibi here, hope you're having a great day! 🥳

Welcome to the #39 FREE edition of the Game Vibe Weekly Newsletter!

Subscribe and you'll get a free eBook about the success stories of 5 indie games that I love.

This newsletter is created out of passion for video games and industry news. The intention is to share weekly trends, business insights and top performing games, all in a nice format, and build a vibrant community together.

Happy reading!

🔥 Vibe of the Day

Let's start the day with a song.

My recommendation is Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing on Youtube or Spotify. It's featured in the game Guitar Hero 5.

Feeling the vibes? 🎶

👑 Highlights

• Microsoft launched 3 new Xbox consoles.
• Indie games on Steam made $4 billion.
• Game piracy can cost publishers an average of 20% in revenue.
• Genshin Impact made over $5 billion in China.
• Balatro has been played for over 11,000 years.
• Riot Games laid off 32 employees.
• Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero sold 3 million copies in the first 24 hours.
• And lots of goodies, plus a feature book!
• Enjoy!

💡 Interesting

🎮 Microsoft dropped 3 new Xbox consoles with better storage and a quieter, more efficient design, perfect for those late-night gaming marathons, starting from $349.99. Which one do you like?

🛑 Turkey and Russia have both banned Discord, claiming it failed to cooperate with authorities regarding illegal content, leaving around 800 Turkish studios in a bind.

🛡️ Activision's latest report reveals they've blocked over 45 million toxic text messages in Call of Duty since November 2023, making the game a bit friendlier for the 425 million players out there.

👶 Kids are spending an average of €31 a month on in-game purchases, down from €39.

🎮 Craig Duncan , who has been steering the ship at Rare for nearly 14 years, is taking over as the new head of Xbox Game Studios, stepping in as Alan Hartman retires after 36-years.

☠ A new study reveals that game piracy can cost publishers an average of 20% in revenue if a game is cracked within the first week of release.

🐞 Sony developers are now using machine learning to catch bugs earlier in game development, making testing as regular as your morning coffee.

🎓 Xsolla and Uzbekistan's IT Park are teaming up to launch a Game Development Academy in 2025, aiming to nurture local talent and boost the country's gaming industry.

🌪️ Games Done Quick has raised over $45,000 for Hurricane Helene relief in just a few days of fundraising!

💯 Book of the Week

Ready to learn something new and level up your game dev skills?

📘 Master the art of game development with Learning Design Patterns with Unity written by Harrison Ferrone .

⚙ This book teaches you to craft engaging games while mastering design patterns from the basics like Singleton and Object Pooling to Generating Terrains with the Flyweight Pattern, making your code cleaner and more efficient.

Sohini Ghosh from Packt told me about the book and it is Packed (pun intended 😄) with examples and explanations for 18 patterns.

💪 By the end, you'll not only level up your Unity skills but also become a software engineering wizard to help you get that dream job and make great games!

👉 You can get the book here from Packt. Enjoy!

📱 Mobile

🎮 Starting November 1, you can buy and play Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android, thanks to a court ruling that opens up Google's mobile store.

👻 Get ready for a spooky good time! Resident Evil 2 is creeping onto iOS this December 31, available for pre-order now, and it's free to start.

📊 Twerk Race 3D has boogied its way to 200 million downloads since its launch in September 2021, and Offline Games- No WiFi Games passed 100 million lifetime downloads.

🎮 The 2024 UA Playbook is a deep dive from Matej 🦩 Lancaric which shows that mobile game user acquisition is all about mixing it up. Think beyond Facebook and Google to include rewarded play channels.

🚀 NetEase and Bungie are launching a closed alpha test on November 1 of Destiny: Rising, a free-to-play mobile game that lets you customize your hero, battle aliens, and team up with friends in six-player strikes.

💰 Genshin Impact has made in over $5 billion in mobile revenue in China alone, and it's on track to hit $10 billion globally by 2025, according to Niko Partners . That's wow!

👍 Game to Wishlist

I just love indie games and admire the developers behind them and this road trip RPG is turning heads!

🚗 Keep Driving features a unique blend of exploration and storytelling, allowing players to create their own adventures on the road.

Pick up hitchhikers, work odd jobs, customize and repair your car, and map your route across the country in this atmospheric pixel game.

You can wishlist the game here on Steam, if you like it. It will help them a lot!

And you can even try out the demo, for free! Have fun!

💬 This is not an Ad, but if any of you want to collaborate on that, give me a shout my dear game maker friends!

🎮 PC & Console

💹 In 2024, indie games on Steam raked in a whopping $4 billion, capturing 48% of total revenue compared to AAA games, thanks to heavy hitters like Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld.

📉 Despite the Madden NFL 25 topping charts for the 25th year straight, overall U.S. gaming spending took a hit in August, dropping 7% to $4.1 billion, with hardware sales dropping by 36%.

📈 In September, video game sales in Europe soared by 20%, with 17.6 million games sold. Major hits like EA Sports FC 25 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 led the charge.

🏜 Curve Games and Unity started a $10,000 design challenge in China for Human Fall Flat fans to show off their creativity in level design.

⚔ Age of Empires III will be delisted from stores on October 10 and multiplayer services will vanish. You can still enjoy the campaign and skirmish modes if you already own it. Wololoo!

🃏 Balatro has been cumulatively played for over 11,000 years across all platforms.

🎮 Great news for Aussie gamers, the Steam Deck finally lands in Australia this November, with prices starting at $649 AUD for the 256GB LCD model.

🔫 Sony just realized it accidentally let Australians play the banned Hotline Miami 2 for a whole year, oops! Now they're issuing refunds and apologizing for the mix-up.

🌧️ Against the Storm, published by Hooded Horse Inc. has hit a whopping 1.2 million sales, proving that even in a dark fantasy world, success is just a few beavers away.

🔥 Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero just shattered records by selling over 3 million copies in the first 24 hours. Now that's a Super Saiyan level launch!

💬 Have you seen any other cool news? Drop me a message and I can include them in the next edition.

🎟️ Events

🎫 The HIT Games Conference in Berlin on October 24-25, will gather over 500 experts from 45+ countries to discuss the latest in VR, AR, and mobile gaming. Don't miss out on 2 days of networking and insights. Are you going?

🎟 Join over 1,000 game industry pros for 2 days of networking and insights near the beautiful Dead Sea on November 9-10 at the Pocket Gamer Connects Jordan event! Have you been to the Helsinki event?

🏝 Africa Games Week in Cape Town is leveling up the gaming scene, uniting industry pros and enthusiasts for its 7th edition, where creativity and collaboration thrive, between 2 – 5 December. Are you going?

🎶 Get ready to jam as PlayStation kicks off a World Tour in April 2025, hitting over 200 cities with music from iconic games like God of War and The Last of Us! Sadly, Romania is not on the list. Sounds like a roadtrip tour to me.

💬 Know any other cool events? Drop me a message and I can include them in the next edition.

👓 VR/AR

🧘♂️ Alo Moves just launched on Meta Quest 3, bringing immersive yoga classes right into your living room, because who doesn't want a holographic instructor in their space?

🌊 Apple released Submerged, a 17-minute immersive short film that plunges you into a WWII submarine, directed by Oscar-winner Edward Berger. Check it out for free on the Vision Pro, if you have a Vision Pro.

🎙️ Podcast

Any podcast lovers here? I got you!

🚀 Learn how Scopely skyrocketed from $1 billion to a staggering $10 billion in just 5 years, fueled by hits like MONOPOLY GO!, which became the fastest mobile game ever to gross $3 billion in only 473 days! Watch the ful Deconstructor of Fun podcast, enjoy!

💰 Listen to Joe Mirabello , Founder of Terrible Posture Games , discuss the landscape of funding for indie game developers and the overall stability of the gaming industry. Explore the challenges and opportunities for indie game developers, what publishers are looking for, and how the PC gaming landscape has evolved over the years, in this IndieGameBusiness® podcast. Enjoy!

💰 Business

🚀 Windwalk snagged $4.5 million in seed funding to launch Harbor, a tool designed to help brands supercharge their community growth and engage over 5 million monthly active users.

😞 Talewind, Roblox's branded experience maker, just laid off a significant number of employees as part of a restructuring effort, as it claims to be in the top 0.01% of monetised Roblox creators.

🤑 PiP World raised $10 million in seed funding to shake up financial education through fun Web3 gaming.

💰 Scopely is gearing up for a megadeal acquisition in 2025, aiming to snag a global franchise that makes in at least $1 billion in revenue, all backed by its parent company Savvy's hefty $38 billion chest.

🚀 MENA startups bounced back big time in September, raising $282 million from 63 startups, marking a 234% month-on-month surge.

👎 Riot Games just laid off 27 League of Legends developers and 5 from publishing. Co-founder Marc Merrill insists it’s all about getting the right expertise for the next 15 years.

🤝 Outersloth, the indie fund from the creators of Among Us, just partnered with Slay the Spire's Casey Yano to boost funding for new projects.

👑 King has opened a new office in Berlin, enhancing its presence in the city. The company already employs around 2,000 people and has contributed to hits like Candy Crush Saga.

🔻 Bandai Namco is reportedly cutting 200 jobs and canceling several games due to low demand, with nearly 100 employees already resigning.

🎉 Cool Stuff

🎬 Get ready for a wild mash-up as Grand Theft Hamlet, a documentary filmed entirely in GTA Online, hits US theaters in early 2025, using video game footage to create a narrative film.

🚓 The Irvine Police Department used the ominous Terminator theme to unveil their new $150,000 Cybertruck, which is meant for community outreach, not patrols.

🤓 This week's best of Blender artists on BlenderNation is a funny one. Low poly Mark Zuckerberg. Check out the rest of the illustrations, they're beautiful!

🏰 Watch the legendary Helm's Deep from The Lord of the Rings being recreated in Tiny Glade made by Pounce Light , mentioned in the last edition. The process took 10 days and it looks amazing.

🏓 Game 2 Play

My recommendation for this week is a delightful cozy mobile game.

🧚♀️ Hidden in My Paradise is a hidden-object game where you find items and decorate your own cozy paradise.

With charming visuals and community features, it's a fun escape for anyone looking to unleash their creativity in this autumn season. 🍁

The game is published by Crunchyroll and you can try it out on iOS and Android.

Have fun!

💬 This is not an Ad, but if any of you want to collaborate on that, give me a shout my dear cozy friends!

🥳 You're Awesome!

Wow, you've made it to the end!

I hope you found this newsletter fun and interesting!

Let me know what you think in the comments if you'd like, if not that's cool, thanks for reading!

Reach out if you’d like to collaborate on anything.

Have a great day! 🔥

Tibi