Microsoft is laying off 9,000 employees
Less than half from the gaming division
Hi, Tibi & Ionuț here, hope you're having a great day! 🥳
Welcome to the #74 FREE edition of the Game Vibe Weekly Newsletter!
This newsletter shares video game industry trends, insights, and top games, all in an easy to read and fun format.
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👑 Highlights
Microsoft is laying off about 9,000 employees across the company.
Young Americans have cut their spending on video games.
Electronic Arts CEO earned over $30.5 million last year.
New Runway AI's tool lets users create video games.
Google released a standalone Instant Games app.
A CS2 player paid $45,000 for a common skin.
Nintendo Switch 2 sold over 5 million units.
India is the largest mobile market in Asia.
Xiaomi launched AI Glasses in China.
Interesting
💡 Microsoft is laying off about 9,000 employees across the company. Its gaming division is affected on the Xbox publishing operations, by closing the studio The Initiative, canceling three games, and 200 people layed off from King, as part of efforts to “improve efficiency”.
💡 There’s a new Runway AI's tool that lets users create video games easily. I wonder how many TikTok games will appear soon?
💡 Riot Games now allows top Valorant and League of Legends esports teams to have gambling sponsors.
💡 An interesting analysis of all the Steam games released on June 2, revealed that only 2 games made more than $20,000 in gross revenue.
💡 Roblox introduces Creator Rewards to increase earnings for community growth.
💡 The Nintendo Switch 2 stock sold out more rapidly than expected, so the CEO apologized. 😅
💡 Remember Counter-Strike 2? A player paid $45,000 for a common skin.
💡 Metacritic co-founder explains site operations on how the site converts review scores into a 100-point scale.
💡 A complete guide to Death Stranding’s complex story and lore, including the voidout and the metaphysical concepts. I know you need this as I do.
💡 Young Americans aged 18-24 have cut their weekly spending on video games by nearly 25% year-over-year, with overall spending in this age group dropping 13%.
💡 YouTube is raising the minimum age for live streaming from 13 to 16 years old, and users aged 13-15 will only be allowed to stream if an adult is visibly present.
💡 The first fully autonomous 3-on-3 robot football match in China featured four teams of AI-powered humanoid robots. Next level Rematch? 😄
🐸 Last Weekend to Playtest Fraggy GO! Beta
Fraggy GO! is a mobile game like no other, where you control the traffic.
But how? Move cars, zap mosquitoes in place, protect the frog. And use the shroom super powers from the button on the left to blow up traffic. 💥
Give the game a GO! Remember, this is a beta version, nothing is final yet. Your feedback is helpful to make the game better. 🙏
Me and 5 friends have been working on the game for the past 18 months and I’m so excited for you to try it now!
"It’s like Crossy Road, but you control the cars. I like it!" This is what a friend said.
🔥 Want to be the first to get news about the game when it launches? Join the mail list. You’re awesome!
Mobile
📱 Google just released its own standalone Instant Games app. And no one knows about it.
📱 The Xbox June update adds Copilot for Gaming and aggregated library.
📱 Google launches Gemma 3N, a new artificial intelligence model for mobile devices.
📱 Google Play Console shares latest updates, including new tools for better price experiments in in-app products and enhanced app release controls.
📱 With over 3.5 billion video game players worldwide and a 6% increase in time spent gaming, just 5% of global advertising budgets are spent on gaming.
📱 Sensor Tower reports that India is the largest mobile market in Asia.
📱 Garena Free Fire collaborates with Squid Game, so you can play Red Light, Green Light.
📱 Uma Musume Pretty Derby launched globally after earning $2.6 billion in Japan on mobile. Wow!
📱 Kingshot surpassed $100 million revenue in 117 days. Do you consider this game as a clone from Thronefall?
📱 Game of Thrones: Kingsroad surpassed $1 million revenue on mobile after 36 days.
📱 Starting this summer, Netflix will stream NASA's live space events like rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, and views from the International Space Station for free.
📱 In June 2025, the top mobile game by revenue was Honor of Kings with $143.3 million, while Block Blast! led in downloads with over 29 million installs.
PC & Console
🎮 Mario Kart World is review bombed on Metacritic, due to controversial changes to online racing.
🎮 Nintendo has revealed that the Nintendo Switch 2 has sold over 5 million units worldwide since its launch.
🎮 Steam announces the launch of its new in-game performance monitor, which helps players track their game's frame rate and hardware usage in real time
🎮 Indie games made up about 10.3% of total watch time on streaming platforms in Q1 of 2025, with only 9% of indie games reaching over 5 million watch hours in their first 30 days.
🎮 Space Marine remaster offers extended refunds to players, regardless of playtime.
🎮 Dune: Awakening is Funcom’s fastest selling game ever and reached 1 million players.
🎮 Chuck E. Cheese has launched Chuck’s Arcade, a new spin-off with 10 locations across the US aimed at adults, featuring classic and modern arcade games.
🎮 PlayStation Store will increases game prices in Brazil and Turkey.
Events
🎉 As mentioned previously, last weekend I attended the Black Sea Game Summit. The first gaming edition held at Burgas. It was a blast! Interesting talks, new Bulgarian friends, a lot of people (including many children) that played Fraggy GO! and a wonderful sea-side city. Thank you Hellyana Velinova for the invitation! I recommend this event for next year. 💯
🏆 Nearly 800 games from 55 countries competed at the 2025 Games for Change Awards, celebrating the best in impact gaming, with Preloaded taking Industry Leader Award.
🎟️ Develop:Brighton 2025 is a UK game development event from July 8 to 10 that unites the entire game-making community, offering 13 tracks. Will you join?
🎓 The Art of Game Design (part of UNATC college) is recruiting brave graduates ready to forge their own legend in the world of games – digital 🕹 or analog 🎲. Learn to craft magical mechanics and interactive design to earn an official diploma as a Digital Game Designer. The recruitment period is during August 4 – September 9. Apply on the Guild Portal. Good luck & have fun!
💬 Continue reading in the app or web page.
Business
💰 Apple changes the European Union App Store to comply with Digital Markets Act.
💰 Myst developer Cyan announces a second round of layoffs in 2025.
💰 Dontnod lays off undisclosed number of staff.
💰 Federal Trade Commission paid nearly $200 million in refunds to Fortnite players.
💰 Mentra raises $8 million and launches MentraOS 2.0 smartglasses software.
💰 Ubisoft has partnered with Hooded Horse to publish Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, developed by Unfrozen.
💰 Free Range Games, the developer of Return to Moria, has laid off 80 people.
💰 The leadership team of Unknown Worlds, the developer of Subnautica and Subnautica 2, has left the studio and been replaced by Steve Papoutsis.
💰 Swedish game venture capital firm Behold Ventures has raised $59.2 million to invest in European game developers, having already invested $21 million in 18 studios.
💰 Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson earned over $30.5 million last year, while the company reported $7.56 billion in revenue and cut 5% of its workforce in 2024.
VR/AR
👓 Apple is reportedly planning XR glasses and headsets for 2028.
👓 PianoCafe launches creative piano lessons app for Quest. It looks fun!
👓 Meta acquired 9 VR game studios between 2019 and 2022, with mixed results including some successful game updates like Asgard’s Wrath 2.
👓 The Kickstarter campaign for the VR MMORPG Eldramoor: Haven in the Mist, launched on June 24, and surpassed its $25,000 funding goal within 1.5 hours.
👓 The limited edition Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition, which costs $399.99, sold out on Meta's official website within days of its launch.
👓 Xiaomi has launched its AI Glasses in China, featuring a 12 MP camera, real-time translation, voice control, and a battery lasting about 8.6 hours of mixed use.
👍 Game to Play
The recommendation for this week is a fun indie mobile game that I discovered at the Black Sea Game Summit.
🎃 Pumpkins knock down is an Angry Birds inspired game where you destroy the angry pumpkins by knocking them down. It's in the name 😁
What surprised me the most is that this game is so simply executed and yet draws attention. It has more than 3,5M downloads on the Play Store.
It's developed by Atanas Chepakov, a really nice guy from Burgas.
You can try it for free on Play Store only. Have fun!
💬 This is not an Ad, but if any of you want to collaborate on that, give a shout my dear friends!
🥳 You're Awesome!
Wow, you've made it to the end! We hope you found this newsletter fun and interesting!
Let us know what you think in the comments and thanks for reading!
Reach out on Linkedin if you’d like to collaborate on anything.
Have a great day!
Tibi & Ionuț 🔥