CEO News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Palworld creator Takuro Mizobe has said that his studio is in talks to release the 'Pokemon with Guns' game on more platforms.

The developer of Palworld says it is in talks to release the survival game on other platforms and is open to partnership and acquisition offers.

Palworld's creator wants the development studio to stay small because "big-budget triple-A games are not for us."

Games services and software behemoth Keywords Studio tried to make a brand new project using only generative AI.

Late capitalism strikes again - developers at Epic working on Fortnite are still crunching, despite the battle royale title being one of the biggest games in the world.

Valve is currently in the middle of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against small indie developer Wolfire, which was originally filed way back in 2021 due to Steam's control over game prices and attempts to such out rivals. Despite Valve's best efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed, it actually went ahead in 2022, and the whole situation is now getting spicy as internal documents and previously private email exchanges are making their way to the public eye.

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says he sees "consolidation to be the enemy of creativity," as the company's outgoing boss Jim Ryan shares his enthusiasm for Microsoft's Call of Duty deal with PlayStation.

Old emails uncovered in a lawsuit against Valve have revealed that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was previously very disgruntled with the changes to Steam revenue splits announced in late 2018, and went as far as to call Valve "assholes" in a message to president Gabe Newell.

Helldivers 2 players who literally want to watch the world burn have put forward a spicy suggestion for a new Stratagem, which sounds like it has the potential to be incredibly powerful, if not massively risky for your fellow teammates. Enter the idea of the Guard Dog Flamethrower – an auto-firing companion bot that can spew flames whenever it wants, at whatever it wants.

Turtle Beach is purchasing controller and headset manufacturer PDP for $118 million as part of major changes to its business, capital allocation, and leadership.

Dedicated spreaders of Managed Democracy have started to report sightings of new flying Terminid bugs – possibly called “Shriekers” – but these reports have sparked a rapid pushback from Arrowhead’s CEO Johan Pilestedt, who has branded those players as “bug sympathizers”.

Deceit 2 is going to free to play and will also be launching PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, from April 3rd, World Makers has announced. Along with the announcement of going to free to play, the first DLC for Deceit 2 has been confirmed too. That DLC is The Werewolf DLC, adding a new terror to the game since it was released.

CEO Sam Altman had announced OpenAI's new text-to-video generation tool, Sora last month via X. The AI-powered video generation tool took social media by storm due to its mind-blowing capabilities. With the announcement of Sora, Altman also invited X followers to provide prompts for the tool and the 60-second video the tool generated created a lot of buzz, potentially making it one of the best video generation tools. However, till now, the tool has not been made public to the users, but that is going to change in a few months as OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has hinted about its public release. So, if you were waiting for this tool, know when it will be available to all users.

Turtle Beach is acquiring Performance Designed Products [PDP] in a $118 million deal that brings together two major third-party gaming accessory manufactuers.

Dedicated spreaders of Managed Democracy have started to report sightings of new flying Terminid bugs – possibly called “Shriekers” – but these reports have sparked a rapid pushback from Arrowhead’s CEO Johan Pilestedt, who has branded those players as “bug sympathizers”.

Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren has departed the studio as the company searches for «different leadership».

The director of Helldivers 2 says the shooter was designed to encourage players to work together, as "a good co-op game forces players to play together, but a great one makes players want to play together."

Helldiver 2's Malevelon Creek is now so renowned that the player-driven campaign to retake the planet now has its own movie parody trailer, and it has the approval of the game's director to boot.

Just as Helldivers 2 tweaked the spawn rates for the game’s super-armored Terminids, developer Arrowhead Game Studios has added a new threat — flying bugs. Arrowhead did not mention the Terminids with wings in the patch notes from Tuesday, but players on social media and forums reported spotting the creatures in-game. The new Terminids are called Shriekers, and are quite terrifying as they dive and attack.

Gaming software firm Balancy has raised $700,000 in a funding round led by mobile industry veterans.

Helldivers 2 got a pretty important patch this week, making those pesky Chargers and Bile Titans easier to deal with. But developer Arrowhead quietly added a new Terminid enemy you'll have to look above the battlefield to find.

Developer Starbreeze has booted its CEO Tobias Sjögren, as Payday 3 continues to disappoint. Sjögren will be immediately replaced by interim CEO Juergen Goeldner, with the company's chairman saying that it needs "a different leadership".

The Helldivers 2 devs have a pretty simple process for designing new Stratagems: they just make a new one whenever they get bored of the old selection. That's perhaps oversimplifying the process a bit, but Arrowhead Studios CEO and creative director Johan Pilestedt says it's all about having a fun idea and iterating on it until it makes sense in the game.

Following a lot of comparisons between the two games, the developer of Deep Rock Galactic is trying to get the Helldivers 2 studio's attention to ask for a collaboration.

Payday 3 developer Starbreeze is searching for a new CEO following the removal of Tobias Sjögren.

Here’s a minor win for fans of Good Things who also subscribe to Max: the Studio Ghibli collection will remain on streaming for the foreseeable future.

The CEO of Starbreeze has exited the company following the disastrous launch of Payday 3.

emptyvessel, a new independent AAA games studio formed of veteran developers based in Austin, Texas, has announced its establishment. The studio’s founding staff has worked on iconic franchises such as DOOM, Quake, Call of Duty, The Last of Us, Borderlands, Tomb Raider, The Callisto Protocol, and more. Its first title is an Unreal Engine-5 powered title that will leverage its experience in the “immersive shooter” space.

If you’ve ever tried to stealth your way past a Terminid patrol in Helldivers 2 and found yourself somehow spotted despite your best efforts to creep silently about and remain out of sight, there might have been a very good reason for that: it turns out the horrible bugs can smell you.

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Alphabet's Google is set to relaunch its Gemini AI image generation tool in the coming weeks, following a temporary pause due to inaccuracies in historical depictions generated by the tool.

The developer of Ori and the Blind Forest has revealed the Metroidvania series has sold around 10 million copies when it could've bankrupted its developer. 

The unofficial NVStrapsReBar UEFI driver has enabled Resizable BAR support on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 & GTX 16 "Turing" GPUs.

Former WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon remains embroiled in a sexual misconduct lawsuit alleged by former employee Janel Grant. As a result, 2K has decided to partially censor McMahon's face in WWE 2K24, in archival footage featured in the game's Wrestlemania Showcase mode. While McMahon denies Grant's allegations, which include sexual assault and trafficking her to secure wrestling talent, he resigned from WWE as CEO the day after the federal lawsuit was filed.

The success of Helldivers 2 continues unabated. Even yesterday, the third-person cooperative sci-fi shooter game nearly reached its historical peak of 450K concurrent online users on Steam. The user reception on Valve's store has meaningfully improved compared to launch, too, leaping from the original 67% 'Mixed' review rating to the current 81% 'Very Positive' review rating.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will return to the ChatGPT-maker's board along with three new directors, the company said on Friday. Below is a timeline of the events in a tumultuous few months for the artificial intelligence company. Date Event Nov. 17, OpenAI board fires CEO Sam Altman and 2023 President Greg Brockman quits. Mira Murati named as interim CEO Nov. 18, Altman's firing was over a "breakdown in 2023 communication between Sam and the board," and not "malfeasance", COO Brad Lightcap says in an internal memo Early investor Khosla Ventures says it wants Altman back at OpenAI, "but will back him in whatever he does next" 

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman was cleared of any wrongdoing that would have mandated being fired from the company late last year, according to a report based on a monthslong investigation into the events leading up to his brief ouster.

Tech Mahindra CEO sees AI as an amplifier of human capabilities, not a job threat; Rakuten to invest $10 mn in India on AI and 6G development; AI knowledge consortium launched by 12 research organizations in India; Zora expands into AI, offering revenue streams for model makers- this and more in our daily roundup. Let us take a look.

The Helldivers 2 Cutting Edge battle pass has been revealed, bringing a fresh batch of three new armours, and a trio of new energy weapons when it launches next week on 14th March.

Developer Brain Jar Games has landed $6.7 million in seed funding.

The Helldivers 2 Cutting Edge battle pass has been revealed, bringing a fresh batch of three new armours, and a trio of new energy weapons when it launches next week on 14th March.

Helldivers 2's game director has a huge Warhammer habit, so if the hit shooter ever gets "giant microtransactions," you know why.

After a few incendiary statements from development and community figures poured kerosene on the debates dominating the Helldivers 2 player base after its recent balance patch, Arrowhead CEO and game director Johan Pilestedt stepped in to assure players that such snippy remarks are "not a message that the studio stands behind."

Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, is going to showcase next-gen client and data center CPUs during the Computex 2024's opening keynote in June.

CEO of Arrowhead Games Studios, Johan Pilestedt, has debunked rumors that the developer would be acquired by Sony.

AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, decided to intervene in an issue faced by the AI startup TinyCorp, which is currently integrating AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT into a dedicated machine.

The developer of the highly anticipated Unicorn Overlord admits the studio ran out of money during development - just like it did with its previous RPG.

The CEO of US publishing giant Electronic Arts, Andrew Wilson, has been espousing the supposed benefits of generative AI for game development.

WWE 2K24 blurred out former WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon's face from some archived footage in its Showcase of Immortals game mode, although there's another instance where he appears fully uncensored, IGN has verified.

Web3-enabled fantasy sports platform Sorare laid off 22 employees based in its New York office in February. The move comes as the startup wants certain teams to be concentrated at the company’s Paris headquarters to improve communication and efficiency, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Making a video game successful is already hard. Doing so while complying with the growing number of child safety laws and regulations around the world is an almost insurmountable task. A new technology company called k-ID aims to make this process much easier for game makers, by offering a framework that protects publishers and developers against the pitfalls that come with non-compliance, including regulatory sanctions, reputational risk, and other consequences.

Shocking absolutely no one, Helldivers 2's game director has confirmed that developer Arrowhead Game Studios is not being acquired by Sony.

OpenAI shot back at accusations from Elon Musk that the ChatGPT maker betrayed its founding goals of benefiting humanity and chose to pursue profits, vowing to get his lawsuit thrown out.

No, Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios isn't being purchased by PlayStation.

X Corp. CEO Elon Musk is being sued for $128 million dollars in a lawsuit that alleges several former Twitter executives are still due unpaid severances. Multiple lawsuits have been lobbed at the social media CEO in recent months, including Grimes suing Elon Musk in October of last year. With Musk's personal and professional decisions continuing to raise eyebrows, this new lawsuit has once again fueled discussion among audiences.

Borderlands maker Gearbox Entertainment is on the verge of joining Saber Interactive in being bought out of the sinking ship that is the Embracer Group, a new Kotaku report claims. It's stated that CEO Randy Pitchford shared the news with employees during a town hall meeting earlier this week, with more information coming in March. The site «understands that the decision was made to sell, and a deal is in the late stages of being finalized».

Developer Remedy Entertainment has announced it has acquired the full right to the Control IP, something it previously shared with publisher 505 Games. Remedy reportedly paid 17 million euros for the privilege; however, 505 Games will remain publisher throughout 2024 while the transition takes place.

Moon Studios – the developer behind beloved Metroidvania games Ori and the Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps – is gearing up to launch its next game, action-RPG No Rest for the Wicked, into early access. Ahead of that, its director has clarified that there'll be no microtransactions included in the upcoming title at all, and definitely no expensive skins to buy for horses.

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly decided to switch parties, now eying for Samsung Foundry as its primary AI chipmaker as it sees "uncertainty and volatility" at TSMC.

In shocking news, X owner Elon Musk was sued by four former Twitter executives on Monday for unpaid $128 million severance payments and some other allegations. Twitter's former CEO Parag Agrawal, former Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde and former General Counsel Sean Edgett have also stated that they were fired without any hard reason. The lawsuit includes several claims against Elon Musk and the rebranding of Twitter to X. Know more about the news here.

“Denial is a river that flows through Cupertino!,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, a notorious Apple critic who also sued the tech giant for anticompetitive practices, in a post on X, weighing in on today’s news of the European Commission’s historic €1.84 billion fine against the iPhone maker. The EC ruling, which favors Spotify, hinges on Apple’s approach to its anti-steering clauses that prevented Spotify and other music streamers from directing users to their websites.

Helldivers 2 continues to be a colossal success, as shown by the player count and potential sales numbers, and we’ll be taking a look at how many people are playing to make sense of the game’s meteoric rise.

Arrowhead Games Studios CEO and game director on Helldivers 2, Johan Pilestedt opened up about his approach to the sci-fi shooter's playful design. 

Helldivers 2 game director and CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios Johan Pilestedt has weighed in on petty gaming rivalries, urging players to look for «compassion and union» over drama. 

LinkedIn impact: Marta Puerto was just one of thousands of job seekers struggling to stand out in a cooling labor market — and losing hope. Her fortunes reversed with a 1 minute, 42 second long video posted to LinkedIn.

Arrowhead Studios previously announced that the team is working on a balance patch for co-op shooter Helldivers 2, but doing so has proven to be trickier than expected since weapons with higher kill rates don't always lead to successful missions.

The only thing that matters to CEO Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet Inc. investors is whether it can get artificial intelligence right. That was the message delivered this week as the company's shares tumbled following news that Google's flagship AI product was misfiring. The selloff erased $80 billion in market value in a single day, underscoring the importance investors now place on all things AI.

The studio behind science fiction thriller Deliver Us The Moon and last year's sequel Deliver Us Mars is laying off four employees, even after its co-founders gave up their salaries for the "past few months" to minimize damage.

Addressing the Helldivers 2 meta while leaning into the game's winking fascist veneer, CEO Johan Pilestedt of developer Arrowhead Game Studios advised veterans to treat new players kindly by showering them in heavy armaments, not fascism.

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman over what he says is a betrayal of the ChatGPT maker's founding aims of benefiting humanity rather than pursuing profits.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is planning to appoint several new board members in March, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Arrowhead's hit title Helldivers 2 has a 'Game Master' feature in which a single developer at the studio is controlling the galactic war. On X, Arrowhead's Creative Director and CEO Johan Pilestedt has provided additional details.

Gearbox may be the next to escape Embracer Group as the massive company continues to hemorrhage staff and studios as part of a restructuring effort sparked by a $2 billion deal that fell through last year. 

MTG Arena is adding a brand-new card from the Karlov Manor set called Juggle the Performance next week, teasing the long-awaited Commander format.

Insomniac Games has announced that it is also being affected by layoffs at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and PlayStation Studios. 

Helldivers 2 doesn't follow a traditional mission structure. You're not going from level to level of increasing intensity until you reach the end, you're fighting alongside the community to liberate planets across a vast galaxy in an ongoing war dictated by a dungeon master.

American cloud computing company Snowflake has announced the appointment of Indian-origin computer scientist Sridhar Ramaswamy as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The announcement follows the news of Frank Slootman retiring from his position and Ramaswamy taking his place. Slootman, however, will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board. The new Snowflake CEO joins a vast list of Indian-origin CEOs heading top tech companies around the world, including Sundar Pichai at Google, Neal Mohan at YouTube, Satya Nadella at Microsoft and more.