Germany funds Rockfish 💰 Hidden AAA layoff costs 🎮

2026-04-09

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Top Stories</h2>

Rockfish Games lands €8m grant as Germany boosts game industry support (6 min read)

Rockfish Games secured a €8M grant — the largest single award — from Germany's expanded €125M annual games fund, covering ~45% of the next Everspace title's €20M budget. The funding lets the Hamburg studio stay fully independent. (Gamesindustry)

The hidden cost of layoffs: Why AAA production stability depends on senior talent | Opinion (5 min read)

An op-ed from an AAA external production lead argues that industry-wide layoffs are eroding senior talent continuity, not just headcount. With over a quarter of game professionals laid off in two years, the institutional knowledge loss may take years to recover. (Gamesindustry)

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Business & Finance</h2>

It Takes Two, Split Fiction studio tops 50 million sales | News-in-brief (1 min read)

Hazelight Studios' three titles have collectively sold over 50 million units: A Way Out (13M), It Takes Two (30M), and Split Fiction (7M). A strong benchmark for co-op-focused, single-studio output. (Gamesindustry)

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Studios & People</h2>

Five studios form developer-led holding Nova Assembly (2 min read)

Five indie studios — Unfrozen, Sad Cat Studios, VEA Games, Weappy, and Game Garden — have formed Nova Assembly, a developer-led holding group. The alliance will share resources and expertise while building an in-house publishing division, with ten games currently in development. (Gamesindustry)

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Games & Releases</h2>

'We Released a Game With Flaws for a Number of Reasons' — Samson Dev Promises Improvements Amid 'Mixed' Reception (3 min read)

Liquid Swords' noir action-adventure Samson launched April 8 to a "Mixed" Steam rating, with players citing broken mechanics, poor optimization, and repetitive gameplay. Creative director Christofer Sundberg acknowledged the flaws publicly and a patch is expected April 10. (IGN)

Pokémon Champions Developer 'Sincerely Apologizes' For Launch Issues, Details List of Bugs to be Fixed (7 min read)

Pokémon Champions' developer issued a public apology following a rocky launch on Switch and Switch 2, publishing a list of confirmed bugs slated for future patches. A resolution fix requiring manual re-docking on Switch 2 remains unaddressed. (IGN)

PlayStation Studios，プレイヤー自身がゲームに登場するプロジェクト「プレイヤーベース」を公開。応募受付もスタート (2 min read)

PlayStation Studios revealed "Player Base," a project that lets real players appear inside a game, with applications now open. The initiative is tied to Gran Turismo 7 and marks an unusual community-integration effort from Sony's first-party label. (4gamer)

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Policy & Labor</h2>

Studio Behind NFT Battle Royale Game Accused Of Not Paying Staff For Months (4 min read)

Multiple current and former Gunzilla employees publicly claim the studio owes them up to five months of unpaid salary, with some reporting they were told to stay quiet while management promised delayed payments would be resolved. (Kotaku)

Project Zomboid identifies and bans over a dozen Steam Workshop mods containing 'heavily obfuscated code' that was 'creating malicious files' (6 min read)

The Indie Stone banned 14 Steam Workshop mods for Project Zomboid after confirming they contained heavily obfuscated code creating malicious files outside the game directory, affecting 500–2,200 installs. Affected players are warned that simply uninstalling the mods is insufficient — additional security measures are needed. (PC Gamer)

<h2 style="text-align: center;">Culture & Community</h2>

Peak co-dev says games like its iconic friendslop hit "wouldn't exist" if the studio tried to turn everything it makes "into the next Fortnite" with endless content updates (6 min read)

Landfall Games, co-developer of viral co-op hit Peak, pushed back on players demanding more updates, arguing that finite-scope games "wouldn't exist" if studios chased endless live-service content. The comments followed backlash calling their update cadence a "lazy dev cycle." (GamesRadar)

After a Redditor said there's a 'zero percent chance' of porting macOS to a Wii, one developer went and did it anyway (5 min read)

Developer Bryan Keller successfully ported Mac OS X to a Nintendo Wii, motivated by a Redditor's 2021 claim it was impossible. The feat required a custom bootloader, device tree, and multiple hardware drivers including one for the Wii's Hollywood SoC. (PC Gamer)

gg! see you in game!

-[james](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrjennings/)