Sega April Fool's Day unintentionally inserted willows, creating the best Sega game in Steam's history
A few days ago on April Fool's Day, Sega launched a free Sonic-themed mystery game "Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog" on Steam. The story tells the story of Sonic and his friends holding a reasoning party, Sonic as the "victim", and others around his script to find the truth, but as the story progresses, people gradually realize that something is wrong, and there seems to be some conspiracy behind the party...
Obviously, this is just Sega's work around its own IP, but for now, it has had an unexpected effect. Katie Chrzanowski, Sonic's community manager, said the game has topped 1 million downloads in the past five days, with more than 10,000 reviews and a 98 percent positive rating. It's already Sega's top-rated game on Steam, and that result doesn't look so easy to break.
The only regret is that the game currently supports Chinese.
Amazon announced the layoffs of more than 100 gaming employees
Amazon announced a second wave of layoffs, which will involve 9,000 employees, or 3% of the total workforce. The relevant departments affected by this layoff include advertising, human resources, and the familiar Twitch, as well as the game department that achieved some results last year.
On Tuesday, Christoph Hartmann, Amazon's vice president of games, wrote a memo to employees about layoffs, mainly from Game Growth, San Diego Game Studios and Prime Gaming, with 100 layoffs. In addition, some employees will be reassigned to other projects that "align with Amazon's strategic priorities."
Christoph Hartmann said they will provide these employees with severance pay, health insurance services, re-employment services and paid time to support them in their continued job search.
Amazon Games was founded in 2013, during which it also fully developed products, absorbed some high-level talents in the circle, including Sony, and the MMO "New World" launched in 2021 also achieved good results.
The Minecraft live-action film will be released in April 2025
In recent years, game adaptations have been frequently established. Warner Bros. Pictures announced the release of a live-action film "Minecraft" last year, and the film will also star "Aquaman" star Jason Momoa, directed by "Big Napoleon" director Jared Hess, and "Dune" producer Mary Parent.
Today Warner revealed the release date of the film, which is April 2025. It's not clear exactly what the director will look like in this block world, but imagine a Jason Momoa version of Steve.
The "Civilization" mobile game announced the suspension of operation
The mobile game "Civilization Empire: Power in Hands", adapted from the well-known game IP "Civilization", recently announced that it was out of operation, and its "lifespan" was only less than 4 months.
The game was developed by Nexon, a well-known veteran game manufacturer in South Korea, and was once considered to be able to break the SLG game market dominated by Chinese manufacturers with top IP, but this game not only did not succeed, but also suffered a "violent death". According to third-party data, the game currently has less than 1 million downloads worldwide, and the cumulative turnover is only 15 million yuan, of which 75% comes from South Korea. Whether the IP influence of "Civilization" is not enough, or the quality of the game is not enough to break through the blockade from domestic SLG manufacturers, I am afraid it is difficult to find a standard answer.