Gaming, in brief

Nagoshi Studio, a games studio in Tokyo, was closed down by its owners on 31 October. [1]

Toshihiro Nagoshi, who created the Yakuza series of games, set it up in 2021. [1]

NetEase, a giant Chinese tech company, paid for the studio through its games arm. [1][7]

A notice in Kanpo, the Japanese government's official gazette, made the closure public on 2 November. [1]

About 6 of Nagoshi's old Sega team had left with him to join the studio. [4]

It shows NetEase backing away from game studios it paid for during a buying spree. [6]

Finance teachers call this staged funding: a backer pays for one stage at a time. [2]

At each stage it can stop, and NetEase stopped when it saw the bill to finish. [2]

NetEase keeps the 7 billion yen it would have spent to finish the game. [2]

No player ever tried the game; the public saw only a short trailer. [10]

NetEase, a giant Chinese tech company, paid Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi to start a games studio in Tokyo. [1]

NetEase stopped paying when his game needed at least 7 billion yen more, and on 31 October the studio's owners closed it. [2][1]

Their studio was closed by its owners on 31 October, before their game came out. [1]

What happens to Gang of Dragon's work and name.

NetEase said in March the studio must pay to keep its game, and the closing notice does not say whether anyone did. [7][1]

How many people still worked at Nagoshi Studio when it closed.

Neither NetEase nor the studio has given a staff number. [1][2]

Phantom Blade Zero sold over 4 million copies in its first 72 hours, its maker says. [11]

Its maker is S-GAME, a game studio in China. [12]

It is a wuxia game, built on old Chinese martial-arts stories. [11]

It came out on 29 October for PlayStation 5 and PC, as downloads only. [11]

A boxed copy for PlayStation 5 follows in 2027. [11]

Before launch, the research firm Alinea estimated it had sold over 1 million copies. [12]

Nearly two-thirds of those early sales came from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Alinea said. [12]

Black Myth: Wukong, 2024's big hit, sold 10 million copies in its first three days. [12]

So far its biggest market has been at home, Alinea's estimate suggests. [12]

Economists call games a fixed-cost business: they cost the same to make however many sell. [11]

The 4 million figure comes from S-GAME itself, and no outside count has checked it. [11]

It sold over 4 million copies of Phantom Blade Zero in 72 hours on PlayStation 5 and PC. [11]

Whether all of Phantom Blade Zero's 4 million copies were paid for in full.

The figure is S-GAME's own and has not been checked from outside; Alinea's earlier 1 million was an estimate. [11][12]

Phantom Blade Zero, made by S-GAME in China, sold more than 4 million copies in its first 72 hours.

itch.io, a site where small makers sell games, gets over 6,000 new game pages a day. [18]

In early August it was about 3,000 a day, so the number has doubled. [17]

itch.io shared its count on Bluesky, a social network, late on 31 October. [18]

Asked why, itch.io replied: take a guess, with a robot emoji. [17]

Other replies from itch.io point to AI-made projects as most of the new pages. [18]

Of about 1.77 million games listed, 131,929 are tagged as made with AI, about 7.5%. [17]

Downloads and purchases have not doubled, itch.io said. [17]

Steam's latest Next Fest, a showcase of game demos, grew from about 4,000 to over 8,000. [17]

More pages but the same downloads means each hand-made game is harder to find. [18]

Economists call this a search cost: the more choices, the longer it takes to find one. [18]

A ban on AI games would need people to enforce it, AI researcher Mike Cook said. [17]

New pages doubled but downloads did not, so each game is harder to find. [17][18]

How many of itch.io's new game pages are made with AI.

itch.io hinted that most are, and 7.5% of all its games carry the AI tag, but the new pages have not been counted. [18][17]

Fans are bringing back Mass Effect 3's online team mode for its Legendary Edition. [19]

Mass Effect is a space adventure series made by the studio BioWare. [20]

The online mode had been left out when the Legendary Edition came out. [19]

A fan team called ME3Tweaks spent three years getting it to work. [19]

They also redrew textures, fixed many bugs and added new ways to play. [19]

One new mode, Unified, mixes enemies from several sides at once. [19]

Players can join the team's own server, or run a private one. [19]

The same team earlier brought back Pinnacle Station, a lost add-on for the first game. [19]

Players can also run their own servers, so the mode does not depend on one company. [19]

They plan to release the mode on N7 Day. [19]

It arrives after BioWare closed and the next Mass Effect was cancelled. [20]

Players get back a mode the official edition left out, made by fans, not the owner. [19]

Why players often make the thing a game company will not

A player wants something the game's maker does not sell

The player knows exactly what is missing, and can open the game's files

So the player makes it for their own use, and shares it

Other players try it, which shows the idea is wanted

A company adopts it, or hands players tools to make more

The economist Eric von Hippel found that users, not companies, invent many new products, because the user already knows the need and the company has to guess it.

Melvor Idle went from one fan's game to an official RuneScape game in about 5 years.

Players wanted the online mode the Legendary Edition left out, and a fan team spent three years making it work.

A fan made a game in RuneScape's style; Jagex published it, and now puts RuneScape's name on the sequel.

Valve dropped F-Stop in 2007, and fans joined its leaked files into a game people can play.

Nomad Games gives players a quest editor and a way to share quests, so players make new adventures.

It only works where players can get inside a game, and the company that owns the game can still stop what fans make or ignore it.

The fans who rebuilt Mass Effect's online mode, the company that owns Mass Effect, and every player who downloads the mod all change that game a little.

The same weekend, fans made things companies had dropped: a team rebuilt Mass Effect 3's online mode, and fans made Valve's cancelled F-Stop playable. [19][13]

Whether Mass Effect's owner will let the fan-made online mode stand.

The fans rebuilt a mode the official Legendary Edition left out, and they run its server. [19]

A fan team called ME3Tweaks spent three years bringing back Mass Effect 3's online mode, with new ways to play and private servers, and plans to release it on N7 Day.

Jagex, maker of the online game RuneScape, will brand a fan-made game's sequel as official. [21]

The game is Melvor Idle, made by a developer called Games by Malcs. [21]

It is an idle game, where a player's numbers keep going up with little effort. [21]

Melvor Idle was made to feel like RuneScape, Jagex's online role-playing game. [21]

Jagex published the first Melvor Idle 5 years ago, without RuneScape's name on it. [21]

The sequel will be a RuneScape Adventure, though not set in RuneScape's world. [21]

Jagex says the sequel will have no microtransactions, small payments for extras inside a game. [21]

Its highest level rises to 120. [21]

RuneScape players were wary, PC Gamer says, because the game has had rows over selling extras. [21]

Jagex gets a new RuneScape game that a separate fan studio makes. [21]

A fan made a game in RuneScape's style; Jagex published it, and now puts RuneScape's name on the sequel.

Fans have pieced together a playable copy of F-Stop, a Valve game cancelled in 2007. [13][14]

Valve made the Portal puzzle games and runs Steam, a big store for PC games. [13][17]

F-Stop was meant to come before Portal, with a camera that turns objects into photos. [14][16]

It came from one of 5 teams Valve split into for 3 months in 2007. [14]

Playtesters liked it less than Valve's boss Gabe Newell did, so it was dropped. [13]

Its code and maps leaked this week on Valve Cut Content, a fan server. [13]

The leaker first asked for $1,000, then gave the files away, the server's moderators said. [13]

Players report it is about 99% complete, with some lines and textures missing. [13]

Valve has given no sign it will ever release F-Stop itself. [15]

Game historians call work like this lost media: made, but impossible to see or play. [14]

Fans gain a lost game, while Valve loses control of work it chose to keep private. [13]

Valve dropped F-Stop in 2007, and fans joined its leaked files into a game people can play.

Work it chose not to release is now played by anyone who gets the leaked copy. [13]

What Valve will do about the F-Stop leak.

Valve has given no sign of releasing F-Stop, and the files reached fans through leaks it never chose. [15][13]

The Resident Evil film, made from a horror game series, has taken $400 million worldwide. [23][24]

Sony Pictures and Constantin Film made it. [24]

It is the biggest film yet in the Resident Evil series, Deadline reports. [23]

It took $10 million around the world in its seventh weekend. [23]

It led China's box office for a fourth weekend in a row. [24]

In China alone it has taken $71.3 million since 5 October. [24]

It is $600,000 short of Backrooms, the top earner ever for the film company A24. [23]

It has passed Sinners, another hit horror film, at $371.6 million. [23]

Deadline compares it with other horror films, called comps in the film trade. [23]

Their Resident Evil film has taken $400 million worldwide, the series' biggest. [23][24]

Shun Saeki, who drew the cooking manga Food Wars!, has ended an exclusive contract with Shueisha. [25]

Shueisha is a big Japanese publisher that runs the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. [25]

Saeki had kept the exclusive contract with Shueisha for many years. [25]

Saeki announced the change on social media on Sunday. [25]

Saeki now wants drawing, illustration and character design work, but not long projects. [25]

Food Wars! ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2012 to 2019. [25]

Saeki and its writer Yuto Tsukuda later made Tenmaku Cinema in 2023. [25]

So companies outside Shueisha can now hire one of Shonen Jump's known artists. [25]

In an exclusive contract, a worker agrees to sell their work to one buyer only. [25]

Saeki did not say why the contract ended, or why long projects are off. [25]

Why Shun Saeki's exclusive contract with Shueisha ended.

Saeki's post gives no reason, and does not say why long projects are off. [25]

HeroQuest, a classic dungeon board game sold by Avalon Hill, is coming to Steam in 2027. [22]

Nomad Games is making it; it earlier turned Talisman and Love Letter into computer games. [22]

Up to 4 players can play the heroes online, and a 5th can play the villain. [22]

Alone, a player faces the computer, which plays the Evil Wizard and his monsters. [22]

It will have a quest editor, so players can make their own maps and missions. [22]

Players can also download quests made by others, through a sharing service called mod.io. [22]

A closed test for invited players is coming soon, with no date given. [22]

So the game's quests will not stop at the ones its makers write. [22]

Game designers call levels made by players user-generated content. [22]

Nomad Games has not said whether quests made by players can ever be sold. [22]

Nomad Games gives players a quest editor and a way to share quests, so players make new adventures.

When HeroQuest's test starts, and whether player-made quests can be sold.

Nomad Games says only that a closed test is coming soon. [22]

Lucca Comics and Games, Europe's largest comic convention, marked its 60th anniversary in Italy. [27]

It ran from 28 October to 1 November in Lucca, a medieval city in Tuscany. [27]

About 80,000 ticket-paying fans came each day, Variety reports. [27]

Long queues formed for HBO's Harry Potter display, ahead of the series' Christmas Day debut. [27]

No one from the show came, and no footage was shown. [27]

Blue Lock, a live-action film of a football manga, had its European premiere there. [27]

Manga artist Go Nagai, who made Mazinger Z, got a special exhibition. [27]

HBO used the fair to build interest in its show weeks before it starts. [27]

Marketers call this a pre-launch campaign: building interest before a product is out. [27]

HBO got long queues of fans without showing a single new scene. [27]

About 80,000 ticket-paying fans a day came to Lucca, in Italy, for the 60th anniversary of Europe's largest comic convention.

Bocchi the Rock!, a manga about a shy girl guitarist, will become a film in 2027. [26]

A teaser trailer announced it on Sunday. [26]

The studio CloverWorks will make it, directed by Shin Wakabayashi. [26]

It adapts a side story from the end of the manga's fifth book. [26]

The manga became a TV anime in October 2022. [26]

Two films retelling the TV series came out in Japan in 2024. [26]

The first sold 140,000 tickets and earned about $1.38 million in three days. [26]

A second TV season was announced in February 2025. [26]

The new film is the series' third trip to cinemas since 2024. [26]

No opening date or budget has been given yet. [26]

Koei Tecmo showed play footage of its Attack on Titan 3 game on Sunday. [32]

Koei Tecmo also made the earlier Attack on Titan games. [32]

The game tells the whole story of the Attack on Titan anime, from start to end. [32]

It comes out on 10 December on PS5, Switch 2, Xbox and PC. [32]

The anime studio MAPPA will make its opening sequence, added in a later update. [32]

Attack on Titan 2 came out in 2018, and an expansion followed in 2019. [32]

A phone game, Attack on Titan: Brave Order, shut down on 28 September. [32]

It arrives after the anime has ended, so it sells the full story at once. [32]

This is licensing: the owner of a story lets another company make a game from it. [32]

HoYoverse, maker of Genshin Impact, will bring its game Petit Planet to Switch 2 in 2027. [31]

Petit Planet is a free life game where each player looks after a small planet. [30]

IGN's preview writer called it Animal Crossing meets The Little Prince. [31]

It comes first to PC, iPhone and Android phones on 4 December. [30]

Over 1,000 clothes and furniture items can be earned free by playing, HoYoverse says. [30]

Petit Planet was first announced in September 2025. [31]

Switch 2 owners will wait until 2027, after the PC and phone launch. [30]

Speedrunner Niftski set a new world record for Super Mario Bros. on Halloween. [28]

A speedrunner tries to finish a game as fast as humanly possible. [28]

His time was 4:54.299, beating his own August record of 4:54.332. [28]

He did it dressed as Mario and using Mario's voice, during a 5-hour stream. [28]

Niftski, 22, holds the top times in several kinds of race for the game. [28]

Super Mario Bros. came out in 1985; the record fell under five minutes around 2010. [28]

Kotaku says the record is now 3 thousandths of a second from a perfect run. [28]

Economists call this diminishing returns: each new gain gets smaller as you near the limit. [28]

Niftski said the costume made him not nervous at all. [28]

Niftski, a 22-year-old speedrunner, set a new Super Mario Bros. world record of 4:54.299 on a Halloween stream, dressed as Mario. He said the costume made him not nervous at all.

Josh Sawyer, design director at the studio Obsidian, says towns cost most to make in games. [29]

Per square foot, a town costs about 4 times as much as a dungeon, he said. [29]

He said "a town is 4x the expense per square foot", in a YouTube video. [29]

He was asked why so few role-playing games are set in modern cities. [29]