MARCH
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the games industry mobilised to offer its support, proving that when united and single-minded it can be a source for good in the world (and make up for some of the NFT shenanigans it had indulged in previously.) Support flowed from all levels, from charity streams and game bundles, to countless examples of game sale revenue sharing and practical support from developers and publishers with studios in Ukraine and neighbouring counties. At the tip of a veritable iceberg of game industry effort, Riot raised $5.4 million from battle pass sales, the
itch.io Bundle For Ukraine managed $6.3 million, Humble’s Stand With Ukraine game bundle raised more than $20m, and Epic donated $144 million from Fortnite sales.
APRIL Unreal Engine
5 officially launched for developers not working on Fortnite in April. Thanks to its new advances in
game development technology, and a broadening of scope at the Epic Games campus, good looking video games and television VFX could now be achieved more easily than ever before. We love a good LED AR wall alien planet or spaceship over here at the MCV/DEVELOP office, so we’re mostly excited to see if its proprietary technology tools like Nanite and Lumen will eventually be used to make all of the new Doctor Who and Star Trek on the way as pretty as Star Wars series The Mandalorian. We can only hope.
MAY Having sired
29 increasingly successful titles between them, Electronic Arts and football’s world governing body properly went their
separate ways this month, saying that as soon as their latest progeny, FIFA 23, left the roost, EA would quietly move out and get on with its life, while FIFA would sleep with anyone. Ranting in a press release, FIFA president Gianni Infantino slurred, “I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans. The FIFA name is the only global, original title and it will remain
52 | MCV/DEVELOP December 2022
forever and remain THE BEST.” Fast forward to November and FIFA reveals four new games in time for the World Cup, the sum of which is characterised by Kotaku as “awful crypto/metaverse shit”. Infantino proving that he’s not quite as in tune with gamers as he would claim to be with gay people, the disabled, migrant workers and women.
JUNE Despite in-
person events coming back to life, Summer Game Fest took over E3’s old spot once again, allowing us to don
lockdown attire as we endured first looks at Final Fantasy 16, Street Fighter 6, The Callisto Protocol, Fort Solis, a back-from-the-dead Routine and relentless close-ups of the future patron saint of streamers, Geoff “Check This Out” Keighley.
The month also saw Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout follow Rocket League and Fortnite’s lead: It went free-to-play alongside its launch on the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox consoles, which has driven the game’s community growth (and profit) to never before seen heights.
JULY
Nintendo acquired Tokyo’s Dynamo Pictures in July and renamed it Nintendo Pictures, immediately causing Mushroom Kingdom fans to worry about Hollywood’s second stab at a Super Mario Bros. movie, despite the fact that Dynamo was known more for its game related content than anything that goes with popcorn. Gamers need only an announcement to assume the sky is falling and this was no different,
but of course we’ve all seen the trailers now and reckon the movie due for release on April 7th (and that we’ve all taken the day off for) looks quite good.
AUGUST Gamescom returned to the Koelnmesse in Cologne,
Germany, and hadn’t missed a beat. The gargantuan
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