Nearly 140,000 businesses on Yelp remain closed since coronavirus hit
Share via Shortlink Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink New numbers from Yelp show that 140,000 businesses that closed since March 1 remain closed and that 40 percent of them permanently closed. (Getty)Nearly 140,000 U.S. businesses that closed since March 1 remain shuttered, and just over 40 percent of them have closed for good.Yelp’s latest report on businesses listed on the platform show that more retailers closed than any other businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, but a higher number of restaurants are closing permanently, according to the Wall Street Journal.Nearly 27,700 retailers closed and 35 percent of them marked themselves as permanently closed. While just under 24,000 restaurants have closed since the beginning of March, 53 percent of them are considered permanently closed.Around 175,000 Yelp-listed businesses were closed in April, meaning about 35,000 have reopened since then.ADVERTISEMENTSome of those businesses could soon close again as the number of positive COVID-19 cases rise nationwide. Texas, California and Arizona account for nearly half of the almost 40,000 new cases reported Thursday.Texas Governor Greg Abbot on Friday ordered bars to close at noon except for delivery and takeout and limited restaurant capacity to 50 percent, but stopped short of ordering any businesses to shutter completely.Meanwhile, searches surged for black-owned businesses across the country in the weeks after the late May police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There were 222,000 searches for black-owned business compared to 9,000 in the three weeks prior.Yelp also created a function to search for black-owned businesses. [WSJ] — Dennis Lynch
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TagsAby RosenMidtown Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink 522 Fifth Avenue and RFR Realty’s Aby Rosen (Credit: Getty Images; Google Maps)UPDATED, Sept. 4, 3:15 p.m.: Aby Rosen turned to a little-known affiliate of Credit Suisse for the large loan needed for his latest Midtown purchase.Rosen’s RFR Realty scored a $224 million loan from Column Financial for its acquisition of a 23-story office tower at 522 Fifth Avenue, property records show.RFR closed on the acquisition of the 575,000-square-foot building this week for $350 million. It purchased the property from Morgan Stanley, which used the building as a headquarters for its wealth management division.Newmark Knight Frank’s Dustin Stolly and Jordan Roeschlaub represented RFR in securing the financing.Rosen agreed to buy the building in mid-March.Morgan Stanley has consented to stay as a tenant for at least three years after the sale. Rosen is seeking to lease the building to a single tenant after the financial firm departs in March 2024.Column Financial, a real estate lending arm of Credit Suisse, was the sole lender in the deal, according to property records.The lender has been tied to some notable commercial mortgage-backed securities deals.In 2015 Column Financial provided a $180 million CMBS loan to a group of investors led by Alex Sapir of the Sapir Organization to acquire the 263-room Mondrian Soho hotel in Lower Manhattan. It was also a lender in an $850 million CMBS deal, along with JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, that is secured by 24 Lord & Taylor stores and 10 Saks Fifth Avenue stores across 15 states.Lenders, especially banks, were wary of underwriting new loans at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic given the uncertainty about pricing and future demand for office space. In the second quarter, however, U.S. banks reported an uptick in construction lending.
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Microsoft to report Xbox results under “More Personal Computing” segmentThree new operating segments also include Productivity and Business Processes and Intelligent CloudMatthew HandrahanEditor-in-ChiefTuesday 29th September 2015Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleMicrosoftMicrosoft is changing the way it reports its financial results, with the Xbox business now included under a broader “More Personal Computing” category.According to a statement published yesterday, the move to three larger operating segments is a reflection of how CEO Satya Nadella sees the future of the company – one based around platforms and services rather than individual products.This new way of reporting will be in place when the company announces its quarterly results on October 22, though it will also detail the results under the previous structure to aid its investors.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games The new segments are Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing, with Xbox included under the third along with Windows licensing, Surface tablets, phones and search.This move could signal the final stages of a tumultuous period for Microsoft, in which thousands of jobs have been lost and the entire company restructured.However, despite all the turmoil, Satya Nadella has been clear that Xbox remains an important aspect of his future plans.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesApple questions credibility of Xbox testimonyiPhone maker asserts that Microsoft did not produce evidence to back Lori Wright’s claims of unprofitable consolesBy James Batchelor 2 days agoEpic pushed for subscription-free multiplayer on Xbox ahead of Apple battleCEO Tim Sweeney told Xbox boss Phil Spencer that “certain plans for August” would create an “extraordinary opportunity”By James Batchelor 7 days agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Game Connection Europe reveals awards nominationsThe development awards have added a Best Indie Game category and People’s Choice AwardJames BrightmanWednesday 7th October 2015Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareOrganizers for Game Connection Europe 2015 have announced nominations for this year’s Development and Marketing awards. The winnners will be unveiled during the show held at Porte de Versailles, Paris from October 28-30. The Marketing Awards are designed to “celebrate the most creative and successful campaigns for games across all platforms and genres in 9 categories as diverse as Best Mobile Campaign to Best Live Action Trailer.” Nominations include campaigns from firms like Ayzenberg Group, Eidos-Montreal, Netmarble Turkey, Ripstone, Maverick Media, Ant Farm, Paradox Interactive and more. You can view the complete list here.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games For the Development Awards, which “celebrate the most creative and original projects in game development,” Game Connection has added two more categories on top of the existing 10. This year indies will have a big presence with the Best Indie Game award, and Game Connection is also opening up voting for a People’s Choice Award. The winner will be determined by which project receives the most Facebook likes. There will be 24 projects in total vying for the 12 different awards.”We are incredibly excited to have such a high quality of nominations for Game Connection Europe 2015’s Development Awards. The competition is fierce and I’m looking forward to the ceremony! I would like to thank everyone that submitted their project for consideration – the quality was outstanding but only a handful can be nominated,” said Eric Lacroix, organiser of the Development Awards. “I’d like to thank our jury as well for their hard work in going through the sheer volume of submissions we received. And of course I’d like to thank our sponsors and partners that help us make the Development Awards possible and for giving our nominees even more visibility through the Development Awards pods.”In addition to offering its 2,700 attendees a networking opportunity to sign deals and find new partners, Game Connection Europe 2015 has a conference program to discuss the future of publishing, localisation, game design and more. Full disclosure: Game Connection has a media partnership with GamesIndustry.biz, and will be paying for our travel and accommodation during the event.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesEA Play Live set for July 22Formerly E3-adjacent event moves to take place a month and half after the ESA’s showBy Jeffrey Rousseau 9 hours agoGenesis Noir nabs four nominations in 2021 IGF AwardsOther games in the running for Seumas McNally Grand Prize include Paradise Killer, Teardown, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Umurani Generation, and SpiritfarerBy Brendan Sinclair 4 days agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Sony sold 8.4 million PS4s in Q315.4 million after nine months, already higher than the whole of the last fiscal yearMatthew HandrahanEditor-in-ChiefFriday 29th January 2016Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleSony CorporationSony sold 8.4 million units of the PlayStation 4 in the third quarter, taking the total sold this fiscal year to 15.4 million – higher than the amount it sold in the whole of the previous year.14.8 million units of the console were sold in the fiscal year ended March 2015, but Sony has already breezed past that by more than 600,000 units. That’s largely down to the strength of the third quarter, in which 8.4 million PlayStation 4s were sold – 2 million more than the same quarter last year.Sony expects to sell 17.5 million PlayStation 4s by the end of the fourth quarter. At the start of the year, the company confirmed that lifetime sales were approaching 36 million units.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games The Game & Network Services division earned $4.89 billion in revenue, up 10.5 per cent year-on-year. Operating income improved by an even wider margin, up 45 per cent to $335 million. Around $2.7 billion of the revenue came from Hardware sales, with $1.3 billion attributed to Network, and the remainder categorised as Other.In addition to strong hardware sales and higher software sales, the division was also helped by the absence of the write-down of PS Vita and PS TV components it took in this quarter last year.As a whole, Sony Corp. posted $21.5 billion revenue for the quarter, less than a 1 per cent increase over the prior year. Net income rose 33 per cent, however, an increase of 33 per cent.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesPlayStation revenues near $25bn as PS5 ships 7.8m in five monthsSony’s gaming segment drives full-year revenues to $81.7 billionBy James Batchelor 14 days agoAmpere: PS5 and Xbox Series X|S sales in line with, not ahead of, previous genBut firm believes new PlayStation could sell up to eight million units by end of March, surpassing PS4By James Batchelor 3 months agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Epic story, sublime design, and controller supportWhy I Love: The Ghost Story Games crew on what won them over in Dota 2, Doom, Kerbal Space Program, and Final Fantasies X and XIVGhost Story GamesTuesday 13th February 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareWhy I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other’s work. Development is typically a team effort, and it’s about time we had a Why I Love column that reflects that in some way. To that end, this installment was contributed by a quintet of developers from Ghost Story Games, each one picking their own game to write about.Why I Love Dota 2Erik Irland – Lead ProgrammerI hate Dota 2. It’s five minutes into a match and my team is already down eight kills. I try to stay positive, but deep down I know there is no way we’re winning this game. Mistakes were made, and the enemy carry is two-shotting me now. Why do I even play this game?You can’t talk about the highs of Dota 2 without talking about the lows. At its best, Dota 2 is a sublime gaming experience. When you pick the right hero for the situation, when you correctly predict what’s going to happen in the game, when you buy the perfect item, when your team comes together and uses all their abilities in perfect coordination, there is nothing I’ve experienced that is quite as satisfying. And let’s be clear, that’s partly because the game isn’t afraid to punish you when you get those things wrong. Your hand will not be held. This game may already be lost, but the way to get better is to jump back in the queue and try again.Dota 2 is a game that isn’t afraid to give its heroes OP abilities and access to powerful items that enable a wide array of strategies because there is always a way to counter what your opponents are doing. Need a stun? There’s an item for that. Need healing? There’s an item for that. Getting wrecked by magic damage? Item. Mobility? There are several. Put all of this together and every game becomes a puzzle to solve. What is the enemy trying to do? What items are they likely to buy? Are they looking to end the game early? How can I counter their game plan? Every game consists of 10 heroes out of 115, and each player can buy any of well over a hundred items, so you’ll never have to solve the same puzzle twice.The game also has a great esports scene. The production value for the large tournaments has made huge strides in the last few years, and Dota 2’s The International tournament is probably the best single event in esports. Around this esports scene are a bunch of great community personalities, shout-outs to my favorites: BSJ, Wagamama, Draskyl, Merlini, and Purge (his streams with Day9 are A+).The game you’re down eight kills five minutes in? Rarely, you and your team will solve the puzzle, the game feels easy, and the world is a glorious place. I love Dota 2. And other times, you and your team will be up eight kills five minutes in and will figure out how to re-scramble the already solved Rubik’s Cube. I hate Dota 2.Why I Love DoomLeonie Manshanden – Executive DirectorMany years ago, Activision was publishing Doom 3 and I was responsible for launching the game in Europe’s Benelux region. I had never played any of the previous iterations, and my gameplay palate was very different at the time. I was hooked on colorful games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 on the PlayStation and WarioWare on the Nintendo DS. I picked up a preview build of the game to figure out what this shooter was all about, and before I knew it, it was dark outside and I was the only person left in the office.Never had I played a game with such intensity. Heart pounding, not knowing what’s behind that next dark corner. Terrified that somehow the battery in my flashlight would leave me hanging. I don’t even remember the details of that game. I was just too busy surviving.In 2016, when Bethesda released a new Doom, my interest was immediately piqued, but I didn’t play it when it first came out, too worried that it could only disappoint. But boy was I wrong. Everything about the game just felt right. The controls were smooth and intuitive, the pace was perfect, the art and levels were solid, and the kills… The shots and the chainsaw felt so gratifying. The quests were being piecemealed to me in just the right order, and there was so much to explore when I felt like it…or to ignore when I wanted to just move on to the next area.The game was the perfect combination of nostalgia and good game design, and I sincerely hope that everyone who worked so hard on it feels proud of their achievement.Why I Love Final Fantasy XCheyenne Morrin – Assistant Dialogue CoordinatorEven after multiple playthroughs and over 15 years since its release, I still love Final Fantasy X. There are few games that rival its breathtaking and attentive world-building. Spira is seething with fiends and languages, ideologies and Sin. And so many of the game spaces look and feel anthropologically informed, as if their art and design teams plucked its temples and villages from real-world places.The developers practice the same passion with the game’s narrative. Each character has a rich backstory – their individual threads overlap and interconnect with other heroes and villains, weaving a striking tapestry of a dogmatic world striving for meaning. As a storyteller and game developer, Final Fantasy X will continue to be a driving inspiration for my own work.Why I Love Final Fantasy XIVTom Brown – Quality Assurance AnalystThere are so many ways I could sing the praises of Final Fantasy XIV – the way the 2.0 relaunch took something unpopular and turned it into something fantastic, the way it feels like both an MMO and a Final Fantasy in equal measure, the frequent high-quality content updates, the phenomenal soundtrack, the constant UI updates that I didn’t realize I wanted until I read the patch notes – but the thing I always come back to is much more mundane: the controller support.Having played more World of Warcraft than I’d care to admit, I wrote off playing with a controller as something that’d never work. I like to raid, and I couldn’t imagine a controller giving me the feedback I needed to perform well in difficult content. Once I decided to give controllers a chance, I never touched a keyboard again. The button mapping, the UI, and even the way the game is balanced all facilitate playing on a controller. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I start listing all of the reasons I love the game. You know, things like the beautiful environments, the top-notch localization, the exciting story, the great characters…Why I love Kerbal Space ProgramSeth Kendall – Senior AnimatorWhat’s not to love about Kerbal Space Program… Spending a week designing every part of a multistage lander craft and launch vehicle, two days piloting it, successfully negotiating a harrowing landing to be balanced precariously on the edge of a crater, only to discover on this distant moon that your antenna is blocking the hatch and you can’t get out. Then spending another two weeks designing an absurdly complex rescue mission involving multiple launches, building a craft in orbit, lowering a quad-engine lander crane to attach and lift the stranded vessel back into space, transferring the lander to another vessel to bring it back home and safely land it once again… only to realize you could have just sent a tiny little probe to break off the antenna… These are the joys of Kerbal Space Program.After I enjoyed the career mode for almost a year and abandoned it after a particularly disastrous, and meticulously planned, mission to the Jool system (the game’s analogue of Jupiter), my son finally achieved the ripe old age of 7 and made me fall in love with the game all over again, this time revealing the fun one can have with the unlimited resources and parts of sandbox mode.Together, we are slowly building an interplanetary empire while learning about orbital mechanics, thrust-to-weight ratios, valuable engineering concepts like center of mass, center of thrust, aerodynamics, drag, and the relationship between mass, thrust, and gravity, all brought to life through daily moments of panic, anticipation, victory, and failure. My son is learning how to quickly calculate half of his estimated burn times so he knows when to start a burn maneuver. He is working on addition of high numbers so he can figure out if his stages will produce enough delta-v to reach the desired target destinations. And all this from a kid who “hates” doing math. I can’t recommend the game enough for any parent with a kid remotely interested in science, engineering, flight, or space.So whether one has an actual child in the house or just deep down inside oneself, I don’t think you can beat the meticulous craft building, daring self-directed missions, cheeky Kerbal humor, and real-world physics learnings of Kerbal Space Program. As may be obvious, I’ve been playing a lot of it lately…Upcoming Why I Love columns:Tuesday, February 27 – Caledonia’s Nels Anderson on Hellblade: Senua’s SacrificeTuesday, March 13 – Auroch Digital’s Tomas Rawlings on Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty/Battle for ArrakisDevelopers interested in contributing their own Why I Love column are encouraged to reach out to us at 
EGX Rezzed 2018 posts record industry attendance1,500 business professionals at this year’s eventChristopher DringHead of Games B2BTuesday 24th April 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleGamer NetworkOver 1,500 attendees came to EGX Rezzed 2018.It’s the highest number of industry attendees the show has seen to-date, and was backed by a series of B2B projects that were operated by GamesIndustry.biz.This year’s event included the second year of Meet The Indies – a business match-making service designed to unite developers with publishers and investors. Over 115 companies took part in the area across the three days, with almost 250 meetings held.In addition, there was the GamesIndustry 100 announcement, including drinks reception, followed by the industry party, which this year was held at the Skylight bar. The party was another sell out.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games Other industry projects included the B2C Career Fair, which this year introduced a separate portfolio reviews section for the first time. While the Rezzed Sessions included a number of industry-friendly talks and making-of discussions.EGX Rezzed took place between April 13th – April 15th. It included on-stage debuts of new gameplay for titles such as Onrush, Phoenix Point, Cultist Simulator, and Mavericks: Proving Ground. There was a career retrospective from industry legend Tim Schafer, plus the reveal of Introversion Software’s Order of Magnitude.”We are very proud to say that this was the best ever EGX Rezzed,” said Gamer Events MD David Lilley. “That’s not just us saying that, but all the feedback we received from attendees via the exit survey was glowing, with visitors highlighting the range of games, the atmosphere, and the venue for extra praise. EGX Rezzed is a credit to the UK games business and everyone who came together to show their games and meet the public.”Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesEGX Rezzed delayed until summer due to coronavirus pandemicUpdate: New July dates announced for EGX Rezzed By Christopher Dring A year agoGamesIndustry.biz delivers record audience growth in 2019Three new website sections planned for 2020By Christopher Dring A year agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.
Infinity Ward has quietly been recruiting Respawn developersSeven hires over the past year identified, includes three former IW staffJames BatchelorEditor-in-ChiefMonday 21st May 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleInfinity WardRespawn EntertainmentSeveral Respawn developers have left the Titanfall studio in favour of roles at Call of Duty studio Infinity Ward.A Reddit thread points to the LinkedIn profiles for seven former members of the Titanfall team, who are all now working at the Activision-owned studio. To be clear, this is not a sudden exodus from Respawn. The earliest departure seems to be Joel Emslie, who left his role as art director in February 2017 to become studio art director at Infinity Ward. That said, former Titanfall lead game designer Geoffrey Smith lists a vague ‘2017’ date for his move to become multiplayer design director at the Call of Duty studio, so he could have left alongside or even before Emslie.Emslie and Smith are two of the three people who previously worked at Infinity Ward before leaving to help form Respawn. Emslie was lead character artist prior to joining Respawn, while Smith was a designer working primarily on multiplayer maps. Meanwhile Mark Grigsby was lead animator before he took the same role at Respawn. He is now listed as animation director at Infinity Ward as of June 2017.The most recent recruit appears to be Ranon Sarano, who now works at the Call of Duty studio as senior animator – the same role he held at Respawn. He moved over last month.Back in September, two Respawn team members defected to Infinity Ward: senior environment artist Joshua Dunnam and producer Dom McCarthy. A month prior, art producer Madison Cromwell left to join Infinity Ward as associate producer.The connection between the studios will be well known to GamesIndustry.biz readers. Famously, Respawn was formed after Infinity Ward bosses and Call of Duty co-creators Vince Zampella and Jason West were fired over breaches of contract and insubordination. This occurred alongside disputes over royalties from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.Respawn partnered with Electronic Arts to publish its first new IP, which would become the Titanfall franchise. Since then the publisher has also entrusted the team with an unannounced Star Wars game and a virtual reality title. In November 2017, it was revealed that EA has acquired Respawn for $450 million. It’s unclear whether this had an impact on these departures – most left before the acquisition was announced, though there may have been rumblings about such a move behind closed doors.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games Instead, what’s more likely to have motivated the departees is the desire to work on Call of Duty (particularly for those who already have). While Titanfall has always been well received, the decision to release the sequel between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (incidentally, the most recent Infinity Ward outing) seriously harmed its sales – something CEO Zampella acknowledged after launch.Call of Duty, meanwhile, is on the rise again with last year’s World War II achieving excellent critical and commercial success and anticipation already building for this year’s multiplayer-only Black Ops 4.If you have jobs news to share or a new hire you want to shout about, please contact us on 
Rockstar says average work week under 46 hours”We will not stop working to improve in this area,” says co-head of Red Dead Redemption 2 developerBrendan SinclairManaging EditorThursday 18th October 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareCompanies in this articleRockstarRockstar continued its pushback against criticisms of crunch culture at the studio today, as Rockstar North studio co-head Rob Nelson told The Guardian that the Red Dead Redemption 2 developer has been making progress in that area.The studio provided statistics stating that from the beginning of the year through the end of September, the average working week across the entire Rockstar studio system was between 42.4 and 45.8 hours. Work week length peaked in mid-July when the average week was 50.1 hours, with 20% of employees reporting working 60 hours or more, up to 67.1 hours. Those figures were based on employees’ self-reported hours, the studio said.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games “We’re growing as fast as we can, and we’re structuring our departments based on need, because we don’t want people working too hard,” Nelson said. “Do people work hard and is there overtime and extra effort put in? Yes, there is. Is it something we want happening regularly for long periods of time or as an accepted part of our process or as a ‘badge of honour’ thing? No, it is not. We are always trying to improve how we are working and balance what we are making with how we make it and we will not stop working to improve in this area.”Rockstar has been under fire this week after a feature article on Vulture included co-founder Dan Houser talking about working 100-hour weeks multiple times this year. Houser later clarified that he meant a core writing team of four people had been working 100-hour weeks, and that it’s up to individual developers to choose whether they want to put in “that additional effort.”A number of former employees publicly contradicted Houser’s characterization of overtime at Rockstar, among them former PR person Job Stauffer saying on Twitter, “I can assure you that during the GTA IV era, it was like working with a gun to your head 7 days a week.” Rockstar then informed its current employees that the were permitted to weigh in on the subject on Twitter, and a number of them have since posted in the studio’s defence. Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesThe GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: Rockstar’s tax returnsAlso up this week: The troubles facing Improbable and SpatialOS, and what’s the future of esports as Fortnite’s popularity declines? By GamesIndustry Staff A year agoRockstar hasn’t paid UK corporation tax in ten years, claims investigative think tankGrand Theft Auto V developer also issued claims worth over £42 million in Video Game Tax ReliefBy Haydn Taylor A year agoLatest comments (2)AbdulBasit Saliu Mechanic, Flowmotion Entertainment Inc2 years ago Rockstar North is one of the 8-9 development studios under Rockstar Games that worked on RDR2. 2Sign inorRegisterto rate and replySign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now. 2 years ago @AbdulBasit Saliu: The data provided is said to be “the average working week across the entire Rockstar studio system was between 42.4 and 45.8 hours” though, so not just RSN data.I’m disappointed they provided the average for the data though, and not the median. A relatively small number of high or low counts can skew an average more, whereas what we’re mostly interested in is the “average” experience of a developer.
0Sign inorRegisterto rate and replyJames Berg Games User Researcher
Boosting now a criminal offence in South KoreaAnyone artificially inflating a player’s skill ranking could face $18,000 fine and two years in prisonJames BatchelorEditor-in-ChiefMonday 10th December 2018Share this article Recommend Tweet ShareSouth Korea has now declared that it is a criminal offence to offer boosting services in video games.The practice involves playing on a low-skilled player’s account to artificially boost their ranking — often for a fee.There are numerous boosters and boosting companies operating in South Korea, centred around titles like Overwatch and League of Legends, but the introduction of low-skilled players into higher ranking matches upsets the balance of popular multiplayer games.Related JobsSenior Game Designer – UE4 – AAA United Kingdom Amiqus GamesProgrammer – REMOTE – work with industry veterans! North West Amiqus GamesJunior Video Editor – GLOBAL publisher United Kingdom Amiqus GamesDiscover more jobs in games However, the National Assembly of South Korea has now passed an amendment to the Game Industry Promotion Act enabling boosters to face criminal charges, Korean news site Inven reports (spotted by Dot Esports).Under the new amendment, boosters can face a fine of up to 20 million won (around $18,000) and two-year suspended prison sentence.The Game Industry Promotion Act was first proposed in 2017 and protects against other issues that popular games and the companies behind them face in the region.Celebrating employer excellence in the video games industry8th July 2021Submit your company Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry.biz in your inbox. Enter your email addressMore storiesEpic vs Apple – Week One Review: Epic still faces an “uphill battle”Legal experts share their thoughts on the proceedings so far, and what to expect from the coming weekBy James Batchelor 11 hours agoEpic Games claims Fortnite is at “full penetration” on consoleAsserts that mobile with the biggest growth potential as it fights for restoration to iOS App StoreBy James Batchelor 14 hours agoLatest comments Sign in to contributeEmail addressPasswordSign in Need an account? Register now.