UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has granted Microsoft approval to acquire Activision Blizzard. This removes the final roadblock for Microsoft, allowing the biggest acquisition in videogame history - $68.7 billion USD - to conclude.

Less than a month after the absurd and disastrously-received Runtime Fee stuff, the Unity CEO steps down, effective immediately. James M. Whitehurst becomes interim CEO and Roelof Botha is appointed chairman, as the search for a new permanent CEO begins. Riccitiello’s tenure was marked by a focus on expansion, but included many boneheaded moves including floating the idea for charging real money to reload ingame guns, pushing generative AI, and more. Sooo… byebye!

Erik Peterson from Valve’s Steam Business team has shared an interesting talk/presentation on how games are surfaced, and broadly how visibility works on the platform. Always interesting to get a look behind the curtain, especially from the likes of Valve.

It’s that time again. 🎃 For the last few Octobers, A Short Hike creator Adam Gryu has opened the gates to the annual Pumpkin Festival. Jump in, admire people’s creations, and find a nice spot to carve and place your own. New this year: hats! Always a bit of fun.

Creative Australia has commissioned a new very interesting study exploring Australian musicians’ vital role in the games industry, their working conditions, and the challenges of diversity in this sector. Lots of interesting stuff in here, and the full report is free.

Screen Australia has announced three funding opportunities for Australian indie game developers. Backed by the National Cultural Policy, Revive, the new initiatives include a Games Production Fund, Emerging Gamemakers Fund and Future Leaders Delegation which provides funding & support for up to five individual applicants to attend Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Fran. Applications now open.

A new video from great video essayist Cinema Cartography focuses on videogames as art. His stuff is always terrific, and hearing him talk at length about games is really interesting. Give it a watch!

Golden Joystick Awards 2023 voting is now live. The top nominees are Baldur’s Gate 3 & Tears of the Kingdom with four each. The awards ceremony itself is scheduled for November 10, marking their return to in-person events for the first time since 2019.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney announces layoffs affecting around 830 employees, amounting to 16% of their total workforce. The decision reportedly comes in response to “financial challenges” primarily driven by lower-margin creator content. Basically, ‘oops our strategy and ideological crusades were bad ideas - but the people responsible for them are staying and you are getting fired.’

For the third time in under a month, a War Thunder player has leaked highly confidential military documents. This time it’s the AH-64D Apache Longbow. User BarteG98PL posted the full technical manual on the War Thunder forums.