Game Control: Blizzard Employees Unionize, Microsoft Delays Price Increase in Many Countries
Console: During the SNK World Championship 2025 at DreamHack in Atlanta, fighting game FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves will feature iconic Street Fighter character Chun-Li in a brand new demo trial. The session is scheduled for Nov. 1 and will last 20 minutes. Participants will also receive a limited-edition sticker for playing. This is not the first time the game has used a Street Fighter character for one of its demos; Ken was the main character in Las Vegas earlier this year. Aside from the demo, top players will compete for a $4.1 million prize pool across four different FGC (fighting game community) titles, one of which being FATAL FURY. The four-day long international tournament will include a guest appearance by Studio-G1NEO President and CEO Masami Obari, a renowned Japanese anime director. He will join other SNK developers on Nov. 1 during the Special Stage Show for a Meet & Greet.
1000xResist, the acclaimed indie narrative adventure game by Asian-Canadian studio sunset visitor 斜陽過客, will be available on consoles as early as next month. The game is the studio’s debut title, and since its release in 2024, it has earned several nominations from the IGF (Independent Games Festival), GDC (Game Developers’ Conference) and it’s also won a Peabody award for Interactive & Immersive Work. In a June 2024 interview for the GoNintendo podcast, Creative Director Remy Siu revealed that the 1000xResist team at the time consisted of around seven people, although they ended up producing a script of over 80,000 words over a four-year period. Siu’s excitement about the game has echoed the reception following its release, all the way up to the announcement of its console port. The game is now available on PC and Switch, but will be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (and Game Pass) on Nov. 4.
Following a massive backlash to the announcement that the price of Xbox Ultimate Game Pass would be increased by 50%, from $19.99 to $29.99 per month, Microsoft has delayed the price rise. This has been applied everywhere except the U.S., U.K. and South Africa. Microsoft attempted to justify the price hike by citing a wider catalog, new benefits like Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics and improved streaming quality, but many users appeared to have dropped the subscription service entirely. This change happened for new subscribers earlier this month and will happen for current subscribers at the beginning of November. However, Microsoft has emailed users in countries like Ireland and South Korea, reassuring them that the changes will not affect them as long as they continue to auto-renew. This is one of the many recent controversial changes: users were also alarmed by the price jump for XBox consoles in the U.S, new releases priced at $80 (in particular the new Outer Worlds 2, releasing Oct. 29) and the new ASUS collaboration product (the ROG XBox Ally X handheld), which costs $999.99.
Final Fantasy fans rejoice as Square Enix announces a new Dissidia “DUELLUM” Final Fantasy mobile game, set in modern Tokyo and bringing back well-known characters like Lightning (FF13) and Cloud Strife (FF7), among other confirmed features. Its predecessors, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012 and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT have been dormant since 2018, when the arcade games were finally converted to PC and mobile. It is a third-person campaign with a 3v3 fighting system. Based on the trailer, the game seems to center on the FF characters’ daily lives as normal citizens, while battling monsters on the side. The game is set to launch in 2026, but a closed beta test will be available for signups from Nov. 6-14.
Mobile: Maliyo Games, a Nigerian mobile game studio, had four titles spotlighted in the iOS App Store beginning of October. The games mentioned were Safari City, Crazy Ludo, Whot King and Secret Letter, all of which combine industry-standard mobile gameplay with Nigerian art, music and history. Hugo Obi, founder of Maliyo Games, expressed gratitude and in a statement to Games Industry Africa and stalwartly stood by the studio’s mission of bringing African stories to the global stage. He placed Apple’s recognition alongside that of Google earlier that year. The tech giant included Maliyo Games in their global #WeArePlay games campaign, together with their most recent talent initiative, GameUp Africa. Launched in 2021, the initiative has reached over 6,000 participants across 20 African countries. This string of successes have led the studio to additionally announce the launch of its first “developer-led conference,” which will take place in Lagos in December of this year.
PC: The CWA union stated that over 400 employees from Blizzard Entertainment’s Platform & Technology program had agreed to unionize on Oct. 15. Workers in Irvine, California and Austin, Texas, will now be represented by the Communications Workers of America and recognized by Microsoft. According to Game Developer, in an email interview, committee members disclosed that the mass departure of their coworkers, paired with Blizzard’s “return-to-office” policies, were the main drives behind the decision to unionize. As the process goes, the union will organize demands and eventually settle a contract with Microsoft, with the members hoping that the game industry will not treat its workers as “disposable.”
