Here at Goonhammer, we know that it’s hard to keep track of all the news happening all the time in the games industry. So much is always going on with games of all sorts, and their related media, it can be a real blink-and-you’ll miss it situation.
That’s why every week, we round up five of the biggest stories in the gaming sphere from the past week in the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty news boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, is here with the scoop.
Significant Number of Games Workshop Shareholders Vote Against Annual Bonus to Company CEO
Earlier this summer, Games Workshop reported their financial success from this past fiscal year on their investor website. According to the report, Games Workshop saw nearly 20% increase in their profits year over year, with substantial hikes in MyWarhammer and Warhammer+ users. This is all great news for Games Workshop as the company hosted its Annual Shareholder Meeting (AGM) last week, as corporate shareholders love nothing more than “big profit number go up”.
Some shareholders didn’t love the bonus payout to Kevin Rountree and outgoing CFO Rachel Tongue.
According to the AGM report, Rountree and Tongue are set to receive a 150% bonus to his salary based on the financial performance of the company. A major stipulation of this bonus is that 67% of it must be spent on company shares, which must be held on to for at least three years.
This payout did not sit well with a sizeable minority of GW’s shareholders. The AGM report states that 21% of Games Workshop shareholders at the meeting voted against the remuneration report and 27% voted against the remuneration policy, with this bonus being the reason cited for the revolt.
Games Workshop acknowledges this outrage from shareholders in the AGM report, writing “It takes the outcome of shareholder votes very seriously and will engage with shareholders to understand their views.”
Corrode: One unusual piece of news from the AGM was a relatively large chunk of the shareholders voting against the remuneration committee and the remuneration policy. The policy has been in place since 2021 and the bonuses awarded are chunky, but in line with what shareholders had previously approved. The percentage of the vote is large enough that it seems likely some institutional shareholders were involved, but without more information it’s hard to know what their objection was, or why they voted the way they did. It doesn’t seem likely to be about performance (again, record profits), and although the bonuses awarded are eye-watering to mere mortals like us, they’re pretty pedestrian in the context of a public company of this size, especially one on a hot streak of growth like GW’s.
Root Creators in Talks to Bring One of Their IPs to the Video Game World
Leder Games, the company behind the hit board game Root, is currently in talks to bring one of its IPs into the video game world, among other potential spinoffs, as reported by Boardgamewire last week.
This follows news from last year when Leder announced that a movie based on Root was in production., but plans for the film were halted during the ongoing writers strike. Production has since resumed on the film, but has been “quite start and stop” according to Leder Games founder Patrick Leder.
While plans for this film move slowly along, Leder has been looking to franchise out his IPs to other potential forms of media. Leder put the call out on his Twitter/X account asking for any potential pitches on adaptations for Leder products. According to Leder, he’s received communication from several credible sources, including a comic book publisher and video game company.
“We got a really cool pitch for a video game based on one of our IPs – it’s not a board game adaptation, but it’s a video game set in that space,” Leder told Boardgamewire in an interview, “And I wrote them back right away and said, ‘Yeah, let’s talk about this’, and so they’re going to send us a more formal pitch deck next week.
“It’s at a budget where I’ll probably be the one producing it too, so which I’m kind of excited about, so I can diversify my portfolio a little bit.”
While its unknown what this game will look like or if this will materialize into a finished product, we can expect to see Root and other Leder IPs push out into more pop culture spaces as the company looks to expand its horizon.
Halo: Flashpoint Sets Sights on November Release
After some radio silence on the release window for it’s highly anticipated Halo tabletop adaptation, Mantic Games published a blog post on Monday giving excited fans a clearer picture on when they can expect to get their hands on the game.
In this timeline update from the company, Mantic shares that while it’s had to push back the expected release window away from q3 and into q4 of this year, the company has gotten word that containers of Halo: Flashpoint are being loaded on trucks at the factory for distribution. With this, Mantic can place the release window for Halo: Flashpoint in November of this year.
While an exact date for when the game will release on retail shelves is still some time away, Mantic is able to give updates on other plans for Flashpoint in the near future. The biggest update is that pre-orders for Flsahpoint will go live again this October on the game’s website. While the initial print run for the game has already sold out on Mantic’s website, demand for the game continues to grow internationally and Mantic plans on using this second wave of preorders to help with the second print run of the game.
Mantic will also be sending demo versions of Halo: Flashpoint to select FLGs ahead of the games release, as well as hosting demos at major gaming conventions such as Essen Spiel.
Nintendo Sues Palworld Designers Over Potential Patent Infringement
This year’s surprise hit Palworld raised eyebrows at release when the game’s titular pals had a striking resemblance to Nintendo’s famous Pokemon. At best, Palworld walked a fine line between inspiration and flat-out copying Pokemon, and some online outlets expected Nintendo to take legal action against Palworld’s designers Pocketpair Inc.
Now, nine months after the release of Palworld, the Pokemon Company and its parent Company, Nintendo, formally filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair Inc for patent infringement with the Tokyo Court on September 18th.
In the press release on the Nintendo website, the company states that, “This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”
This action by Nintendo follows rumors that a Playstation release for Palworld will be featured in the next Playstation State of Play during the Tokyo Game Show. If this is true, then it makes sense why Nintendo’s finally decided to take action against Pocketpair with the company’s famously aggressive legal team, as doing so may delay or squash altogether a Palworld release on a Sony console.
The exact nature of the patent infringements, as well as Pocketpair Inc’s reaction, is currently unknown, though more will likely be known as these legal proceedings continue.
Steamforged Delays Warmachine Releases Amidst Production Setbacks
It looks like the Warmachine production curse strikes again.
After suffering multiple production setbacks at Privateer Press, as well as another wave of setbacks following the games purchase by Steamforged, a blog post from Steamforged last week once again brings with it news of even more production setbacks for Warmachine that will cause some future releases for the game to be delayed.
According to a blog post from Steamforged, the company faced almost immediate production backlog after purchasing the game from Privateer Press, and fast-tracked plans to increase the production capabilities to meet rising demand. In line with these plans, Steamforged did successfully increase their production capacity by 50% last month, but according to the blog post this output is still struggling to keep up.
Steamforged is working to update the remaining older production methods to the newer tech used to speed up production by the end of next month, and plans on aggressively moving forward on plans to expand Warmachine production to Europe and Australia.
Even with this, Steamforged recognizes that it will take time to work through the backlog of orders the company has on Warmachine miniatures, and has decided to delay the release of new Warmachine products, as well as put some products on the webstore as unavailable until production is able to finally keep up with demand.
Steamforged states in the blog post that it plans on releasing an updated roadmap for the game later this week to reflect the delays caused by production shortfalls.
And that wraps it up for our Games Industry News Roundup this week! Join us again next week for more news about the tabletop games industry and related media.
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