Linden Lab, the developer of Second Life, has sold its payments business, Tilia, to Thunes. In the transaction with the global payments processor, Tilia will be rebranded to Thunes and remain in San Francisco. Thunes and Linden have also agreed to an exclusive five-year partnership as part of the acquisition deal. Payment processing and payouts will be provided to Linden. Read more ..read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, GamesIndustry.biz runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago. When Sony and Microsoft successfully broke into the console industry with the PlayS ..read more

This series of Playable Futures articles considers how the design, technology, people, and theory of video games are informing and influencing the wider world. You can find all previous Playable Futures articles here. The relationship that video games share with brands and advertising is a long-term one.Early examples such as Coca-Cola's boldly assertive Pepsi Invaders, or Johnson & Johnson's Tooth Protectors – both clones of Atari classics released in 1983 – wrestled with how to represent products and brands within the context of primitive visuals and limited technological muscle. After ..read more

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Gloomhaven developer Flaming Fowl Studios has announced layoffs, and that it's putting its current project on hold. In a Steam post, the studio announced a demo for its new game, Ironmarked, before clarifying that production is currently stopped due to lack of funding. In an interview with VGC, Flaming Fowl CEO Craig Oman said that the team had to downsize from around 30 people to just nine as of last Friday. He added that they had been working on Ironmarked for a year and that their publisher pulled out last June. Read more ..read more

The Federal Trade Commission today published a final rule banning non-compete clauses in contracts. "Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once non-competes are banned," FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in announcing the rule. "The FTC's final rule to ban non-competes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market." Read more ..read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox StreamElements and Stream Charts released a report today showing how the live streaming market split in South Korea and who is taking advantage of Twitch’s departure from the country. Streaming platforms AfreecaTV and CHZZK are filling the gap, per their hours watched during Q1 performances. Read more ..read more

IGN has shared the first details of its IGN Live consumer show, which is set to take place at the same time E3 used to. IGN Live will be at the Magic Box @ The Reef in Downtown LA between June 7th and 9th. The event will feature hands-on with games, plus multiple stages featuring interviews, panels, live podcasts and more. Companies set to attend the show include the likes of Amazon, Atari, Netflix and Square Enix. It’s the latest in a series of events that will take place over that period of time in the place where E3 once lived. Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest show is set for Friday, Jun ..read more

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Lars Wingefors, CEO of the Embracer Group, has acknowledged the backlash against himself and his company in the wake of mass layoffs and studio closures. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz after the group announced it would be split into three, Wingefors told us he has been "taking a lot of hits and criticism, both internationally and in Sweden." Read more ..read more

This year’s EGX games event will take place alongside MCM Comic-Con in the UK. The two events will take place at London Excel for three days from Friday, October 25th – Sunday, October 27th. One ticket will provide entry to both shows. The organisers at ReedPop insist the new combined event will feature all the elements that visitors love from both conventions, and that it hopes to create the biggest pop culture weekend the UK has ever seen. Read more ..read more