Coming sometime this spring, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is set to hit the mobile market in a big way. Sure, there have been countless Harry Potter games over the years and from the surprisingly decent Quidditch World Cup to the typically terrible direct movie adaptations, Harry and company aren’t strangers to this interactive medium. Mobile gaming, however, has a way of taking popular IP and blowing them up even further.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is partnering with Harry Potter and The Cursed Child to bring a special holiday event to the game.
From Polygon: "Jurassic World Alive and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery publisher Jam City laid off 17% of staff at the company and its subsidiary Ludia on Thursday. Jam City, which created match-3 game Cookie Jam in 2014 and has locations across the U.S. and Canada, acquired Ludia, located in Montreal and known for creating both original and licensed games, in 2021 and together they employ around 1,400 workers.
About 200 workers were laid off between Jam City and Ludia on Thursday. Polygon spoke to 10 affected Ludia workers and three current employees. Multiple former employees at Ludia told Polygon they were either on leave or vacation when they were laid off, finding out first from other coworkers and then noticing they’d lost access to associated accounts."
From Eurogamer: "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery's infamous scene which asks you to pay money or wait while your child avatar is strangled by a magic plant has been defended by developer Jam City.
The scene is designed so it coincides with the first time you run out of energy (Hogwarts Mystery uses a typical mobile game energy system where you either wait, or pay up to speed things along). If you don't pay, you watch your young character continue to be strangled."