In The News
Weekend in Review:
ZeniMax trademarked a game called Deathloop, GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch writes. “The goods and services description in the trademark application filed with the United States Patent & Trademark Office on December 26, 2018 states that Deathloop could be an online-enabled mobile game.”
Netflix snapped up Activision Blizzard’s Spencer Neumann to be its new CFO, Reuters reports. “Earlier on Monday, Activision Blizzard said in a regulatory filing that it intended to fire Neumann for an unspecified reason.”
PlayStation once again “took first place for the most-seen gaming industry commercials,” VentureBeat’s Eleanor Semeraro reports. “TV ad impressions are up once again, with nearly 5.4 billion from the previous period’s 4.5 billion. In total, 26 brands spent an estimated $101.6 million on 103 commercials that ran over 23,000 times.”
China has approved some 80 games since its freeze, but none of them are from Tencent. “As China tightened its video game rules this year and Tencent has struggled to adapt, the company has set its sights on the international market instead,” The Verge’s Shannon Liao reports.
Jade Raymond, of Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs acclaim, “will be presented with the Andrew Yoon Legend Award on Jan. 22, the New York Game Critics announced on Wednesday,” Variety’s Emily Gera reports.
SouljaGame Handheld and SouljaGame Console are no more.
The United Kingdom’s “revenue generated from physical video games declined 2.8 per cent. The actual number of boxed games sold last year was 22 million, a bigger drop of 7.1 per cent,” GI.biz’s Christopher Dring reports. “Compared to 2017, PS4 games sales drooped 9.7% and Xbox One game sales fell 12.7 per cent.”
The Last Night has apparently “run into ‘massive business, legal and funding issues’ and is looking to raise more money, its creator Tim Soret has said,” according to PC Gamer’s Samuel Horti.
Interviews: Atari CEO Frederic Chesnais (VentureBeat).
Players’ Lounge – Sponsored News:
Players’ Lounge redesigned its product, resulting in a 25% increase in week-over-week matches played for four weeks running.
Investors continue to assault our inboxes. Including a few billionaires. We’re holding strong.
Players’ Lounge is hiring a Senior Vice President of Engineering! Know a brilliant, competitive senior developer with PHP and AAA/F2P development experience? Slide into our DMs.
Extra Esports News:
Curious which esports teams won the most cash in 2018? TEO’s Andrew Hayward reports OG in 1st with $11.47 million, Team Liquid in 2nd with $7.2 million and Paris Saint-Germain Esports in 3rd with $5.35 million.
Finnish esports is now subject to anti-doping rules, Yle reports. “A new anti-doping program created by the Finnish Esports Federation SEUL in collaboration with the Finnish Centre for Integrity in Sports Fincis, will come into effect from 1 January.”
Partnerships:
Orlandina Basket and Pro2Be Esports are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports.
Team Liquid and the Professional Fighters League are partnering, Fitch writes. “This deal sees select professionals that represent the European organisation become Ambassadors of the PFL.”
TEO’s Hongyu Chen posted a “China Esports Recap” for 2018.
SK Gaming posted “SK Gaming in 2018: The Recap.”
IN: Brice “Faccento” Faccento joined Evil Geniuses’ CoD team.
Happy weekend birthdays Danil “Dendi” Ishutin, Jin Woo “Reset” Im, Jacob “Jacob” McDowell and Danylo “Kingrd” Nascimento!