In The News
Weekend in Review:
What better time to get free things than during a demo gone wrong? Anthem’s recent blog post addressed issues and told players “we’re giving everyone who participated in the VIP demo weekend an additional new vinyl at launch.”
Sony remained on top in ad impressions for Dec. 16 through Jan. 15, VentureBeat’s Eleanor Semeraro reports. Overall impressions dropped “to 4.6 billion … 27 brands spent an estimated $71.2 million on 92 commercials that ran over 23,200 times. With 29.2 percent of impressions for the entire industry, PlayStation was squarely in the lead. It aired 14 commercials over 3,700 times, resulting in nearly 1.4 billion impressions.”
Call of Duty is “the best-selling console video game franchise of the year … [for] the 10th consecutive year,” according to an Activision blog post.
Model Mei Yan is going after Tencent for allegedly using her likeness for Ring of Elysium.
Detective Pikachu is getting a sequel. *Shudder*
Extra Esports News:
Congratulations Team Secret on winning The Chongqing Major! They defeated Virtus.pro to take home $350,000. Evil Geniuses came in 3rd and PSG.LGD in 4th.
Congratulations FlipSid3 Tactics on winning WSOE 4: The Rocket League Showdown! They defeated NRG Esports to take home $50,000. G2 Esports came in 3rd and Cloud9 in 4th.
Red Bull Final Summoning can be found here.
Swift, the parent company of Team SoloMid, “has acquired the software and branding for the Blitz Esports desktop app,” ESPN’s Jacob Wolf reports.
Want to learn a bit more about Panda Global? Check out “Panda Global, the Esports Team That’s Saying No to VC’s” from TEO’s Imad Khan.
Bayes Esports Solutions is launching. It’s “a joint venture between esports data company DOJO Madness and sports betting data company Sportradar. The new company will provide businesses with live betting odds across a variety of online and offline esports competitions,” TEO’s H.B. Duran reports.
RFRSH Entertainment “has entered an exclusive broadcast agreement with Brazilian television network Globo TV for the BLAST Pro Series,” Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports.
Partnerships & Sponsorships:
PSG.LGD and HLA Jeans are partnering, Esports Insider’s Oliver Ring reports.
Four fighting groups and Twitch are partnering “to build a unified ladder structure for Australia and New Zealand,” TEO’s Seamus Byrne writes.
Samsung is sponsoring Gen.G’s esports teams, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “Gen.G will receive the latest high-capacity, high-performance SSDs from Samsung, along with financial support.”
Samsung Electronics Australia and Legacy Esports are extending their sponsoring, Ring reports.
Bose, New Era Cap, and Snickers are sponsoring the Madden NFL 19 Championship Series, TEO’s Max Miceli writes.
Collegiate StarLeague added “NBA 2K19 to its upcoming slate of competitive events for more than 1,600 North American colleges and universities,” ESPN’s Miles Yim writes.
Happy weekend birthdays Jesus “Mijo” Gutierrez, Maurice “Yukeo” Weihs, Jacques “JackO” Fuchs and Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk!