In The News
Game investments more than doubled to $5.7 billion in 2018, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “Digi-Capital’s Games Report Q1 2019 reported that Epic Games’ $1.25 billion raise was the biggest round for a game company in 2018, and it was also the largest non-IPO games investment of all time.”
Nvidia took a gut punch over “weaker gaming and data center revenue … [and] the cryptocurrency bust,” Takahashi writes. “The stock fell 15 percent so far today [Monday], knocking out $14.2 billion in market value, as Nvidia said fourth-quarter revenue would be $2.2 billion, compared to previous guidance of $2.7 billion.”
CEO Jensen Huang “told investors on Monday that the fourth quarter ‘was a real punch in the gut’ due to lower than expected GPU sales,” PC Gamer’s Paul Lilly reports.
GameStop gave up on “trying to sell the company due to a ‘lack of available financing on terms that would be commercially acceptable to a prospective acquiror,’” Variety’s Brian Crecente reports. “The company didn’t lay out what that meant in terms of the future for the company.”
EA is kissing the ring in Belgium by finally removing FIFA Points after “further discussions with the authorities,” GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports.
Twitch streamers were upset recently over forced ads on their channels promoting other streamers’ content. So, here’s Twitch’s response.
Sources “familiar with” Apple’s gaming subscription service told Cheddar’s Alex Heath that it will function like Netflix. “It’s unclear how much the subscription will cost or what kind of games Apple will offer. The service is still in the early stages of development, and Apple could ultimately decide to abandon it.”
PlayerLands nabbed “£200,000 in VC funding from Mercia Technologies,” GI.biz’s Matthew Handrahan writes.
Metro Exodus is exclusively launching on the Epic Games Store for the first year.
Valve called the move “unfair” in a statement on Metro Exodus’s page. “We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale.”
Resident Evil 2 Remake shipped 3 million copies worldwide in its first week, GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch writes.
Netflix’s The Witcher is “not for 5-year-olds. Like, really not.”
Damon Baker, formerly of Nintendo, is “the new Head of Portfolio for #Xbox!”
Riotgames came in 1st for channel hours watched on Twitch in the last week at 3.46 million, TEO reports. dotastarladder_en was 2nd with 3.18 million, starladder1 in 3rd with 3.06 million and tfue in 4th with 2.77 million.
Extra Esports News:
Denial Esports issued a rebuttal to Felix “xQc” Lengyel’s accusation of non-payment, telling Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner “xQc has not responded to their attempts to pay him his share of over $30,000 owed to players by the org’s former ownership.”
Counter Logic Gaming and NAMI are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “Together, the partners will work to ‘improve mental health conditions in the gaming and esports industry.’”