In The News
Curious about influencer marketing? AListDaily’s Jacqueline Fernandez reports “89 percent of marketers surveyed agreed that influencer marketing can positively impact how people feel about a brand … 86 percent of marketers who used influencer marketing in 2017 and 92 percent found it efficient.”
Dennis Durkin has returned to his role as CFO for Activision Blizzard.
United Kingdom:
The United Kingdom’s games market “accounted for more than half of the entire UK entertainment market (51.3%),” according to the Entertainment Retailers Association. “The physical console and PC games market shrank slightly in 2018, down 2.8% to £769.9m, and digital growth was by recent standards a modest 12.5% to £3.094m, but the sheer scale of the games market is such that it was enough to make it bigger than video and music combined.”
Rebellion acquired TickTock Games, GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “Based in Yorkshire, the studio will be rebranded Rebellion North and has already begun working on upcoming titles.”
Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda posted a “New Year’s Letter” detailing his plans for the company this year, including “Aggressive expansion in overseas markets” and “Rapid adaptation to new platforms.”
Slightly Mad Studios is developing a console, Variety’s Liz Lanier writes. CEO Ian Bell told Variety “the console will ship in ‘around three years time’ and that ‘it will be a console as is the Xbox or Playstation.’”
Analyst are giving their predictions for 2019 in GI.biz’s “What lies ahead? Analysts make 2019 predictions.”
Steam:
Steam’s “Hardware & Software Survey: December 2018” is up. It shows Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality had userbase increases while Oculus remains the fan favorite followed by HTC Vive.
It also posted its “Top Controller-Friendly Games of 2018.” Xbox is here, PlayStation here, Steam here and Switch Pro here.
Commonwealth of Independent States game developers “saw their median salary decline by 7.4% last year compared to 2017,” GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor writes. “The study found that median compensation in the CIS market dropped from $16,800 per year in 2017 to $15,600 in 2018.”
Reselling game keys is officially illegal in Japan, Batchelor writes. “A revision of the nation’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act introduced a series of amendments that affect the games industry, and in particular the modding scene.”
Kim Jung-ju, who founded Nexon, “is set to sell a controlling stake worth around $9 billion in Nexon’s holding firm NXC Corp,” Reuters reports.
Luckbox hired Deyan Valtchev as its Head of Customer Relationship Management.
Check out Meditations.games if you’re looking for “a new game every day, inspired by that day, only on that day.”
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:
LDN UTD “has been formed with the aim to provide a path to professional gaming,” Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “It plans to find gamers in London and offer them opportunities to compete under the LDN UTD brand, acting as a method of becoming a professional player in the future.”
Nova Esports and Monster Shield are partnering, according to a press release.
Team Liquid posted “Better Together: Dota 2.”