In The News
Earnings:
EA Sports’ “free-to-play mobile titles … have grossed in excess of $1 billion to date,” Sensor Tower reports. “Approximately 49 percent of this revenue has come from in-app purchases in the Madden NFL franchise.”
AMD’s Q4 earnings “said revenue was up 6 percent from a year ago to $1.42 billion, slightly off from expectations, while earnings per share were 8 cents, about flat compared to a year ago. In after-hours trading, AMD’s stock price was up 3.5 percent,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Acquisition:
Unity acquired Vivox. Vivox “powers voice and text chat for the world’s most massive gaming titles, from Fortnite to PUBG to League of Legends,” TechCrunch’s Lucas Matney writes.
FanAI acquired Waypoint Media, Takahashi reports. “FanAI will integrate Waypoint’s tools into its existing platform to provide additional granular audience data points.”
NetEase now has a minority stake “in David Cage’s studio Quantic Dream, best known for its cinematic PlayStation exclusives Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human,” Engadget’s Saqib Shah writes.
Xbox’s Phil Spencer plans to “go and be as big at E3 as we’ve ever been” in a recent podcast with Major Nelson.
Sony’s “first-party studios [will] focus on PlayStation 5 game development,” IGN’s Joe Skrebels reports. “He added that ‘PS5 dev kits are out there and I’ve heard positive things about it.’”
Playtika opened a studio in Bucharest, Reuters reports. “The R&D center joins eight other such centers Playtika has around the world.”
A dude actually tried to buy a PlayStation 4 by tricking a weighing scale at a grocery store into thinking it was a banana. The man, named Adel, “went to a Nice, France grocery store and attempted to pull one over on the local staff,” Game Informer’s Imran Khan writes.
Star Control: Origins is back on GOG and Steam after an initial DMCA takedown notice, GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “The notice was issued by former Star Control developers Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III.”
Skrillex said composing for Kingdom Hearts III “was like a dream of mine,” The Verge’s Bijan Stephen reports.
Extra Esports News:
EsPOrTs dOeSn’t ExIsT. German Olympic Sport Federation President Alfons Hörmann recently said “Esport does not exist,” PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk writes. He also said “it will not be included in the Olympic program.” Yer a scrooge, Alfons. He also, I’m actually giggling, said esports “are as little a sport as knitting.”
Everything you need to know about RLCS Season 7 can be found here.
Partnerships:
X-Bet.co and EPULZE extended their partnership, Esports Insider’s Cody Luongo reports. There will be a “fourth installment of the X-Bet.co Rampage Series.”
Skillshot Media, Johnson STEM Activity Center, The Forever Young Foundation and Atlanta Public Schools are partnering, Esports Insider’s Alisha Wicks writes. They “established an esports arena as a free resource to students who are interested in competing in varsity esports programmes in the Georgia state.”
ESG Law is looking for esports law interns.
IN: Denial Esports returned to CoD by picking up Overtime Esports.
CAA signed JP “itmeJP” McDaniel and Sean “Day[9]” Plott.