In The News
Blizzard Entertainment CFO Amrita Ahuja is leaving the company to join Square, CNBC’s Paayal Zaveri and Deirdre Bosa report.
Holiday Spending:
Amazon US says “Super Smash Bros Ultimate was the best-selling game at the retailer last year,” GI.biz’s Christopher Dring reports. PlayStation came in 2nd and 3rd with $10 and $20 gift cards, respectively, with a Switch screen protector in 4th.
The App Store set a single-day record of $322 million in spending on New Year’s Day and saw $1.22 billion spent during the holidays “on apps and games,” according to Apple’s report. “Globally, multiplayer games including Fortnite and PUBG were among the top downloaded games over the holidays, along with Brawl Stars, Asphalt 9 and Monster Strike.”
Niantic:
Niantic raised $190 million in a “round of funding, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “Niantic has now raised more than $415 million to date.”
Pokémon GO grew its revenue “35 percent over 2017 last year to an estimated $795 million worldwide,” according to Sensor Tower.
Bethesda’s lawsuit against Behavior Interactive and Warner Bros. has ended, Engadget’s Mariella Moon writes. “The companies have jointly announced that they ‘have amicably resolved the lawsuit.’”
Erik Wolpaw rejoined Valve.
Second Dinner, founded by former Hearthstone director Ben Brode, is producing a Marvel game with a $30 million investment to work with.
Luke “mrdeadmoth” Munday, accused of allegedly assaulting his pregnant partner, seems to have had his Twitch channel unbanned, Variety’s Liz Lanier writers.
Old School Runescape is off to a strong start with 5 million downloads across iOS and Android.
A report out by “the RCPCH” in the United Kingdom states “there is not enough evidence to confirm that screen time is in itself harmful to child health at any age, making it impossible to recommend age appropriate time limits.”
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:
Genesis 6’s ruleset is out.
SaskTel is sponsoring SKL Esports, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes. “The two companies are local to each other and will work together with the aim of growing esports’ presence in Saskatchewan, and Canada as a whole.”
Royal Never Give Up and Hongmo are partnering, Fitch reports. “The partnership was first revealed at a celebratory ceremony held at the RNG Beijing Esports Center on December 28th.”
OUT: Johnny “S2J” Kim is no longer with Tempo Storm.
Happy birthday Xie “Super” Junhao!