In The News
Weekend in Review:
Eugen Systems insisted to Variety’s Stefanie Fogel recent developer firings weren’t related to their strike. “It said it had to take action against the workers because they ‘used a professional tool for an inappropriate purpose.’”
Accessibility requirements are in full swing for U.S. games now that “game-specific waivers in relation to the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act” expired, GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor writes. “For smaller developers on a budget, there are special provisions around.”
VR/AR:
DigiLens showed off “some of the holographic waveguide display technology for augmented reality applications” it has been working on, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “The glasses using DigiLens products could sell for $500.”
Oculus Rift sold out on Amazon over the holidays, and a Facebook representative told Ian Hamilton at VentureBeat that “they are working now on ‘replenishing inventory across channels.’”
Luke “MrDeadMoth” Munday, the streamer who allegedly assaulted his pregnant partner and was banned from Twitch and then unbanned, has been banned again. “He is due in court on a common assault charge later this month,” PC Gamer’s Samuel Horti writes. Twitch put out a statement to Dot Esports’ Nicole Carpenter.
Game Developers Choice Awards nominees can be found here.
Twitch Prime members received “more than $3,000 in gaming goodness — including free in-game loot, free games, and free subscriptions to their favorite Twitch broadcasters” in 2018, Twitch announced in a blog post.
Che Chou, Hearthstone esports’ global franchise lead, announced “my last day with Blizzard” was Friday.
Interviews: God of War Creative Director Cory Barlog (VentureBeat) and Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa (Nikkei via Nintendo Everything).
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:
Envy Gaming raised “$20M USD in external capital … Envy did not disclose the identity of the investors, other than to describe them as ‘a mix of prominent local investors and Texas families, as well as a select set of national investors,’” TEO’s Ben Fischer reports.
Rainbow Six Siege esports saw “immense growth as an esport in 2018,” TEO’s Max Miceli reports. “Rainbow Six more than doubled its hours watched total to 87.56M in 2018, up from 40.79M in 2017, and esports is almost exclusively responsible for the bump.”
Let’s Play Live acquired CyberGamer, Esports Insider’s David Hollingsworth writes.
Partnerships:
Secretlab and OGN are partnering “to provide gaming chairs for the OGN Super Arena,” Miceli reports.
Tempo Storm and DXRacer are partnering, with DXRacer “to produce the official Tempo Storm chair,” according to a press release.
Halo Championship Series put out its “2019 Announcements.”
IN: Team SoloMid announced their first Rocket League team.
Happy weekend birthdays Evgeniy “Blizzy” Ree and Simon “scHwimpi” Svensson!