In The News
We’ve got a bit more information on the Gamers’ Choice Awards lawsuit from Variety’s Brian Crecente. “Victor Borachuk filed suit against Michael Burg” Dec. 21 in California. “Borachuk is alleging, among other charges, breach of contract, fraud violations of California state law, and misappropriation of likeness.”
PlayStation 4:
Sony’s console is inching toward 100 million sales, Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports. “The system has now sold 91.6 million PS4s worldwide, of which 5 million were sold just in the last few months of 2018.”
Spider-Man has sold over 9 million copies on the PlayStation 4, Insomniac Games community director James Stevenson tweeted.
VR/MR:
Nreal, which raised $15 million, unveiled “its mixed reality (MR) smart glasses … at CES 2019,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. “The company’s ‘ready-to-wear’ mixed reality glasses are as lightweight as a pair of sunglasses.”
VivePort Infinity is HTC’s new subscription that “is the world’s first ‘infinite VR subscription.’ So instead of just five or so titles a month, you’ll get unlimited access,” Engadget’s Nicole Lee writes.
HTC also teased the Vive Cosmos.
Tim Sweeney rich AF. That’s according to Bloomberg’s “Billionaires Index,” which puts the Epic Games CEO at #195 with $7.16 billion.
Devolver Digital is Twitter shaming Facebook over a rejected ad for Gris. Facebook rejected the ad because it allegedly contains “sexually suggestive” content. Except it doesn’t. A Devolver representative aptly told Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett: “This is stupid.”
Rockstar Games is beginning work on unannounced projects, according to job listings. Jobs include a senior environmental artist, vehicle artist and more, GameSpot’s Jordan Ramée reports.
TIGA has a survey out showing “growing optimism” in United Kingdom developers, GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair writes. “57% of respondents said they were more optimistic about their company’s prospects in the new year, up 11% from last year’s number … 77% of companies said they planned to grow their headcount … 52% said they were more optimistic about their ability to invest in R&D, training, and other areas.”
William Morgan Sheppard, the narrator for Civilization 5, has passed away at 86.
Unity for Humanity is Unity’s challenge that hopes to “inspire meaningful change,” according to a blog post.
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins came in 1st for Twitch channel hours watched in the last week at 3.18 million. Summit1g came in 2nd at 2.42 million, shroud 3rd at 1.50 million and tfue 4th at 1.47 million, TEO reports.
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:
Super League Gaming is heading toward an IPO, TEO’s Max Miceli reports. “The amateur esports community platform listed a maximum offering price of $25M USD.”
Cloud9’s Joseph “Mango” Marquez had his Twitch suspended for “excessive drinking on the platform after he allegedly ‘passed out’ on stream. Mang0 denies that he passed out, but admits he was drinking ‘a ton,’” Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner reports.
Tokyo’s government plans to “host its own two-day esports event in fiscal 2019,” TEO’s Trent Murray reports.
Sponsorships & Partnerships:
Panda TV and Audi are doing a sponsorship, TEO’s Hongyu Chen reports.
Soylent and Endpoint are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes.
Method and Corsair are partnering, Esports Insider’s David Hollingsworth reports.
Esports Entertainment Group, Inc “announced the hiring of two key executives, an appointment to its Board of Directors, and an opening of new global headquarters in Malta,” Esports Insider’s Oliver Ring reports.
IN: Richard “Ricky” Stacy and Renato “Saints” Forza joined Pittsburgh Knights’ CoD team.
Happy birthday Andrew “Tranimal” Tran!