In The News
Sony News:
Sony ain’t happy. It’s suing “a California man for selling jailbroken PS4 console filled with pirated games,” TorrentFreak’s Ernesto reports. “According to Sony, defendant Eric Scales was using the handle ‘Blackcloak13’ to sell the jailbroken PS4s preloaded with over 60 pirated games on eBay.”
President Kenichiro Yoshida teased PlayStation 5 without actually mentioning it in an interview with Financial Times, via GameSpot’s Tamoor Hussain. “‘At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware,’ but stopped short of outright saying a PlayStation 5 is in development.”
In the aftermath of the Florida Madden shooting, what has changed? The Washington Post’s Imad Khan and Noah Smith detail how smaller esports tournaments are adapting in the wake of the deadly shooting.
Varjo acquired “$31 million Series B round of funding … [for] its own VR headset,” Variety’s Janko Roettgers reports.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey “reached nearly 62,000” concurrent players on Steam Sunday, “making a considerable gain (about 33%) over last year’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, which reached a peak of just over 41,000 concurrent users in October 2017,” PC Gamer’s Jonathan Bolding writes.
Riot came in 1st for most hours watched for a Twitch channel last week at 5.52 million, TEO reports. Ninja came in 2nd at 3.89 million, shroud in 3rd at 1.87 million and tfue in 4th at 1.86 million.
United Kingdom News:
The UK games industry “contributed £2.87 billion to the UK economy, and supports the full-time equivalent jobs (FTEs) of 47,620 people” in 2016, GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports.
Improbable “will relocate its headquarters from central London to a new, larger office elsewhere in the city, in Spitalfield,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine reports.
Partnerships:
CD Projekt Red and Digital Scapes are partnering, according to a press release. “The partnership will focus on CD PROJEKT RED’s upcoming futuristic role-playing game — Cyberpunk 2077.”
Enthusiast Gaming and CGX are partnering, according to a press release, for “a new game development conference” in Toronto.
Now Hiring:
Blizzard has a host of openings, including 8 for “Esports Leagues” and “Overwatch League.”
Richard Lewis is looking for “content creation assistants.”
Team Envy is hiring “a talented and energetic Video Editor.”
DreamHack is hiring a Marketing Manager.
Code Red Esports is hiring a Campaign Manager.
Extra Esports News:
ESPN’s Jacob Wolf is disappointed with the “bad information” coming out in October: “I said to some colleagues yesterday, ‘This month is the month of bad information,’ — all to say that I’ve never seen so much bad info perpetuated in both League of Legends and Overwatch, two of the biggest games in the industry, in such a condensed amount of time. Don’t take bait.”
Partnerships:
Fnatic and Sansar are partnering “so that fans can meet Fnatic esports athletes in VR,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Stakrn and SportVEST are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes.
HyperX signed “Tottenham Hotspur player Dele Alli as a brand ambassador,” TEO’s Trent Murray writes.
IN: Celtic F.C. joined eFootball.Pro.
OUT: Immortals released Dajuan “Shroomed” McDaniel and Michael “Typo” Bassett.