In The News
Current and former Activision Blizzard employees are concerned with Activision’s influence over Blizzard, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier reports. “Some of those people also raised questions about Activision’s influence on the beloved video game company … Blizzard employees say that one of the biggest ongoing conversations has been cutting costs. To fans, and even to some people who work or have worked at Blizzard, there’s a concern that something deep within the company’s culture may be changing.”
TwitchCon is expanding with TwitchCon Europe, April 13-14 in Berlin, Germany.
Sales:
Console games pulled in $1.53 billion “digitally … in October, up 80% year-over-year and setting a new record for the platform,” SuperData reports. “Specifically, full game download revenue surpassed $1 billion for the first month ever.”
Three million copies. That’s how many sold in Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee!’s first week. “Let’s Go is already the fifth best-selling Switch title of all time,” Gamasutra’s Chris Kerr writes.
United Kingdom:
“Creative industries in the UK contribute a little under £100 billion to the nation’s economy,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes about a new report. “Video games actually fall within the largest sector — IT, software and computer services — which contributed £34.7 billion to the economy, up 11.4%.”
The UK Gambling Commission is clarifying media’s alleged misinterpretation of its recent “Young People and Gambling 2018” report. Outlets wrote the report confirmed loot boxes are a gateway to gambling, but a Gambling Commission spokeswoman told GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor that’s not the case: “‘We’ve not in anyway, in the survey, referred to it as exposure to gambling.’”
GameStop is selling its Spring Mobile business “to Prime Communications for $700 million. The sale is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year,” Variety’s Brian Crecente reports.
PlayStation is showing off the “Nike PG 2.5 x PlayStation Colorway.”
Three Square Enix titles — Mobius Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts Union X and Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia — have been removed “in Belgium after the country banned loot boxes this year,” Kris Holt at Engadget reports.
Shenmue 3 has reached its crowdfunding goal, Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole reports.
Interviews: Nintendo’s Masahiro Sakurai (Game Informer).
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Extra Esports News:
OverActive Media Group acquired Splyce, according to a press release. An interview with OAM President and CEO Chris Overholt can be found here.
Kyle Elam joined Team Reciprocity as their operations manager.
Hangzhou opened an “esports town” that spans “3.94M square feet (17K square meter), and costing $280M to build,” TEO’s Hongyu Chen writes.
Mercedes-Benz is sponsoring “two ESL competitions in the Benelux region. As ESL’s mobility partner, Mercedes-Benz will be visible at the finals for two national championships held in the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively,” TEO’s Graham Ashton reports.
Dominique “SonicFox” McLean promised $10,000 to Curtis “Rewind” McCall’s father’s cancer treatment, ESPN’s Miles Yim reports.