In The News
Weekend in Review:
In-Game Ads:
Developers are leaning more on “in-game ads,” DeltaDNA reports from its survey. “More developers now show ads to players during their first session. Ads account for a higher revenue fraction than ever before.”
Capcom, however, is dealing with players who are unhappy with the ads being shown in Street Fighter V. Street Fighter’s Twitter posted a statement that reads: “We value and thank our community for providing feedback on the new Sponsored Content feature added…”
November advertising saw budgets double, VentureBeat’s Jon Cappetta reports. “An estimated $102.3 million [was spent] running 94 ads 22,420 times on national TV. In total, these airings generated 5.4 billion TV ad impressions.” PlayStation spent $43.1 million, Nintendo $20.4 million and Xbox $17.1 million.
Colin Kroll, co-founder of Vine and HQ Trivia, passed away from an alleged drug overdose at age 34.
Discord Store is getting competitive, offering a 90/10 split with developers and the ability to self-publish, according to a blog post.
Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura is imploring users who managed to get a leaked copy of the game to keep spoilers secret.
GI.biz posted its “Year In Numbers 2018,” which goes over “the global games market value, most watched YouTube videos, biggest mobile games and more.”
Niantic:
Touted its “social impact” in a report released Friday with 142 community events, 125 partnerships, 17,000 kilometers walked and 6.8 tons of food donated.
It’s also “in the process of raising a new round of capital that would value the company at $3.9 billion,” The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Roof writes. “The $200 million funding round is expected to be led by venture-capital firm IVP.”
Gamer’s Choice Awards concluded with potential lawsuits, Variety’s Brian Crecente reports. “Two of the producers are involved in a legal battle that one tells Variety involves a substantial change in the promise of the show and six figures in missing payments.”
Curious what the top wishlisted items on Steam are? Sorting by “relevance” has Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice in 1st, Resident Evil 2 in 2nd and Metro Exodus in 3rd.
Acquisition & Investment:
Nordisk Film now has a 40% stake in Star Stable Entertainment after another $11 million, GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports.
Riot Games invested in Hypixel, according to a press release. “Joining Riot in their investment is an angel advisory group comprised of Anthony Borquez, Dennis Fong, Rob Pardo, Peter Levin, Jeff Lo and Min Kim among others.”
The esports market in Japan is seeing “impressive growth,” TEO’s Seamus Byrne reports. “Research shows Japan’s domestic esports market is now worth $42.3M USD. Changes to government regulation opened the door to professional esports.”
Arena of Valor hit 1 million Switch downloads.
LUL is now the top Twitch emote, dethroning Kappa after seven years, according to Twitch’s Holiday Spectacular livestream.
Angry Video Game Nerd and Macaulay Culkin played the Home Alone games.
Splash Damage co-founder Paul Wedgwood is stepping down as CEO.
Creative Artists Agency signed Nicholas “Nick Eh 30” Amyoony and David “StoneMountain64” Steinberg, Variety’s Todd Spangler reports.
Interviews: EA Sports’ Barry J. Sanders (ESPN) and Pittsburgh Steelers’ JuJu Smith-Schuster (ESPN).
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:
Congratulations Team Spirit on winning I Can’t Believe It’s Not Summit! They defeated NoPangolier to take home $8,000. Team Empire Hope came in 3rd and Alliance in 4th.
Congratulations Justin “NoWonder” Pulley, Kevin “Tohaj” Batic, Maxime “MaximeMXM” Bijmans and Ricardo ‘ForsaKen’ Dixon on being G2 Esports’ Making The Squad Top 4.
Call of Duty World League viewership is up, TEO’s Max Miceli reports. “This year’s CWL Las Vegas averaged 82K CCV and peaked at 192K … This month’s Las Vegas event even outperformed the 2018 CWL Championship.”
Electronic Arts hired Paul Johnson as its “head of commercialization for esports,” TEO’s Andrew Hayward reports.
Soulja Boy is starting his own esports franchise, according to a TMZ Sports interview.
Immortals and K-Swiss’s Immortals Icon lifestyle sneaker was revealed Friday. They retail for $110.
Mineski plans to invest $2 million in Indonesia to “‘bring Indonesia’s esports ecosystem to the next level,’” Esports Insider’s Oliver Ring reports. “The company is targeting significant business growth in the region, with its three main business unit all being utilised to facilitate growth in Indonesia.”
Women in Games France introduced I-WIG, its “esport incubator … to facilitate the players’ access to the competitive stage.”
Happy weekend birthdays Artem “Rail” Avramenko and Sebastian “Forsen” Fors!