In The News
Angry Fallout 76 players who purchased the $200 Power Armor Edition will get their canvas bags after all.
Investment:
Modern Times Group invested “in 11 gaming startups during the past year or so. The Stockholm, Sweden-based MTG made the investments in categories, including online gaming, esports, virtual reality, and augmented reality,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Play Ventures plans to raise “a $30 million fund to invest in game startups,” Takahashi reports. “Play Ventures will invest in early-stage companies in gaming and gaming services around the world.”
Niantic invested in “firm DigiLens,” GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair reports. “DigiLens developers AR technology for a variety of applications, from heads-up displays in airplanes and cars to smartglasses.”
Microsoft:
Mixer now has the “Stream Collider program … a new four-episode livestream series to debut monthly on the Xbox Mixer channel,” Variety’s Brittany Vincent reports.
Xbox’s Phil Spencer explained why they’re sticking with E3 during a livestream, Variety’s Stefanie Fogel reports. Here’s a snippet: “We could do this on our own or direct — we just think it’s an awesome and, frankly, convenient way for the fans to experience video games. I think we do it because it’s a U.S. celebration in L.A. where it’s easier for people in the U.S. to come to one place and just share their love of video games.”
Hajime Tabata, formerly of Square Enix, announced his new company: JP Games.
Director Rupert Wyatt stepped down from Showtime’s Halo series, Deadline’s Denise Petski reports. It’s really not that hard guys. Just follow the games and focus on Master Chief.
That’s not ideal. “Valve introduced a bug into Steam’s Discovery feature that made it recommend large, popular games instead of more relevant ones, according to developers affected by the problem,” PC Gamer’s Fraser Brown writes. Indie developers are reporting reduced sales due to the issue.
What’s more, that revenue adjustment Valve made? Indie developers aren’t happy about it. “Over the weekend, a number of indie developers took to social media to voice their frustrations with the change,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine writes.
Acquisitions:
Ubisoft acquired “game server hosting provider i3D.net with the goal of improving its online and multiplayer experiences for its repertoire of games,” Gamasutra’s Emma Kidwell reports.
THQ Nordic acquired the rights to Carmageddon.
Niantic settled a lawsuit with home owners angry about trespassing, the BBC writes.
Nvidia is making PhysX open source, according to a blog post.
Here are your highest-paid YouTubers for 2018, courtesy of Forbes’ Natalie Robehmed.
Players’ Lounge – Sponsored News:
No time to read? Players’ Lounge and TheDW have you covered with some of the top stories from the last 48 hours. No time to watch? Listen to the podcast on iTunes or Spreaker!
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:
CWL:
Congratulations Tanner “Mosh” Clark and co. for winning the 4th CWL 2K!
IN: Preston “Prestinni” Sanderson and Brian “Saint” Baroska extended their eUnited contracts.
Don’t account boost in South Korea if this law is passed — you may be fined or jailed. “A law that will punish those who boost in game with 2 years of prison time or under 20,000,000 won ($18,000 USD) has passed the National Assembly Legislation Review Committee,” Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner reports.
IN: Flurry, Looksam and Dawn joined Cloud9.