In The News
Apex Legends hit 25 million players overall and 2 million concurrents during the weekend, according to a blog post.
Boo you poor. Supercell “generated a profit of $635 million on revenue of $1.6 billion” in 2018, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. That’s down from 2017 and 2016.
Dark Slope has secured “a seed funding round that has raised over $1.5 million,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine writes.
Publishing Rights:
Bigben acquired “the publishing rights to two Cyanide titles: Tour de France and Pro Cycling Manager,” Valentine reports.
Starbreeze sold back “the publishing rights to OtherSide Entertainment for ‘System Shock 3′” to OtherSide Entertainment, according to a press release.
Meet Evening Star, the studio founded by Sonic Mania dev Christian Whitehead and co. “Evening Star is based in Los Angeles, with team members in Melbourne and London,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes.
Jim Ryan is Sony Interactive Entertainment’s new president and CEO beginning April 1.
Reports:
EEDAR’s Q4 2018 Roundup report is live. In it, EEDAR notes Nintendo Switch demographics have moved from an initial 70% male to “to an almost 50/50 split between males and females … In fact, the Switch skews slightly more towards females than either of the other two consoles, which have averaged a 55% male split.”
Singular’s annual Singular ROI Index is out. It “ranks the best-performing ad networks for mobile marketers on iOS and Android globally.”
Unity IPO in 2020? Cheddar’s Michelle Castillo reports that “Unity Technologies is gearing up to go public, according to people familiar with the matter. The company … is aiming to do its initial public offering during the first half of 2020 ー provided that market conditions are favorable.”
SIE Worldwide Studios’ Shawn Layden criticized E3, telling CNET’s Ian Sherr: “So the trade show became a trade show without a lot of trade activity. The world has changed, but E3 hasn’t necessarily changed with it.”
BioWare reassured Mass Effect fans (me) they “are not done” with the series in an interview with Polygon’s Alex Kane. Executive producer Mark Darrah had this to say: “There’s a lot of stories to be told. We could pull on the threads we put down with Andromeda; we could pull on threads from Mass Effect 3. There’s a lot of interesting space to be explored.”
EA has removed Emiliano Sala “from FC Nantes in FIFA,” Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole reports. “Sala was an Argentinian footballer who died in a tragic plane crash after signing for Cardiff City from Ligue 1 side Nantes in January for a club record fee of £15m. He was just 28.”
Shroud came in 1st for the most-watched Twitch channel in the last week at 4.40 million, TEO reports. Riotgames was in 2nd with 2.95 million, tfue 3rd with 2.15 million and ninja 4th with 1.64 million.
Extra Esports News:
Apex Legends came in 1st for content hours watched in the last week on Twitch at 31.73 million, TEO reports.
SportsBusiness Journal announced its “Forty Under 40 Class of 2019,” featuring OWL Commissioner Nate Nanzer and and Riot Games’ Whalen Rozelle.
Red Reserve’s future is unclear, as their Call of Duty and CS:GO rosters have dissolved over RR’s rumored liquidity issues, Esports Insider’s Alisha Wicks reports.
Denial Esports hired Justin M. Jacobson as its COO and Hank Baskett as an owner, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports.
Partnerships:
HyperX and Pittsburgh Knights are partnering, TEO’s Trent Murray writes. “HyperX will serve as the team’s exclusive peripherals sponsor.”
ELEAGUE and Psyonix are partnering, Fitch writes. “The deal includes the production of a series of episodes from ELEAGUE.”
Happy birthday Kam “Moon” Boon Seng and Lyubomir “Splendour” Kozlovski!