In The News
Red Dead Redemption 2 is delayed until Oct. 26, 2018. Read Rockstar’s press release here.
Counter-Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe “was booked early Thursday for sexual exploitation of a child,” KIRO 7 reports. “Cliffe was not charged with a crime. Police did not say if an actual child was harmed. Cliffe does not have a criminal history.”
TheDW previously learned Nexon America vice president Vladimir Coho had resigned, and now GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor reports it’s restructuring. “Nexon America has laid off an undisclosed number of employees … Up to one fifth of the branch’s staff may have been laid off.”
Streaming news:
Twitch has another competitor. Caffeine, which PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk writes “promises gameplay and webcam streaming with real-time, lag-free interactions,” is the product of former Apple executives.
GamesIndustry.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports YouTube is increasing “the number of staff responsible for managing content on the video platform to 10,000 in 2018.” The purpose is to “improve enforcement of the YouTube’s policies.”
Niantic Labs acquired Escher Reality, an augmented reality company, Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat reports. “Escher is exploring the intersection of digital and physical worlds through AR and computer vision.”
Sony news:
GameSpot’s Eddie Makuch reports Sony tipped over 75 million PlayStation 4s sold, but sales in 2017 fell by 700,000 in 2017.
Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole reports president and CEO Kaz Hirai is stepping down. “Sony’s chief financial officer Kenichiro Yoshida replaces Hirai as Sony boss.”
The 3 organizations overseeing esports in Japan merged into 1 entity called the Japan Esports Union (JESU), The Esports Observer’s Graham Ashton reports.
Sportradar now holds media rights to eFootball.Pro, Esports Insider’s Oliver Ring reports. “EFootball.Pro and Sportradar have entered a partnership which will see Sportradar as ‘Official International Media Rights Distribution Partner.’”
Skillz, “a platform for people to play mobile games for real money,” announced its most successful 10 players raked in $2.7 million “in prizes” in 2017, Takahashi writes. “The top player scored $420,000 in prizes in 2017.”
The Entertainment Software Association interviewed SynaptixGames studio director Robert Madsen. Here’s a snippet: “It is a two-fold process. When we have clients that are coming to us with their ideas, they tend to ask for a specific type of experience on whatever the new thing is.”
Gigantic will be no more as of July 31, 2018.
Psyonix released its 2018 “roadmap” for Rocket League. Read it here.