In The News
Valve laid off 13 employees, “including people working in VR,” UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton writes. Valve sent Hamilton this statement: “Last month, 13 full time employees were let go and a portion of our contractor agreements were terminated. It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company. We thank those affected for their contribution and wish them well in future endeavors.”
Financials:
Pokémon mobile games brought in “approximately $2.5 billion,” Sensor Tower reports. “This amount combines six titles, but one in particular has—unsurprisingly—accounted for the lion’s share, and that’s Pokémon GO with close to 98 percent of all player spending.”
Marvel Strike Force generated “$150 million in revenue in its first year of release, developer and publisher FoxNext Games revealed,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Patrick Shanley reports.
Additional details about Activision Blizzard’s layoff show “209 members of staff have been let go from the Overwatch and World of Warcraft giant,” PCGamesInsider’s Alex Calvin reports. “IT saw the highest amount of reductions, clocking in at 41 across all US locations. Meanwhile, the marketing department in Blizzard’s Irvine, California and Austin, Texas branches saw a 29-person job loss between them. The same number of staff was let go from the Live Experiences teams in California’s Irvine and Burbank, and Austin, Texas.”
Popdog‘s Loaded signed management deals with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop and Ben “DrLupo” Lupo.
EA is once again declining an E3 briefing in favor of EA Play livestreams. It runs from Friday, June 7 to Sunday, June 9.
United Kingdom parliament member Hannah Bardell “is asking for a government review of the controversial game ‘Rape Day’ following its removal from Steam,” Variety’s Stefanie Fogel reports.
Studios:
Rod Humble, formerly of Linden Labs, “will head up a new California-based studio for Paradox Interactive called Paradox Tectonic,” PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk writes.
Improbable “created two new game development studios, one in Edmonton and one in London, to make online games powered by its SpatialOS cloud-based computing tech,” Alissa McAloon at Gamasutra writes.
Skybound terminated its licensing agreement with Starbreeze for The Walking Dead, Starbreeze announced in a press release. “Starbreeze has been informed that the product likely will be disabled for further sales on the platform Steam and should Starbreeze and Skybound not reach a solution, it would mean that the game will not be made available for sale again on Steam, and that the console version would not be released.”
Ready Makers launched “a $7 monthly subscription plan for its Ready Games app, which offers 130 minigames for competitive casual game players on Android and iOS,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi writes.
Luci is showing off “a new kind of entertainment virtual reality headset, dubbed the Luci Immers, that promises crystal-clear viewing of VR films and other content thanks to dual micro-organic-light-emitting displays (microLED),” Takahashi reports.
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare is getting a “roleplaying game expansion … build[ing] on the narrative wargame experience of the tabletop miniatures game, and will include new rules for character creation, creating adventures in the wasteland, and more.”
Stardock announced “a new tower defense game … called Siege of Centauri.” It’s based off the Ashes of the Singularity universe, Game Informer’s Hunter Wolfe reports.
Twitch:
Esl_csgo came in 1st for channel hours watched on Twitch in the last week at 7.39 million, TEO reports. Overwatchleague came in 2nd at 3.75 million, Riotgames in 3rd at 2.80 million and shroud 4th with 2.44 million.
Apex Legends came in 3rd for content hours watched on Twitch in the last week at 16.10 million, TEO reports.
Interviews: Amy Hennig (GI.biz).
Extra Esports News:
GamersOrigin raised “a €3M EUR ($3.3M USD) funding round. This was the club’s third funding round, with investors including Entrepreneur Venture and Florent Steiner’s Pinou Capital,” TEO’s Graham Ashton reports.
Konami continues progress on Konami Creative Center, which the company is building “in Ginza, downtown Tokyo,” Siliconera’s Alistair Wong writes. It’s “set to be a fully functional eSports center, amongst Japan’s recent push to catch up with the the rest of the world.”
Sennheiser and Beyond The Summit extended their partnership for the third year, Esports Insider’s Chelly Toms reports.
Interviews: 100 Thieves’ Sam “Octane” Larew (RealSport), Immortals’ CEO Ari Segal (PRWeek).