In The News
Please see the Extra Esports News section for the featured story.
Clash of Clans’ Season Pass has paid off for the game. “Called the Gold Pass, it has ballooned the game’s coffers accordingly, driving a 2.5x increase in player spending in the first seven days following its introduction,” Sensor Tower reports. “Clash of Clans players has spent close to $3.9 million per day in the title since the Gold Pass and its season of rewards were added, for a total of approximately $27 million worldwide across the App Store and Google Play in a single week.”
Reports:
Cloud gaming entices players so long as “they can play their games across multiple devices,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports. That’s from a Technalysis Research report titled “Multi-Device Gaming is the New Reality: A Multi-Country Survey Report.” The report details that “it found higher interest in cloud-based game streaming based on the current usage of multiple devices for gaming, the desire for multi-platform games, and users’ professed interest in game streaming and their willingness to pay a reasonable sum for it.”
Two thirds of Greater Southeast Asia’s gaming population “are engaged in esports,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes. That’s from a Niko Partners study titled “GREATER SOUTHEAST ASIA GAMER SEGMENTATION STUDY.” The study found that “there were seven distinct types of player in the region: competitive arena gamer, fantasy arena gamer, arena gamer, strategist, skill master, casual challenger and story socialiser.”
You can finally change your PlayStation Network ID.
Black Desert, the MMO from Pearl Abyss, “has generated more than $1 billion in gross sales in four years. The South Korean company said that the game has been played by more than 18 million fans on PC, mobile, and Xbox One devices in more than 150 countries,” Takahashi writes.
Kotaku is out with another article about BioWare. This one focuses on the Dragon Age franchise, and is about as rosy as the Anthem piece.
Good Shepherd Entertainment has acquired “a majority stake in Artificer, a Polish studio still at work on its debut game,” GI.biz’s Matthew Handrahan reports.
Interviews: Anthem’s Sarah Elmaleh (Variety).
Extra Esports News:
Rapper The Weeknd invested in OverActive Media, “the parent company of Splyce and Overwatch League franchise Toronto Defiant,” Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes. “Investing in the company, Tesfaye will become a global ambassador of both of its esports brands.”
There’s a new 24/7 esports channel coming from Empress Intelligence, Unikrn’s Chase Wassenar reports. It’s “called ESR that will be hosted on Sinclair Broadcast Group’s over-the-top streaming platform STIRR. This is the first English-language esports network of its kind in the US.” The press release can be found here.
Partnerships & Sponsorships:
N3rd Street Gamers and Spectra are partnering, Fitch reports. “Spectra will provide sponsorship sales representation for N3rd Street Gamer’s esports venue portfolio.”
ENCE and Logitech G are partnering, according to a press release.
CELSIUS is sponsoring Echo Fox, TEO’s Andrew Hayward writes.
Interviews: ESL’s David Hiltscher (TEO), Paysafecard’s Oliver Wolf (TEO), CEO’s Alex Jebailey (Esports Insider).