In The News
New emails obtained by Richard Lewis show Echo Fox investor Amit Raizada reportedly threatening Rick Fox and his family. “Emails – sent by an anonymous source, which we have since confirmed as genuine with other sources close to the situation – reveal that the relationship between Rick Fox and Amit Raizada was strained back in January,” Lewis reports. “It was in the final email in the chain that Raizada used threatening language towards Fox’s family. ‘[There will be] NO DEAL ON ANYTHING AND IF RICK DOES NOT DO HIS DUITIES ILL PERSONALLY FUCK HIM AND HIS FAMILY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.’”
YouTuber Jared “ProJared” Knabenbauer has been accused by his wife, cosplayer Heidi O’Ferrall, of cheating with Holly Conrad after Knabenbauer released a statement on Twitter saying the pair were getting a divorce.
Now, O’Ferrall also alleges Knabenbauer solicited and received nude photos from underage fans. “According to two former fans who chose to speak up in the wake of O’Ferrall’s public criticism of the YouTube star, they were not consenting adults, and were actually underage when they exchanged nude photos with Knabenbauer,” PC Gamer’s Tyler Wilde reports. “One former fan who goes by the name Chai says that he had sexually explicit conversations with Knabenbauer at the age of 16.”
Financials:
Nexon reported “a record-breaking start to the year, as its Q1 revenues exceeded expectations,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “Total revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2019 came in at ¥93.07 billion ($840.4 million), up 3% from the previous year. The bulk of this — 83% — came from PC, generating ¥77.6 billion ($700.7 million, up 2%), while mobile made up ¥15.4 billion ($139.1 million).”
Turtle Beach “reported Q1 2019 net revenue of $44.8M USD, the highest first-quarter sales in company history,” H.B. Duran at TEO reports. “The company attributes its record sales to a strong line-up of AAA titles released over the holiday season, as well as the demand for console headsets for use with battle royale games.”
Mike Verdu will head AR/VR content at Facebook, according to a Facebook post. “Facebook said that Jason Rubin, former head of content for AR/VR, willl now be vice president of special gaming initiatives. Content is still part of his responsibility, and he hired Verdu to run it,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Scopely acquired Digit Game Studios, Takahashi writes. “That’s consistent with the ‘eat or be eaten’ trend of mobile gaming, and it follows a pattern where a publisher will acquire an outside developer for a highly successful game.”
Extra Esports News:
Call of Duty World League viewership has seen a rise with the Black Ops 4 season. CWL London saw “1M hours watched on the official CoD channel, and an average of 23K concurrent viewers,” TEO’s Max Miceli reports. “The CoD channel has seen year-over-year growth overall in average CCV and hours watched. The broadcasts’ 6.2M hours watched and 19K CCV is up from 5.2M hours watched and 12K CCV in 2018 to this point.”
Magic Pro League released a statement on its investigation into “Yuuya Watanabe’s disqualification for marked sleeves at Mythic Championship II.”
Capcom created “three new leagues, starting this month with the Street Fighter League: Arcade 2019, which will be held in amusement centres across Japan,” Batchelor writes. “The three competitions are designed to be ‘a gateway for amateur players’ that want to work up to Capcom’s flagship esports tournament, Street Fighter League: Pro-JP.”
Rainbow Six Pro League announced an expanded prize pool in a blog post yesterday.
Partnerships:
Lagardère Sports and T1 Entertainment & Sports are partnering, TEO’s Graham Ashton writes. “T1 is a joint venture between Comcast Spectacor and SK Telecom, that includes three-time League of Legends world champions SKT T1.”
NACE and MSI are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes. “MSI will teach members how to plan and establish an esports arena and educate them on the hardware needed to build an adequate computer. It’ll also offer pricing discounts to the schools in the association.”
Supercell and OGN Esports are partnering “for the upcoming season of the Clash Royale League, meaning it will handle the production of CRL Asia, CRL West, and the World Finals,” Fitch reports.
IN: Spectra hired Joe Heyer.
OUT: T1 released Frederik “Hoej” Nielsen.