In The News
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that an antitrust lawsuit against Apple App Store pricing can continue. It “shot down Apple’s argument that iOS users aren’t the App Store’s customers,” Gamasutra’s Alissa McAloon reports. “The original 2011 suit filed by a group of iPhone users alleged that Apple has created a monopoly through its first-party App Store.”
Stanley Pierre-Louis is the next president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association.
Take-Two Interactive:
T2 saw “record net bookings” for its 2018-2019 fiscal year, McAloon reports. “Full-year net bookings … increased 47 percent year-over-year, coming in at $2.929 billion for the 12 month period ending March 31, 2019. Roughly 39 percent of the year’s net bookings came from recurrent consumer spending.”
NBA 2K19 crossed over 9 million copies sold, VentureBeat’s Giancarlo Valdes writes. “NBA 2K19 is responsible for roughly 10% of the franchise’s total sales of 90 million. And that’s less than a year after its September 2018 launch.” The company, however, “missed analysts’ expectations for its fourth-fiscal quarter earnings (ending March 31, 2019).”
Red Dead Redemption II sales “surpassed 24 million copies,” Valdes reports. “In a conference call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned that Red Dead Online, the popular multiplayer component of Red Dead Redemption 2, will be leaving its beta state later this quarter.”
Grand Theft Auto V “has nearly hit 110 million sales,” PC Gamer’s Fraser Brown reports. “Take-Two noted that sales of GTA 5 have outperformed so far this year, while GTA Online continues to grow, with earnings exceeding expectations.”
Square Enix profits took a hit “due to an escalation in launch costs,” GI.biz’s Matthew Handrahan reports. “In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, Square Enix saw an 8.2% rise in revenue to ¥271.04 billion ($2.48 billion). However, net profits fell by a sharp 28.5% to ¥18.46 billion ($169 million).”
Bandai Namco’s financials for “the fiscal year ended March 31 of 2019 … [saw] net sales and profits up year-over-year,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine writes. “Bandai Namco’s net sales were up 8% year-over-year to ¥732 billion ($6.7 billion) and its operating profit was up 12% year-over-year to ¥84 billion ($770 million).”
Acquisitions:
Rockstar Games will buy a studio from Starbreeze, Brown writes. “Dhruva Interactive, an art production studio that’s worked on Halo, Forza Horizon and Payday 2, was acquired by Starbreeze for $8.5 million and is being sold to Rockstar for $7.9 million. For that $7.9 million, Rockstar will get 91.8 percent of shares in the studio”
Epic Games acquired “Twinmotion from developer Abvent” and “is making the software free until November,” Valdes reports.
High Fidelity, a virtual reality startup, “made the very hard decision today to reduce our team by 25%, meaning that 20 people will be leaving us who have made great contributions to High Fidelity, and whom we will greatly miss,” according to a blog post.
Discord is celebrating its 4th birthday with 250 million users.
The most-watched Twitch channels in the last week include mdldisney, dota2ruhub, riotgames and more, TEO reports.
Extra Esports News:
Denial Esports Call of Duty player Nathan “Natshay” Dupuis alleges “the organization has failed to pay him and his teammates any of their promised salaries,” Dot Esports’ Preston Byers reports. “Over the course of several months in which the French team represented Denial, Natshay alleges they were never paid their salaries or the bonus money they earned by winning matches in the CWL Pro League.”
Co-owner Zach Smith gave this response on Twitter: “I’ve been getting tagged a lot in a post in regards to Nathan and his false allegations. I’ll be speaking with my team internally to figure out this following matter.”
Fandom Sports intends to “create an esports superfan engagement campaign as part of Finland’s first mega esports event, Arctic Invitational, which will be held September 14 at the Hartwall Arena, in Helsinki, Finland,” VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Partnerships & Sponsorships:
Samson is the official sponsor for Nets Gaming, TEO’s Andrew Hayward reports. “Samson’s G-Track Pro microphones will be installed at the team’s studio and used for streaming.”
Currys PC World is sponsoring ESL UK’s ESL Premiership, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch writes.
Women of Esports and Ateyo are partnering, according to a tweet. The partnership will feature “a new content series on the #WomenOfEsports website! For the next few months we’ll be following some of the industry’s most badass women around for a day to give you the inside scoop on their jobs.”