“Welcome to the world of Pokémon! My name is Oak!”
IN THE NEWS
The Legend of Zelda is coming to a phone near you. “People familiar with the matter” told The Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki Nintendo plans to bring the franchise to smartphones sometime after Animal Crossing in late 2017.
“Taken Aback.” That’s the phrase Venture Beat’s Dean Takahashi used to describe how the Philadelphia 76ers felt when the NBA team realized more people were watching esports tournaments than basketball finals. While fans are on the uptick for esports, monetization from traditional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB etc) dwarfs that of esports.
“Khanna [76ers VP of strategy] said it was humbling experience for him when a kid got a front-row seat at a pro basketball game for the first time and spent the entire time looking at his smartphone,” Takahashi writes. “Traditional sports like basketball monetize fans at about $15 per person. Esports right now is monetizing at $2.83 cents per person. Merchandise spending is a tiny fraction of the revenue in esports, even though fans appear to be a lot more engaged in terms of time than traditional sports fans, Richardson said.”