In The News
Maybe I shouldn’t have reigned in my spending? Jam City, the developer behind Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, “laid off an unknown number of developers, including some at subsidiary and Marvel Avengers Academy dev TinyCo,” Gamasutra’s Alissa McAloon reports.
Shane Kim, formerly of Xbox, “has taken the helm at GameStop as interim CEO while the retailer continues its search for a permanent replacement,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine reports. “Kim has been a member of the chain’s board of directors since 2011.”
Baseball management? Paradox is down. “CEO Fred Wester says he and his team have considered in the past. For his money, there’s more mileage in baseball management sims,” PC Gamer’s Joe Donnelly reports. “‘We’d need Johan Anderson to invest his time in the sport,’ says Wester. ‘He’s into hockey, which is the wrong sport.’”
The Elder Scrolls: Legends is moving developers from “Dire Wolf Digital to Sparkpants Studios,” VentureBeat’s Mike Minotti reports. “The Elder Scrolls: Legends launched in March 2017 as a competitor to Blizzard’s Hearthstone, the digital card game king.”
Partnership News:
G2 Esports “has partnered with GIGABYTE’s gaming brand AORUS,” TEO’s Trent Murray reports. “AORUS will become G2’s strategic partner in establishing an Esports High Performance Centre in Berlin, Germany.”
Nintendo and Astro “are collaborating on a Zelda-themed headset that they say is inspired by Link’s latest adventures in Breath of the Wild,” Game Informer’s Imran Khan writes. “The headset, which Astro says is just the first product from their collaborative work with Nintendo, is an A10 headset with sleek Zelda iconography covering it.”
Rocket League and Network Ten are partnering, Murray writes. “The network will broadcast all Rocket League matches of the upcoming Gfinity Elite Series Australia.”
Chipotle is partnering with Team SoloMid’s Fortnite team, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “TSM’s Fortnite squad blindly tested a number of Chipotle dishes before revealing it’s the sponsor for the 2018 season. The players have received a Chipotle Celebrity Card that gifts them free, unlimited Chipotle for the year.”
No room for negotiation. “Ahead of the release of BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, Japanese developer Arc System Works has laid down new guidelines restricting players from streaming or uploading story content,” GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. “Any breach of the ‘non-negotiable’ guidelines could result in channel strike of account suspension.”
AirAsia cruising into esports? Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner reports that “Kamarudin Meranuna, the chairman of AirAsia, claims that the company has big ambitions in the esports space after a successful test run of sponsoring Mineski.”
Happy birthday to Rocket League’s David “Miztik” Lawrie!