In The News
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is holding an impromptu meeting today from 2 to 3:30 p.m. ET titled: Safety Meeting on Effects of Entertainment, Media, Cyberbullying and Social Media on Violence and Student Safety. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will be in attendance.
You can watch the livestream here. Additionally, The Daily Walkthrough will be tweeting out main highlights from the meeting here.
When it comes to Olympic Games esports consideration, game director Scott Rudi thinks Rocket League is at the top of the list. Here’s a snippet of TheDW’s interview at E3: “Rocket League Director: It’s The Perfect Esport For The Olympics“:
“’If they [IOC] called us we’d definitely pick up the phone. It’d be an honor, honestly. I love the Olympics. It’s a great way…’”
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate reigned supreme on Twitter as the most tweeted-about E3 topic, Twitter announced in a blog post. “There were nearly 15 million #E3 related Tweets last week. The highest spike in E3 conversation came during the Nintendo Direct press conference between 9-10 AM ET on June 12 with 890K Tweets.”
2K president David Ismailer has grand expansion plans for the next 5 years, according to Variety’s Brian Crecente. “‘Our aspiration is to double our size in five years,’ he said. And they seem to be in a position to do that.”
Congratulations to Blizzard president Mike Morhaime on being #23 on Glassdoor’s “Top CEOs 2018 Employees’ Choice” at 96% approval.
Discord added colorblind mode.
VR is no more (right now) on Xbox One, GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair reports. “‘We don’t have any plans specific to Xbox consoles in virtual reality or mixed reality,’ Nichols said. ‘Our perspective on it has been and continues to be that…’”
Can’t always be on your game. NBA’s Deandre Ayton put out a sponsorship tweet for Black Ops 4 that was not quite right, Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports. “The mistaken tweet was caught by a number of people, including Devolver Digital’s fictional CEO Fork Parker, screencapping the original tweet.”
Mighty Bear Games “announced today the conclusion of a seed funding round that brought in an undisclosed seven-digit figure. Investment in the Singapore-based developer was led by investors Skycatcher, Everblue, and M Ventures,” GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine reports.
Portalarium “has suffered a round of layoffs. The Texas-based team intends to continue work on its episodic, selective multiplayer RPG [Shroud of Avatar] with a smaller team to ensure the continuation of online services,” Valentine writes.
Dungeon Fighter Online “has generated lifetime revenues of over $10 billion worldwide,” GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports.
KemperLesnik, a marketing agency, launched an esports division. “The company’s first esports activation was with Riot Games earlier this year,” TEO’s Trent Murray writes. “In addition to marketing and public relations work, KemperLesnik will offer media training for pro players and commentators.”
Happy birthday Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma!