In The News
Weekend in Review:
There’s now a psychological “test” for the World Health Organization’s recently-classified “gaming disorder,” Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole writes. “Researchers created an online test, dubbed Do I play too much videogames?. It’s designed to let gamers benchmark their gaming habits and behaviours and compare them with others, then tell participants whether they meet the WHO criteria for gaming disorder.”
Finals bids were submitted for Nexon by “Kakao Corp., Netmarble Corp., and three private equity firms,” Yonhap News Agency reports. “The controlling stake up for sale is held by Nexon founder and chairman Kim Jung-ju and his wife.”
Death Stranding’s Hideo Kojima shared a timeline on Twitter of how his upcoming game came to be.
IN: Sebastien Motte joined Quantic Dream.
Extra Esports News:
Congratulations Team Secret on winning ESL One Birmingham 2019! They defeated Evil Geniuses to take home $125,000. PSG.LGD came in 3rd and Gambit Esports in 4th.
In the wake of Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer’s departure from Activision Blizzard to Epic Games, Dexerto’s Richard Lewis reports that “several high profile and experienced staff are set to leave Activision Blizzard over the next two weeks. Set to be among them will be Kim Phan, the Global Product Director of Blizzard Esports.” Sources told Lewis “the reason for the latest round of departures as being linked to low morale.”
Denial Esports, an organization that was never far from controversy, is shutting down. To that end, the Call of Duty Denial team is looking for a new organization to represent them for the remainder of the season.
Cloud9 and Microsoft are partnering “to co-develop data-driven esports tools and technologies for all Cloud9 teams. Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure platform will be used to mine data from games and provide actionable insights for players and teams,” TEO’s Andrew Hayward reports.
Enthusiast Gaming and Aquilini GameCo are merging, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. Aquilini is Luminosity Gaming’s parent company. “The merger will allow the companies to have access to each other’s network to ‘drive further audience growth.’”
MateCrate raised “$1.57M USD in new funding for its City Masters series. Marketing and IT services provider Sportplatz Media, German soccer magazine Kicker, and the Innovation Starter Fund Hamburg contributed to the round,” Hayward writes.
Interviews: Team Envy’s Nick “Interrogate” Raposo and Patrick “PAT_KAPS” Kaplan (Dot Esports), smashgg’s Jas “Fizzi” Laferriere (Esports Insider), OverActive Media’s Chris Overholt (Esports Insider).
Happy weekend birthday David “Miztik” Lawrie and Monday birthdays Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng, Ke “Has” Yu Feng and Raphael “Hosty” Tsantili!