In The News
What’s up LeBron. “The cover athlete for ‘NBA 2K19 20th Anniversary Edition’ is LeBron James, three-time NBA champion and four-time NBA MVP, publisher 2K announced Tuesday morning,” Variety’s Brian Crecente reports. Check out the announcement vid- 2 CHAINZZZZ -eo here.
Apple News:
Curious aboutWWDC 2018? VentureBeat’s Paul Sawers has a full rundown of everything announced yesterday.
Free trials are now an option on the App Store for developers, GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. “Apple will now let developers offer free trials of non-subscription apps following a recent update to the Store Review Guidelines. While developers could previously offer free trials for subscription-based apps, the new guidelines take it a step further.”
The San Francisco 49ers (GO HAWKS) participated in a Series A funding round for PlayVS, “the league for high school esports,” ESPN’s Jacob Wolf reports. “The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, a Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm.”
As expected, Ninja topped the charts for most hours watched on Twitch last week at 7.1 million. Shroud came in 2nd at 2.1 million hours and TSM_Myth in 3rd at 1.7 million hours.
Acquisition News:
Microsoft acquired GitHub, GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair writes. “It will pay $7.5 billion in stock to acquire the software development platform that bills itself as ‘the largest open source community in the world.’”
Keywords Studios is also looking into acquisitions. It gained “access to more than €100 million,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “The services provider has announced a new revolving credit facility with Barclays Bank, HSBC Bank and Lloyds Banking group for an initial €75 million that can be used over a three-year term.”
Partnership News:
League of Legends Open Tour France and LION Cereal are partnering, TEO’s Trent Murray reports. “With support from Riot Games, the French cereal brand held a ‘Wildest Fan’ contest to send 100 fans to the 2017 EU LCS Spring Split Championship” last year.
VfL Wolfsburg and Vodafone are partnering, Murray writes. “Vodafone has been named the esports team’s main sponsor … The telecommunications company is an active sponsor in esports and has a premium partnership with ESL.”
State of Decay 2 boasts 2 million players, Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole reports. They survive an average of 3 days.
Miscellaneous Esports News:
Congratulations to Enigma6 on winning Call of Duty World League Pro League Challenge 6! They defeated Luminosity Gaming.
Dota 2’supcoming Pro Circuit will see big changes, Esports Insider’s Mark Mantle reports. “To help players, teams, and organizers prepare for the upcoming season, a few big changes are on the way, notably on ownership or shares of teams and DCP points, player movement penalties, team invites, qualifications and also season schedule.”
Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett is a free agent and looking for a team.
Happy birthday to Dota 2 player Nikita “Palantimos” Grinkevich!