In The News
Discord is rolling out “a beta test to about 50,000 of our Canadian players” of its Discord Store, according to a press release. “These players will see an upgraded version of Discord Nitro.”
Additionally, its text chat overlay is live.
The Story Mob’s “Seven Commandments of Esports Communication Whitepaper” is available for download.
Olympic esports is “inevitable,” according to Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell, Esports.net reports. “‘I think it’s inevitable. I think it will be part of the Olympics.’”
Sales News:
PlayStation “lifetime hardware sales … [surpassed] 525.3 million” sold, VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi reports.
Monster Hunter: World dominated on Steam, surging to be 2018’s biggest release on the platform with “over 240k concurrent players online,” GitHyp’s Paul Curtin reports.
Congratulations Cup Head on selling over 3 million copies!
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery “has now grossed in excess of $55 million since launching on April 25,” Sensor Tower’s Randy Nelson writes.
Sponsorship & Partnership News:
Paris Saint-Germain Esports and Monster Energy are partnering, TEO’s Sara Elsam reports. “Monster Energy logo to be displayed on jerseys of PSG.LGD players for the upcoming Dota 2 International.”
Call of Duty and Monster Energy are partnering, Dexerto’s Albert Petrosyan reports. “Reports and images have surfaced that indicate the two have partnered up again to promote the release of CoD’s upcoming Black Ops 4 game.”
HyperX is sponsoring Sports Academy esports centre, Esports Insider’s Melany Moncav writes. “The new partnership is part of HyperX ‘We’re All Gamers’ initiative.”
VKGame is sponsoring OpTic Gaming’s Dota 2 team, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “VKGame will be the exclusive esports betting partner for OpTic Gaming’s Dota 2 squad, and will see its logo included.”
UNINTERRUPTED and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins are partnering, Inven Global’s Nick D’Orazio writes. “Young athletes from professional soccer, basketball, and tennis attended a streaming event hosted by Ninja.”
Perfect World opened Echtra Games, a subsidiary, which will continue work on Torchlight Frontiers, GI.biz’s Brendan Sinclair reports.
Streamer Ben “DrLupo” Lupo unbanned a viewer after he wrote DrLupo a “‘1000 word essay explaining why it was wrong to say that, and why they were sorry,’” Petrosyan writes. “An image of the essay was provided by DrLupo in his tweet, and can be ready in its entirety.”
Greg Miller did an interview with Polygon’s Colin Campbell “about life, games and celebrity.”
Extra Esports News:
VentureBeat’s Jeff Sue is up with an exploratory piece looking at why he believes “Arena of Valor is struggling in America.” Here’s a snippet: “Partially, it’s a victim to market trends, but mostly it’s a game lost in translation. By being stripped of China’s unique cultural…”
Happy birthday Vilhelm “POILK” Flennmark!