In The News
The last 2 months haven’t been kind to Realm Royale, GitHyp’s Paul Curtin reports. “Week after week, Realm Royale’s player base has continued to decline. And over this past weekend, the game was only able to pull in a peak of 7k concurrent players — a loss of 93% when compared to its first week.”
Why are mom and dad fighting? Rod “Slasher” Breslau and Richard Lewis sniped at each other yesterday following Duncan “Thorin” Shields’ Alex Jones tweet. It started with Slasher’s tweet bemoaning esports search results. Lewis replied, saying “This is the most transparent and pathetic attempt I’ve seen to try and keep a drama alive in some time.” Slasher replied, and Lewis followed up by comparing him to a “jilted ex.”
The back-and-forth continued in another thread, this time focusing more on Slasher’s time with Overwatch and whether or not he’s trying to “reinvent” himself.
Halo 6 is Halo 6 even if it isn’t called Halo 6. Got it? 343 Industries’ Jeff Easterling confirmed it’s “the next chapter” after Halo 5 and not “a weird prequel kind of thing.”
Ohio’s getting a “$10M arena dedicated to hosting esports events,” TEO’s Trent Murray reports. “The arena is planned to cover 30K square feet and include a competition stage and TV broadcast production studio.”
Jomaro Kindred, Yong Woo, and Michael Schweitzer joined Ben Brode’s Second Dinner. The team announcement is here.
Remote Control Productions started Attract Mode, “a digital marketing agency,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes. “The new business will be led by managing director Matthias Wehner, who has spent more than a decade working with 2K Games and Rockstar Games.”
Jagex “is introducing a new third-party publishing initiative exclusively for live games” called Jagex Partners, Variety’s Stefanie Fogel reports. It “will offer publishing and operational services tailored specifically to the needs of third-party studios.”
Nordisk Film Games has a minority stake in Raw Fury after a $5.5 million spend, GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. “Raw Fury will channel the cash injection into increasing production capacity and signing larger projects.”
Facebook announced its Level Up Program is “expanding to Germany, France, Spain and Ireland.”
Turtle Beach touted its “Atlas” brand of headsets designed for PC users in a press release. They were designed “in collaboration with leading esports teams, including Astralis, OpTic Gaming, and the Houston Outlaws.”
Partnership & Sponsorship News:
Fnatic and Rivalry.gg are partnering, Murray reports. “Fnatic signed a sponsorship deal with esports betting platform Rivalry.gg to produce educational content about responsible betting practices.”
OpTic Gaming and Sansar are partnering to create “Greenwall VR, a virtual reality clubhouse for the team to engage with its fans,” Murray writes. “Fans who participate in the social VR experience can participate in watch parties and meet-and-greets with OpTic players.”
Razer is sponsoring Tribe Gaming, Esports Insider’s Lydia Mitrevski reports. “Along with a peripheral deal, the two will create a docuseries that will follow Tribe’s Vainglory team as they look to defend their World Championship title.”
Tencent Games and ESL are partnering for “a second season of” Arena of Valor, according to a press release.
Extra Esports News:
Femi “F-Word” Adeboye pushed back against Kevin Hitt’s VPEsports article reporting that he and others allegedly tried to sabotage another member of the Fighting Game Community talent pool. F-Word posted his lengthy response here.
NBA 2K News:
NBA 2K League added 4 more teams, ESPN’s Jacob Wolf reports. “The Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves” will be a part of season 2. “The expansion price for the second season is the same as the first: $750,000 for three years of participation, according to sources.”
Travis Scott is the executive producer on “the official ‘NBA 2K19’ soundtrack and will be appearing as himself in the game,” Variety’s Brittany Vincent reports.