In The News
Congratulations Tyler “Ninja” Blevins on being the first Twitch streamer to top 10 million followers!
Financial News:
Activision Blizzard’s “net revenues for the quarter were a record $1.64 billion, up from $1.63 billion during the same time last year,” Variety’s Stefanie Fogel reports. Shares were “a record $0.52, compared with $0.32 for the second quarter of 2017.”
Take-Two Interactive reported its “fiscal first quarter 2019, ended June 30, 2018 … Net revenue was $388.0 million, as compared to $418.2 million in last year’s fiscal first quarter … Recurrent consumer spending (virtual currency, add-on content and in-game purchases) accounted for 62% of total net revenue, as compared to 41% in last year’s fiscal first quarter,” Business Wire reports.
Logitech’s “total Q1 sales for the 2019 fiscal year were $608M, up 15% year-over-year. Sales grew 2.7% from $592M in Q4,” TEO’s Trent Murray reports. “Gaming sales reached $136M.”
Q2 2018 was “the second-best quarter for esports investments in four years,” TEO reports. “Chinese livestreaming platform Huya’s $180M IPO lead the quarter in disclosed funding raised.”
Sales News:
2K Games announced “NBA 2K18 has shipped 10 million units,” VG24/7’s Stephany Nunneley writes, “setting a new record for the franchise.”
Octopath Traveler surpassed 1 million copies sold worldwide.
Partnership & Sponsorship News:
Richard Lewis and Rivalry.gg are partnering, according to a press release. Richard’s announcement on YouTube is here. “The partnership, facilitated by IMG, represents a shared goal of the two parties to promote the importance of responsible and safe betting in esports,” the email reads.
Harmonix and NCSoft are partnering, GI.biz’s Rebekah Valentine reports. They’re developing “a multiplatform game” that’s still in early development.
Telcom Telia is sponsoring “Sweden’s national team in its efforts to qualify for the IeSF Esports World Championship,” Murray writes.
Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bundled are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports. “The club’s esports efforts is said to cover both Europe and East Asia.”
PSISTORM Gaming secured the franchise rights for the Washington, DC market, PRWeb reports. “The ESports Battle League … is a new professional multi-title esports league launching in 2019.”
Jeff “GrimBrother One” Easterling is up with a Halo news piece titled “Flag Caps & Gowns,” or unofficially, “WTF It’s August.”
Srs guyz. Electronic Arts apologized for omitting Colin Kaepernick’s name from a song used in Madden NFL 19. Here’s a portion of its statement to Game Informer’s Imran Khan: “Members of our team misunderstood the fact that while we don’t have rights to include Colin Kaepernick in the game, this doesn’t affect soundtracks. We messed up, and the edit should never have happened.”
Hearthstone News:
The Boomsday Project pre-orders are “tracking further ahead at this point prior to its launch than any other Hearthstone expansion,” VentureBeat’s Mike Minotti reports.
SuperData reports that “Hearthstone remains the most popular digital card game in the U.S.” according to Minotti, and the digital card game market is expected “to earn $1.5 billion in 2018 and that this should increase to $2 billion by 2020.”
Hearthstone posted “Update 12.0 – August 2 – The Boomsday Project.”
Extra Esports News:
Congratulations “IHOLDSHIFT” and “SSLCK” on winning the KEEMSTAR Realm Royale Duos tournament!
Tencent America Esports Director Ramon Hermann did an interview with TEO’s Sara Elsam about Arena of Valor. Here’s a snippet: “‘Even as an esports title it’s actually supplanted traditional esports as the most popular title to watch.’”
Capcom Cup teased “the 2017 Street Fighter V Capcom Cup costume,” Dot Esports’ Adam Newell reports. “The costume, based on Capcom Cup winner Saul ‘MenaRD’ Mena’s main character Birdy, is set to be released sometime this year alongside a host of new costume DLC.”
OUT: Echo Fox’s Leonard “MKLeo” Lopez Perez will not be in attendance due to chickenpox.