In The News
Hurricane Harvey
Bungie and Direct Relief are partnering to help the Hurricane Harvey aid effort. “Bungie Community Manager David Dague (known as DeeJ to the community) outlined how Destiny players, or really anyone, can help contribute to the cause. Through the Bungie Store, players can purchase a commemorative pin that gives them a unique emblem in Destiny 2, with all profits going to Direct Relief,” Game Informer’s Imran Khan reports. Check out the blog post here.
Games Done Quick is coming together to help out Hurricane Harvey victims starting at 8 p.m. EDT and going through Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT. Get more information here!
The New York Times’ Kevin Draper did an extensive write-up of NBC Sports’ coverage of the Universal Open Rocket League Grand Finals in Santa Ana, Calif. Aug. 26-27. Here’s a portion of the piece:
“Ward and Endres began raising money in 2012, but struggled to persuade possible landlords that they could generate enough revenue to pay the rent from something called esports. But after looking at…”
AXiomatic, the owner of Team Liquid, is investing in Gamer Sensei, Slingshot Esports’ Andrew Kim reports. The company was a part of Gamer Sensei’s recent $4 million investing round.
“Gamer Sensei operates 1-on-1 tutoring services across a multiple games including League of Legends, DOTA 2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. Users of the service can choose the game in which they choose to be coached and are then matched with a coach through the service’s curated collection of experts of each game.”
Wonder Woman (Credit: Brett Downen / @downenphotography)
A badass group of female cosplayers came together to do a stunning Wonder Woman-themed photo shoot. Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett reports that the cosplayers consisted of “Downen Creative Studios as Hypolita, Harbeastie as Wonder Woman, JJ Stefishen as Antiope, Yasemin Art as Diana (costume by Pat Dooley) and AbbyCat Cosplay as the Amazon (costume by Harbeastie).”
Congratulations to Devolver Digital on its launch of Absolver. The company confirmed to PCGamesN’s Kirk McKeand that “‘Devolver is super proud and honored to be working with Sloclap on their ambitious first game, Absolver, which has been our biggest game launch ever, both in terms of revenue and concurrent users, and the size of our egos.’”
London’s “first ever chief digital officer” used to work for UKIE, a games trade body, GamesIndustry.biz’s James Batchelor reports. “He will work alongside the mayor to improve the city’s offering as a tech hub.” Batchelor has also compiled some of the most recent, notable hires and moves across the gaming industry.
For the first time ever, 12 different esports have “passed the $1m prize fund,” Paul “Redeye” Chaloner tweeted early Thursday. Those games are Dota 2, CS:GO, League of Legends, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft II, Overwatch, Halo 5: Guardians, FIFA 17, Smite and Quake Champions.
Pearl Abyss CEO Kyung In Jung spoke about Black Desert Online at their Aug. 30 IPO press conference, Inven Global’s Hyun Soo “Valp” Lee and Junseok “Tonny” Bae report. Here’s a portion of what he had to say about the game:
“‘BDO is achieving a global result with a high degree of freedom, an abundant amount of content, realistic graphics, and player-friendly ecosystem … The sales of BDO that has risen up to 89% of the highest result within 24 months since the release in South Korea, and the sales in Japan keeps increasing for 21 months since the release.’”