In The News
Today’s featured story can be found in the Battle Royale section.
Telltale Games’ week just went from bad to worse. “A former Telltale employee is suing the company in a class-action lawsuit, alleging that it violated labor laws on the books in California and nationwide,” Polygon’s Samit Sarkar reports. “The complaint, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, is a class-action lawsuit submitted by Vernie Roberts on behalf of himself and his fellow laid-off workers.”
Additionally, Variety’s Brian Crecente reports both AMC and Smilegate backed out of deals with Telltale a day before the company closed.
PC Master Race or whatever but y’all really like to use controllers — especially Xbox ones. “Since 2015, over 30 million players have registered at least one controller and over 15 million of those players have registered more than one,” Steam revealed in a very interesting blog post yesterday. “Xbox controllers are essentially the default controller for PC games.” As they should be, because Xbox is bae.
Market News:
Pokémon GO hit the $2 billion revenue mark, Apptopia’s Adam Blacker reports. “While it took 811 days to hit the $2 billion mark, it only took 302 days for it to hit the $1 billion mark.”
Sumo Group’s revenue rose 60% “for the first half of 2018, though it still made a pre-tax loss of £1.8 million,” GI.biz’s Matthew Handrahan reports.
SuperData is out with a report showing “consumers spent $8.47 billion digitally across all platforms, up 7% from last year.” Top grossing titles by platform were Dungeon Fighter Online for PC, Fortnite: Battle Royale for Console and Honour of Kings for Mobile.
Xbox News:
X018, “a global celebration of all things Xbox,” will be Nov. 10 “at the fourth-annual Xbox FanFest: Mexico City,” Xbox announced. *Stares at Xbox One X Scorpio Edition* Sounds fun.
Xbox’s mouse and keyboard support rolls out in the next few weeks “for select Xbox Insiders.”
Big Fish Games laid off “roughly 15 percent of its workforce, including a number of executives, as it moves to focus on its free-to-play moneymakers,” Gamasutra’s Alex Wawro writes.
2K Games “announced that it has inaugurated 2K Foundations, a program aimed at refurbishing basketball courts and helping kids with STEM education in underserved communities across the U.S.,” Game Informer’s Matthew Kato writes. Check out NBA 2K’s first video, featuring Cincinnati.
Nintendo UK’s Andy Yates has been promoted to deputy general manager.
Ron Perlman and T.I. have joined the cast of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter film, The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit reports.
HTC Vive’s Viveport is waiving developer platform fees for Q4.
Extra Esports News:
PwC surveyed global sports executives and they’re not big fans of esports, The Associated Press reports via The Washington Post. “57 percent oppose Olympic status for video gaming … 26.7 percent said esports must first unify under a single governing body, and 10.4 percent said esports should join ‘as soon as possible.’ Almost 6 percent said they did not know or abstained.”
Partnerships:
Magic Gaming and Boxed Water are partnering, Esports Insider’s Adam Fitch reports.
Gfinity and Ove Arup & Partners Ltd “are working together to design a ‘world-leading’ esports facility,” Esports Insider’s Melany Moncav writes.
Other:
Turkey is officially recognizing professional gamers as athletes, Unikrn’s Dustin Steiner reports. “The Turkish Esport Federation has passed the Player’s License and Transfer Regulation as well as the Referee Regulation, allowing professional esports gamers to be recognized as pro athletes under Turkish law.”
Alienware and AirAsia showed off 2 new esports centers, TEO’s Trent Murray reports.
Virtus.pro Dota 2 player Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev is Head & Shoulders’ newest brand ambassador.
Interviews: NBA 2K League’s Brendan Donohue (GI.biz).
Happy birthday Jason “Jason” Mei